It’s A Cryin’ Shame Nobody Makes Things Like This Anymore.

It was the hit of Memorial Day: crab dip in the shape of a fish. Here is the recipe as given to me. I adjusted it, as seen below.


2 4-oz cans Bumble Bee baby shrimp, drained
2 8-oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1 10-3/4 oz can condensed tomato soup
2 pkgs Knox unflavored gelatin
½ cup warm water
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise (light or regular)

Dissolve gelatin in ¼ cup warm water. Heat tomato soup over low heat then blend in gelatin. Blend in cream cheese with a whisk or stick blender until creamy. Remove from heat, add mayo. Mix in celery, onion and shrimp. Pour into a mold that has been sprayed with Pam and refrigerate overnight.


I cut the recipe in half, but kept the protein quantity the same. I used two cans of crab instead of shrimp, added a generous tablespoon of lemon juice and a half-teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the final mix. Chop the vegetables very fine; use sweet or Vidalia onion, if available. Once unmolded, I dusted it with Old Bay seasoning.

Decoration included sliced olives and carrots chipped thin on a box grater for scales and fins. I’d fantasized about creating a layered fantail out of Italian parsley, but my sage plant is just so lush this year and full of new leaves. They looked great.

You could layer your “scales” or décor into the mold and spoon in the mixture carefully. Alternatively, decorate the unmolded shape the next day. I just knew I’d be short on time in the morning, and took care of things the night before.

The unmolding was, of course, ceremonious in my sister’s kitchen: My 4 year-old daughter ooohed and aahed. My sister raised an eyebrow, then cracked a smile and a laugh. I was proud in my own way, but let out a laugh too, then started in on the finishing touch of greenery. My brother-in-law dryly requested three colors of layered Jell-O for the 4th of July in the shape of an undulating flag. My mother looked at the fish and said, “Elise, you’re crazy.” But she’s the one who took the first taste.

What surprised me in the end was not just how little of the mold was left at the end of the day, but that no one ate the olive eyeball or cut off the head.

But that’s just me.

Maybe it’s because the fish stinks from the head.

Merguez Sausage

A few weeks ago, a page in the Dining In section of The New York Times caught my eye: it was all about sausages. I’m generally not a sausage person, and I’d never made sausages before, but the combinations featured in the article drew me right in. I just had to try. So, after Easter, what is usually on sale? Lamb. In all shapes and forms – but especially ground. Yes, I know why. But I purchased a 1.5 pound package and got to business on the Times’ Merguez recipe.

The process was easy, stuffing the casings was less so, and the results were tasty. But it was all of the little meze-like accompaniments that made the meal, at least for me. They came from the usual suspects: my head and the pantry. All items were basics on hand. And not a single element or assembly took more than five minutes. I had it the next night cold, assembled as a salad (right). Easy, fresh cooking. Ah, I can feel summer coming now.


Merguez Sausage
from The New York Times (I’ve grown to enjoy Melissa Clark’s column.)

½ t. cumin seeds
½ t. coriander seeds
½ t. fennel seeds (I omitted these)
1 pound ground lamb
2 T fresh chopped cilantro
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½ t. salt
1t. paprika
1/2 t. cayenne pepper

Toast the spice seeds until fragrant, then grind until fine.
Combine spices and remaining ingredients and mix very well.
Fill your sausage casings, or roll into sausage shapes or patties and chill until ready to cook. Garnish with fresh cilantro. Serve with lime wedges, as I did, if desired.

The sausages turned out milder than expected. You could easily ramp up the cayenne. I still also have a good amount left uncooked – stocking the freezer, you know. I plan to grill the sausages and serve them sliced as a quick and easy hors d'oeuvre next time we have guests over, doused with a little lime juice, extra sea salt and good olive oil. Or, since they are somewhat mild, I’d rather whip up a little tzaziki for dipping and switch lemon for the lime.

Pickled Red Onions
Cut one red onion in half lengthwise then slice it very thin. Combine equal parts cider vinegar and water in a pan. Add sugar and salt, a few peppercorns and an allspice berry. Bring to a near boil to dissolve the solids. Pour hot liquid over the onions and sprigs of cilantro (if desired for this dish.) Let them stew for at least an hour and serve. They’re good for a few weeks refrigerated, so double your quantities and use on sandwiches and the like.

Chick Peas
Drain and rinse well one 19-oz can of chick peas (garbanzo beans); place in a bowl. Add one clove garlic, minced or microplaned, the juice of one lime, the equivalent quantity of good olive oil, a tsp sea salt, pepper to taste and a big handful of chopped fresh Italian parsley. Toss and serve. Lemon in place of lime is also good.

