St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow--time to shop for your ingredients for "everybody's Irish" day! May I humbly suggest a menu of recipes derived from The New Irish Table:
First Course
Roasted Parsnip, Apple, and Ginger Soup with Parsnip Crisps, from Brewley's Cafe, Grafton St, Dublin
Second Course
Blue Cheese Potato Cakes with Creme Fraiche, Cafe Paradiso, Cork
Main Course
Cornish Hens with Apricot, Port, and Balsamic Sauce, Lettercollum House, Timoleague, County Cork
Dessert
Grace Neill's Chocolate and Guinness Brownies, Donaghadee, County Down
Enjoy!
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Ides of March...
...not just for Roman dictators anymore.
On the Front Range, March 15* is the date to start planting cool-weather crops. From now through April 15, seeds that can be sown outside include beets, carrots, chard, kale, lettuce, onions, peas, radishes, and spinach; roots and tubers that can be started now include onion sets, seed potatoes, rhubarb burls, and garlic (for slackers like me who forgot to plant it last fall--get your garlic cloves in the ground now, and the bulbs'll be ready to harvest in mid-September).
For those of us non-Colorado natives, gardening in Boulder's high desert climate can be a challenge; plants' need for consistent, near-daily watering doesn't always work well with out-of-town weekend running and cycling races! Try to recruit a friend with a different racing schedule to water your garden while you're gone, and be sure to reciprocate. Also, don't forget to give your garden soil some compost lovin'!
Don't go gangbusters on everything yet, though. Go ahead and buy the seeds now, but hold off on planting seeds for beans, corn, squash, sunflowers, and other cold-sensitive annuals like basil and zinnias until May 15. If you buy the plants from the garden store, melons, peppers, squash, and tomatoes can be planted at this time, also.
A great source for seeds is Broomfield-based, family-owned Botanical Interests: they offer a huge array of All-America, heirloom, drought-tolerant, and organic seeds--they're available in local gardening stores and even some grocery stores, like Niwot Market. All 500-plus varieties of seeds are also available online--they ship across the U.S., too. Be sure to get a packet of the Goldy Honey Bear sunflowers for your favorite honey bear--they're drought-tolerant and make gorgeous cut flowers!
Good local gardening resources for Front Rangers include Sturtz & Copeland, who feature a comprehensive Boulder-area gardening guide on their web site (from which I gleaned most of the above information); Botanical Interests; and Colorado Gardening.
Get your cool-season crops planted now, and you'll be enjoying, ahem, Caesar salad by May Day.
*Yes, I'm aware that I actually posted this on March 16--what can I say, I was out planting the garden all day yesterday!
On the Front Range, March 15* is the date to start planting cool-weather crops. From now through April 15, seeds that can be sown outside include beets, carrots, chard, kale, lettuce, onions, peas, radishes, and spinach; roots and tubers that can be started now include onion sets, seed potatoes, rhubarb burls, and garlic (for slackers like me who forgot to plant it last fall--get your garlic cloves in the ground now, and the bulbs'll be ready to harvest in mid-September).
For those of us non-Colorado natives, gardening in Boulder's high desert climate can be a challenge; plants' need for consistent, near-daily watering doesn't always work well with out-of-town weekend running and cycling races! Try to recruit a friend with a different racing schedule to water your garden while you're gone, and be sure to reciprocate. Also, don't forget to give your garden soil some compost lovin'!
Don't go gangbusters on everything yet, though. Go ahead and buy the seeds now, but hold off on planting seeds for beans, corn, squash, sunflowers, and other cold-sensitive annuals like basil and zinnias until May 15. If you buy the plants from the garden store, melons, peppers, squash, and tomatoes can be planted at this time, also.
A great source for seeds is Broomfield-based, family-owned Botanical Interests: they offer a huge array of All-America, heirloom, drought-tolerant, and organic seeds--they're available in local gardening stores and even some grocery stores, like Niwot Market. All 500-plus varieties of seeds are also available online--they ship across the U.S., too. Be sure to get a packet of the Goldy Honey Bear sunflowers for your favorite honey bear--they're drought-tolerant and make gorgeous cut flowers!
Good local gardening resources for Front Rangers include Sturtz & Copeland, who feature a comprehensive Boulder-area gardening guide on their web site (from which I gleaned most of the above information); Botanical Interests; and Colorado Gardening.
Get your cool-season crops planted now, and you'll be enjoying, ahem, Caesar salad by May Day.
*Yes, I'm aware that I actually posted this on March 16--what can I say, I was out planting the garden all day yesterday!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Devil's Thumb
This winter, we're renting a cabin in Tabernash, Colorado with a group of friends. The cabin's a mile from Devil's Thumb Ranch, with great views of the Ranch Creek Valley, Winter Park ski area, and the Continental Divide.
I took these sunset photos from the cabin's front porch on February 7, 2009.
Devil's Thumb Ranch was named one of Outside Magazine's best romantic getaways in this month's issue; it's not hard to see why.
The 40-foot, hand-stacked, locally-quarried stone fireplace mentioned in the article:
View from Morningstar trail:
Cabin Creek Stables:
Meadow trail:
Devil's Thumb would be an impressive place to stay for a no-expense-spared weekend of luxury accommodations, outstanding local, organic, and seasonal cuisine with panoramic views of the Continental Divide, spa services, romantic horse-drawn sleigh rides, and over 100k of groomed cross-country ski trails...
...for us mere mortals, at $18 a day for a trail pass ($12 for Boulder Nordic club members), you can ski at Devil's Thumb for a week for the price of one lift ticket to fight crowds and dodge out-of-control snowboarders at Copper! And enjoy the same glorious views, pristine trails, and unparalleled sunsets.
If you're ever in Colorado, Tabernash and Devil's Thumb are definitely worth checking out.
I took these sunset photos from the cabin's front porch on February 7, 2009.
Devil's Thumb Ranch was named one of Outside Magazine's best romantic getaways in this month's issue; it's not hard to see why.
The 40-foot, hand-stacked, locally-quarried stone fireplace mentioned in the article:
View from Morningstar trail:
Cabin Creek Stables:
Meadow trail:
Devil's Thumb would be an impressive place to stay for a no-expense-spared weekend of luxury accommodations, outstanding local, organic, and seasonal cuisine with panoramic views of the Continental Divide, spa services, romantic horse-drawn sleigh rides, and over 100k of groomed cross-country ski trails......for us mere mortals, at $18 a day for a trail pass ($12 for Boulder Nordic club members), you can ski at Devil's Thumb for a week for the price of one lift ticket to fight crowds and dodge out-of-control snowboarders at Copper! And enjoy the same glorious views, pristine trails, and unparalleled sunsets.
If you're ever in Colorado, Tabernash and Devil's Thumb are definitely worth checking out.
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