The Chicken, The Molt and The Egg Bears, bees, bats, groundhogs and chipmunks hibernate. Geese, Monarch butterflies, whales, wildebeast and hummingbirds migrate (Would someone please remind those geese who stick around to poop on our yards and driveways?). Chickens molt. As do cicadas, snakes and crustaceans. You may wonder what molting has … Read More
This is all about FRESH, really Fresh eggs from the nest box to the farm stand to your kitchen. I have heard so many friends and customers say eggs they just bought from their nearby farm stand are impossible to peel when they are so fresh and freshly boiled. What to do? What’s the secret? Before I tell … Read More
Pour yourself a cuppa before reading this annual report. It’s long. Not as long as a recently released political report and not nearly as much fun. And the facts are clear. I have always been quite fond of the idea of everyone having just enough hens to feed their family. Interesting enough, … Read More
Joon gets very excited every January when we start drooling over this seasons’ possibilities from our seed catalogs. The seeds arrive in early February and Joon is always ready to help sort and open seed packets… Undeterred by his lack of thumbs, Joon Kitty opens and I do the rest of the … Read More
For many years now, five or six mornings a week I walk this stretch of beach. At about the same time every morning, depending on the season; 7:30-ish after we “spring ahead”, 8:00-ish after we “fall behind”. The dogs and I and maybe a friend or two. We witness waking, The blanket … Read More
It’s eggstraordinary. There are simply not enough fresh from the nest Vashon eggs. According to the USDA Egg Market News Report, Americans eat an average of 268.4 eggs per year. With 10,624 residents on Vashon Island as of 2010 census, we need 2,684,000 eggs per year. According to another report from … Read More
Alessandro was our Emilia Romagna guide for the day, charming, funny, smart and had the most melodic voice as he told us the how and why of Parmigiano, Balsamic and Prosciutto. I could fill a warehouse with all the photos and video of our day, but I will save you that suffering … Read More
I had this grand idea of a daily photo and musings chronicle of our trip to italy. So many things often work so much better in my imagination. On a good day, I am a dweeb in the world of technology; internet connection, cell data, roaming, hotspots, data vs. internet, global wifi, Vodafone, AAARRGH! … Read More
Like walking into a favorite story book, I will enter the property of author-chef Fabrizia Lanza having soaked up all of the food and place photos of one of my favorite cookbooks of the past 10 years. I will arrive at The Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School for a week of harvesting … Read More