Cous Cous
Yes, that last jar on my windowsill of grains has been filled for the season. Cous-cous is super quick and easy and uses the same 2:1 proportions as white rice. I recommend bringing to a boil 1 cup of canned chicken broth, 1 cup of water and a drizzle of olive oil. Take off heat, stir in 1 C. cous cous, cover and let steep for 5 minutes. Fluff w/fork and serve.

Serve any and all of the above with a green salad heavy on fresh sliced tomatoes. I also included mixed olives, warmed pita wedges and garlic confit for spreading.

Planting Party

It was a happy Mother’s Day. A crisp-breezed, blue-skied, birds-chirping, muddy, grubby, dirt-under-your-fingernails Mother’s Day.

We planted seeds and seedlings all afternoon.

The day started with a brunch at my mom’s townhouse and a stop on the way to purchase a floral hanging basket for her. My daughter and I went to a local nursery and farm where I also picked up a 4-pack of yellow bell pepper seedlings for $1.79. The plants looked terrific, and I’m happy to support that nursery and farm. It’s a small but longstanding business in competition with not one or two but three Home Depots in Bergen County, in addition to a Lowe’s that opened last year.

Plus, the excitement and prospect of planting them that afternoon made me stop by on the way back from my mother’s. I purchased a 4-pack of Rosa Bianca eggplants and a 3-celled pack of Kirby cucumbers that contained six plants.

Once home, my daughter and I got down n’ dirty, building the pole bean teepees and erecting a cucumber contraption we constructed from twine and some old garden edging we found in the shed. We cut holes in the plastic sheeting I’d applied weeks ago to pre-warm the soil, measured, dug, spaced, sowed, planted and watered for much of the afternoon, with, to my memory, just a few breaks: a game of tag, a change from soaked shoes to dry (hers), a change from a soaked dress to dry jeans (ditto), one stop to make a peanut butter and birdseed sandwich to fit into the suet feeder, another to make a peanut butter sandwich for the humans, the unraveling, re-raveling and unraveling yet again of the entire spool of twine, two glasses of pink lemonade, playing with the cats underfoot, an incident involving two bottles of bubbles – it’s a wonder we got so much done!

What’s in the ground now, coded with an S for “from seed” and a P for “purchased plant”:

Tuscan Kale and white cauliflower (S)
Watermelon radishes, Detroit red beets, golden beets (all S)
Radicchio (S) – my cats are not fending off the rabbits there.
Red Carrots, Rhubarb Swiss Chard & Rainbow Swiss Chard (all S)
One row of corn (S) – two more to come over the next two weeks.
Pole beans: Kwintus, Emerite Filet and Purple Podded (all S)
Winter squash: Butternut, Buttercup and Delicata (S)
Pattypan Squash (S)
Yellow bell peppers (P)
Rosa Bianca eggplants (P)
Lemon cucumbers (S)
Kirby cucumbers (P)

While we were at it, I tossed in three fingerling potatoes that had sprouted in the kitchen, plus a Russet that I cut in half and scabbed over. They went in just around the outer rim of the largest bed. We’ll see what happens there.

Tomato varieties (all S) and celery root (S) are going in soon. Zucchetta Trombolina and Christmas Limas (both S) will have to wait a week more. I didn’t pre-warm that bed.

In hindsight, I’m glad I bought the seedlings this weekend. I felt as if I were cheating in some way, but geez, do I have square footage to fill! After cramming crops into two very small beds near the house for years, I’ve realized that I need to reformulate my mental proportions. The area I ripped up last fall for gardening can hold a lot more that I’d thought.

So, let’s add Sunday’s expenditure to the tally. I had figured early on that only seeds would be part of my Eco-Nomics experiment, but I may as well add the purchased plants. It’s just $5.37, and including it in the running total will make harvest calculations that much easier.

Past total of Seeds,

Peat Pellets, other: $44.33

New Plants: $5.37
Total: $49.70

$1.13. Total Cost: As Yet Undetermined.

I’ve whored myself for five pounds of meat.

And the worst kind: ground beef. I found a mis-marked package at the grocery store. I don’t know how I saw it, or even quite why I was in the beef section. I was making a loop around the cases, thinking about taking advantage of a hot Italian sausage special (I didn’t), and somehow I saw the price from the corner of my eye among the mountains of pre-packaged meat: $1.13.

I labored over it. Oh, no, I didn’t immediately dump that hulking package into my cart. But once I did, I made a loop back to return it to the case, or to one of the meat department employees. But I didn’t. I kept it. And bought it.

