Krik's Picks

 I like to garden. For me, it's quite satisfying to walk into my backyard and pick something ripe and fresh to eat.  The trouble is, my yard is not very conducive to growing a prolific garden. My yard is blessed with an abundance of tall, leafy trees. But they cast so much shade that it stunts most garden plants that I'm trying to grow. Example: tomatoes. I can't resist trying to grow tomatoes. But because of the shade, the plants put all their energy into trying to grow tall, and I end up harvesting just a couple of handfuls of small tomatoes. If they didn't taste so good, I'd quit trying.  The other problem is wild animals. We have deer, raccoons, squirrels, and rabbits galore. They like to feast on my vegetables as much as I do.  So each summer, I plant a few tomatoes and other items and just hope to be able to harvest enough to make it worthwhile.  First batch of ripe serranoes There are a few things, however, that usually thrive in my yard. Herbs, for examp...

I just spent a couple of hours in the kitchen chopping basil to bag and freeze. Actually, it was lemon basil . I harvested the last of my sweet basil over the weekend. You see, the weather forecast is for our first killing frost, either tonight or tomorrow. Some of the heartier herbs will survive. In fact, I’ll be using fresh sage until it’s covered by snow. But the delicate stuff, like basil, definitely is a goner. (No irony intended – preserving basil by chopping and freezing it before a frost kills it.) Same for tomatoes. My yard does not accommodate tomatoes well anyway. I always plant a few just to make a valiant effort. But my yard is too shaded for the plants to thrive. This year, with the heat in July, we actually harvested several handfuls of grape tomatoes and a few cherry tomatoes. But when the weather cooled off, they stopped ripening. So my lament for the end of garden fresh tomatoes is mostly theoretical, but it’s no less heartfelt. A friend of mine at work , a new reader...

In May, I was in Washington, DC, on business and I stopped in to Equinox for lunch. I like that restaurant. I’ve eaten there a couple of times for dinner, but this was my first time there for lunch. Instead of an entrée, I ordered a salad and a first course. The salad was the mozzarella and baby spinach salad. The first course was the orecchiette with artichoke hearts. Both were delicious. I highly recommend either one. The salad had these cute little white flowers sprinkled over. I was intrigued, especially because the menu description didn’t mention them. After I had paid, and as I was leaving, I stopped to chat with the maitre d’. My server walked by, and I just asked her about the flowers. She said she thought they were chive flowers, but she’d send the chef out to tell me. In just a minute, the chef came out of the kitchen. He confirmed that they were, indeed, chive flowers. He said he had snipped them off of the chive plants at his home that morning. He hold me all you do is pic...