I haven’t purchased industrial beef in years. Thinking back, I began tapering off significantly since reading Fast Food Nation, then pretty much stopped completely with The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I’ve also had my run-ins with other supermarket meat (see Birdzilla). But I do purchase other meats and fish. Look, I like it to an extent, and my daughter, since starting solid food, almost always eats her meat first.

We do go meatless probably more often than most American families, with an ever-growing repertoire of grains, beans and any invented combination thereof. And it’s not because we’re vegan, vegetarian or even anti-flesh. It’s just a fresh, good way to eat: inventive, expressive and inexpensive, and the household enjoys it.

But, my God, what have I done.

For one dollar. And thirteen cents.


My ticking time bomb is still sitting in the lowest, coldest part of my fridge, waiting to be either divided, or pre-shaped or simply frozen into a 5+ pound block. I can’t get it out of my mind, yet can’t bring myself to face it for further butchering.

Any way you cut it, I won’t be partaking of it once prepared, or if prepared. I bought it, yes, but won’t eat it. Does that make me a hypocrite? If I serve it to my family, what does that say – it’s not good enough for me, but good enough for you? If I spread it among extended family and friends, perhaps grilled for Memorial Day, July 4th, or any given softball league weekend, am I making them all complicit in this sin? Am I being a budget-minded pragmatist by utilizing this find, or am I completely and morally compromised?

What bothers me further is that I keep coming up with ideas for variations on the basic burger, and I can’t help it. This boatload of beef could be turned into enough burgers to feed the neighborhood and cover all tastes and preferences: Microplaned garlic mixed into the beef and a knob of Gorgonzola tucked inside the patty. Mixed olive tapenade inside the burger, topped with Iberico or Zamorano [yes!] sheep’s milk cheese, served with a slightly chilled Tempranillo. Thinner patties, topped with grilled Portobellos, fresh rosemary from the garden, aged balsamic and melted, oozing Teleggio cheese. Or I could try a variation of a Sicilian meatloaf I have made with ground pork: integrate grated aged Provolone cheese into seasoned meat full of fresh Italian parsley, with a slice of hard-boiled egg in the center. Trust me, it’s delicious. Choose your Italian red to accompany.

I disgust myself.

And I can’t give the beef away. My church always accepts foods for the needy in our area, and we donate to the box on the occasional Sunday or whenever there’s a drive. But this is packaged meat, not a canned good or boxed cereal. I could return it to the grocery store, but it would not be accepted back. If it were, it would be discarded. I’ve thought about divvying it up between my parents and in-laws. Remember, I’m a believer in a well-stocked freezer. But see the paragraph above beginning, “Any way you cut it.” It’s the same as cooking and serving it to them as guests.

I don’t think anyone enjoying a burger in my backyard or a Sicilian meatloaf in my dining room would take this as seriously as I am right now. And, given the problems in the world, and my coming up a little short on my daughter’s preschool tuition this month, my considering this $1.13 Styrofoam pallet of beef so extensively is a luxury.

I should just take it for what it is. And try to live with myself later.

I’ll let you know if I can.

Sweet Beets

In honor of the little beet seedlings emerging in my cool-weather crop bed, and to do justice to the gorgeous baby beets I came across at the farmer’s market, I prepared a huge tray of quartered, roasted beets.

The small red beets I used were only 79-cents per pound, so I picked up a bagload of them. The beets in my beds are largely golden beets, from a two-year-old seed packet I found while filing away this year’s lettuce seeds. I say “largely” golden because with those seeds, I came across a red beet seed packet from 2004. I threw a small row of them in the soil just to see if they’d come up. One has. But the golden beets are germinating at much better rate, as expected.

The following preparation makes beets that are great hot, cold or at room temperature – toss on a salad, or just sneak a few from the fridge the next day and snack away. And if your beets come with tops (mine didn’t), all the better. Prepare them as a side dish.

Up to 4 lbs small beets, your choice of variety
4-6 T. light, grassy olive oil or canola oil
2 T. Sherry vinegar
2 large garlic cloves, microplaned or finely minced
1-2 T. fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 t. turbinado sugar
½ T. sea salt
fresh ground pepper, according to taste and to quantity of beets used


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Line a sheet pan or two with foil or parchment.
Scrub beets, trim off rough top end. Dry and set aside.
Combine marinade ingredients thoroughly in a large glass bowl.
Quarter your beets, or cut them into the size desired so they are uniform for cooking, placing them in the marinade bowl as you go.
Stir to coat thoroughly. Let them sit for at least five minutes to allow the color and juices bleed into the marinade, stirring occasionally.
Scatter on the pan(s), ensuring some space between.
Reserve the marinade. You’ll likely have somewhat more than when you started.
Roast for about 1 hour, agitating and turning the beets halfway through.

Taste your marinade and add more Sherry vinegar as desired (I usually do another tablespoon.)
Serve the beets drizzled with the marinade as a dressing. Adjust S & P as desired. Garnish with fresh chopped Italian parsley.
Toasted walnuts and crumbled goat cheese are also good on top, a classic (if not somewhat cliché) addition.
The beet marinade also makes a good salad dressing. Or carrot & celery stick dip.

Grape Hyacinths

My grandmother came to visit this week, for the first time in a year.


Oh, she stops by from time to time, but I knew this visit was for a good, long spell: The wide, dramatic swath of grape hyacinths that carpet the slope of my front yard leading up to the door has burst into bloom.

And I know she’s proud to see them. Mom-mom gave the grape hyacinths to me the first autumn that my husband and I were in our house. She and I dug the dormant bulbs together from her back yard, the yard she’d cultivated since the 1930’s. I broke up the clumps and scattered the bulbs in a small, curvy trench, delighted upon their appearance the following spring, and have watched them multiply annually ever since.

I've been sharing plants with friends and family for only a short time in the grand scheme of things, but plan to continue for as long as I can. Friendship gardening is not only about amassing neat specimens. And it’s not just a frugal gardener’s best friend. Friendship gardening has made my house a home and will keep memories alive for years to come.

My older sister, Gloria, guided and gifted me through her five-acre woodland tract outside Amherst, Mass. Sherry from my Junior Women's Club gave me the Salvia "Caradonna" that blooms beneath my birdfeeder. My mother-in-law showed up with a clump of her Black-Eyed Susans one year, and they’ve provided an ever-growing month long blaze of fall color ever since. And Marena, a longtime family friend, gave me a cutting of ivy when we moved in - ivy that actually came from my childhood home, which my parents sold long before I had my own backyard to fill.

Even late in the growing season, my garden will be awash in color: flames of red sedum lining the rear bed of my back yard, a waterfall of white clematis cascading over a fence, and spires of blue monkshood reaching nearly six feet into the sky. And I didn’t buy a single one of them.

Friendship Gardens are about as old as sharing itself, and are created to reflect what friendship is all about: giving, caring, sharing, memories, sentiment and life.

While formal friendship gardens boast Old World origins - very old world, with some traced to ancient Japan - they didn't fully take hold in the New World until the early 20th Century, at the 1934 Chicago World's Fair. The International Friendship Gardens booth proved so popular that the Indiana-based organization has been going strong ever since: By the year 2000, its original single garden design had blossomed into a land plan that includes 25 gardens, ranging from ethnic gardens to an American Prairie garden to children’s gardens, all created with shared plants from around the nation and the world.

I also have a globe thistle, which wasn’t there when we bought the house, but arrived one way or another a few years ago. It is called Miss Willmot’s Ghost, with good reason: The globe thistle could easily be called the original friendship plant, since it had a "habit" of appearing everywhere Ellen Wilmott went. Legend has it that she carried thistle seeds with her wherever she went in jolly Olde England, scattering a few here and a few more there, informally starting friendship gardens along the way.

And that’s another charming aspect of friendship gardening. While formal or planned gardens would include full Latin names or labels for each specimen, home-grown friendship gardens traditionally do not. Plants tend to be called by the giver’s name: Helen’s Hosta, Sherry’s Salvia, Virginia’s Tulips, The Pascack Road House Ivy, Mom-Mom’s Rhubarb. If I ever move from this house, I’ll need to hire an additional truck just to carry plant divisions!

As far as plants go, I've given as good as I've gotten, from cheerful American Shasta Daisies that bloom all summer, to tasty divisions from my perennial herb garden to spice up the lives of friends and family throughout the year.

But some of my most valued specimens came from my grandmother, always the most hale and hearty do-it-yourself member of the family - she'd take any of us on, old or young! I can gaze out my kitchen window onto my backyard peppered with her perennials: a division of white peony that explodes into six-inch blooms in June, a dependable white astilbe that flowers even in the shade, a fall-blooming white clematis with delicate white flowers and a sweet vanilla scent that wafts throughout my garden when other plants are winding down for their long winter's rest.

Upon turning 90 in 2004, I noticed that she started gardening a little less with each passing year. Thinking back, that was the year that I stopped simply dabbling in the garden. The torch had been passed.

Her gift to me will always live on – and not just in my backyard. By the time she was two, my daughter, Annelise, Mom-Mom’s third great-grandchild, was toddling her way so enthusiastically through flowerbeds and our vegetable garden that I knew she would carry on the tradition. It’s a gift that I am proud to pass onto her, as Mom-Mom passed it onto me. We’re already planning to bring a cutting of “The Pascack Road Ivy,” some heirloom tomato seedlings Annelise started and a few eyes of “Mom-Mom’s white peony” to my younger sister’s housewarming party in May. Mom-Mom will always be with Joelle, too.

And I know Mom-Mom will always be with me, as grandmothers have that special way of somehow sitting on your shoulder and speaking to your heart wherever you may be.

Her pink peony blooms earlier than my others. Combined with the last of the tall, pink Elizabeth Arden tulips, “Virginia’s Tulips,” planted for Annelise the year she was born, the two create a lush backdrop and a colorful hint of the summer to come during family barbecues on Memorial Day.

When Annelise and I pick herbs to flavor a summer dinner, she can’t get enough of the fresh oregano, picking, sniffing and tasting cuttings from our thick, hardy bush – originally a small division from Mom-Mom.

For my daughter’s birthday parties in September, I create bouquets of Pee-Gee hydrangea blooms surrounded by tendrils of Mom-Mom’s white clematis.

When I returned from Mom-Mom’s funeral in April of the year she died, she was waiting for me at home: that huge swath of grape hyacinth began to bloom while we were away.

That’s when I cried, really cried, for the first time. A week later, when more had opened and the first mass of flowers were still going strong, that’s when I finally smiled again. Like some plants, relationships, too, can be wild, woolly and long-lived. They can make you laugh, sigh and cry, but they'll always make you marvel at their everlasting qualities. And no matter what the future brings, Mom-Mom will always live on in my own little River Edge garden, just as she does in my heart.

Survival of the Fittest

My seedlings are fighting against all odds this year, both indoors and out.


Let’s start with the outdoor issues. Cold. Wet. Cloud coverage for weeks on end. Colder yet. Wetter yet. Interminable dampness ensues. My sad excuses for seedlings are largely in a holding pattern. And they’re all cool-weather crops! One bright spot is that four out of six cauliflower seeds sown are somewhat like actual plants. Finally, a ray of hope.

Let’s head indoors now. First, see damping off entry. Twelve of 18 celery root seedlings saved by repotting, with more seeds started in the hope getting an actual crop come fall.

Second, I have [or had, read on] no idea what in the heck has been happening to my tray of tomato varieties. They took seemingly forever to germinate, even keeping in mind my general zeal and ensuing impatience with every single seed. I can never wait to see that first little tooth poke through!

But once they did, the tops kept disappearing. Sometimes it was just one leaf of the original two. Sometimes the seedling mysteriously looked like a withered sprout. Once, a seedling was pulled from the root fully in tact and laid across its peat pellet. It’s a tray with a clear cover that’s pretty much on all the time until germination and a small measure of growth occur. I spent close to two weeks replacing lost seedlings with new seeds. I thought they were safe and secure, but apparently I was mistaken.


One morning, I saw my cat Maisy, a 7-lb ball of fluff and puff, nosing around the tray. Using one claw, she proceeded to pick at and lift the clear cover out of the tiered rim of the tray base. Then, selecting just the right tomato sprout, nipped off the leaves.

“Maisy! Pssst! What are you doing?!!?? Pssst! Get away from there!!”

She turns to me, pricks up her ears, and chirps “Bprrrrt!” as if to say, “Mommy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” All the while, a tiny tomato leaf is hanging from her fang.

That problem was solved with a wide rubber band around the tray and a small, but heavy, silver dish laid on top to further prevent that lid (and my lid) from being flipped. It worked. Most developed their second set of leaves.

Then, suddenly, half my sprouts were snapped and bent over. Why? I got a clue this weekend when Daisy, Maisy’s sister, was standing on the tray cover, collapsing the top and crushing whatever was under her rear paws. She was hunched on her stalking haunches, chattering out the window to a squirrel who, one, didn’t give a darn and two, cackled back at the cat, taunting and basically driving Daisy crazy. And me too.

It’s like Lord of the Flies in my house, and the seedlings are Piggy.

May is six days away. Planting out is less than 20. And I am, yet again, starting from scratch on my heirlooms.

Oh, and PS: The cat burglar has since clipped three of my “saved” celery root plants. I’m now down to nine.