Travel Like A Canadian

An Air Canada Boeing 777 taking off. 
Photograph courtesy of Air Canada

In 1975, my father took me to British Columbia. From there we went to Washington, Oregon, California and Colorado. He spent time in California and Colorado. He was a big fan of Canada. The trip covered many bases for him and it was a great time.

After the trip, I was filled with recollections. In British Columbia, near Victoria, we saw the power of the Pacific Ocean. All along the beaches were enormous logs. If they were trees, they would have been giants. But they were casually cast up on shore in the way that smaller pieces of driftwood litter Eastern beaches.

In northern California, the Pacific flexed it muscles again. While driving to the coast one afternoon, the Pacific was a fog machine and it forced us to turn back. We crossed the Straits of Juan de Fuca from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington on a large ocean ferry. Despite the size of the ship, the water in the Straits so rocked the ship that I was seasick - - an unpleasant surprise after spending time afloat on the Atlantic.

Traveling south, we had an atypical two days in Seattle - - it was not raining. We saw Mount Rainier, Crater Lake National Park and Mount Hood. We probably saw Mt. St. Helens but didn’t know it at the time. On the way to Crater Lake, big chunks of pumice were by the road. It was weird to pick up a big rock that was featherweight.

The trees along the way, redwoods and firs, were enormous. Along one Oregon highway, the firs were routinely six feet in diameter. They brought a pleasing scent of pine to the air. The sound of the wind in the firs was appealing. It was a low, constant whistling.

A view of the northern California coast from a historic postcard

We saw a golden eagle in Colorado. We saw where the San Andreas Fault went out to sea at Point Reyes National Seashore and ate the most amazing food everywhere.

Air Canada flew us from JFK to Vancouver, on a DC-9 and Boeing 727. Flying over Canada took us across the vastness of Lake Superior. Canada is so large that the flight included intermediate stops in Winnipeg and Edmonton before we landed in VancouverEach time, we landed and returned to the air, we had a new air crew and another meal.

Because of this congenial trip, I have always been fond of Air Canada. When, a few weeks ago, a fleeting image of an Air Canada commercial flashed across the computer, I wanted to see the entire thing.

I found the commercial on YouTube and learned there were two bonuses.

The first is that Sandra Oh is in the commercial. She brings verve and wit to the enterprise. The second bonus is that Air Canada has two commercials.

Both are appealing and are based on the theme, “Travel Like a Candian.” They are around a minute long and can be found by searching YouTube for “Travel Like a Canadian.”

To learn more about the commercials, Jennifer Wasley, Vice President for Integrated Media at Weber Shandwick Advertising Agency in Toronto, put me in contact with Christa Poole, Senior Manager, Media and Public Relations at Air Canada. Ms. Poole said the videos are not on television but are available online in Canada, the U.S., the UK, Japan, France and Australia.

She went on to say the Travel Like a Canadian theme “is an opportunity to share on a global stage how values like multiculturalism, diversity, openness, compassion and equality make Canadians some of the most accepted and loved travellers in the world.” The videos, she continued, are “a tribute to those values, and central to the story we are telling to celebrate our love for Canada.”

While waiting at the baggage carousel, Judy, played by Sandy Sidhu, is
trying to decide whether to help a fellow traveler, played by Margo Kane, with her luggage.

Sandra Oh suddenly appears and inspires Judy to
"Do the Canadian thing." 
Keep scrolling to see what happens.

The commercials also offer a short course on Canadian life. Ms. Oh and a fellow Canadian discuss “loonies and toonies,” one- and two-dollar Canadian coins. When two kids are bickering, Ms. Oh smooths things over by offering them “poutine,” a Quebec delicacy with French Fries, cheese curds and gravy.

Sandra Oh sharing poutine with two bickering kids

There’s also mention of “bagged milk,” Canadians typically get milk in a one liter bag instead of a carton, and “ketchup chips,”potato chips flavoured with ketchup. Of the latter, Poole advises, “think BBQ chips but ketchup instead of barbeque sauce. Delicious!”

The commercials are set on an airplane and in an airport. Despite both locations being cramped, high security settings, Air Canada had a leg up during filming. The airline has its own hangar where it keeps aircraft between flights. “When we need a plane,” Poole observed, “we don’t necessarily need to be inside an airport.” “We also have,” she noted, “spaces like our Maple Leaf Lounges in airports where we can have more freedom than you might in the rest of the airport.”

For the two commercials, Air Canada had access to aircraft
and airport spaces that are not readily accessible to others.

After seeing these commercials and recalling our travel on Air Canada, I went to the airline’s website, to see if I could fly with them in the US, instead of one of the grim domestic carriers.

Americans can fly Air Canada to Canadian cities and abroad from those cities. However, the airline does not offer domestic service.

The ads, Poole observed, are “directed at international travellers to position Air Canada as the alternative of choice to domestic airlines.” They are, she continued, “part of a wider strategy to add travellers to our growing global network of nearly 220 airports on six continents.”

If the ads inspire you to fly Air Canada overseas, the airline flies you from an American city to Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal; the international flight departs from there. When my nephew Russ Bielawski was traveling to Ontario on business, he told us that Pearson Airport in Toronto was appealing. If Air Canada fares, schedules and travel times fit your itinerary, it might be more appealing to fly with them, instead of flying from one American airport to another which offers international service.

Margo Kane gave Judy her bag first and declares,
"I've been TLCing before TLC was a thing!"

The Air Canada website said it will air future commercials with other Canadian celebrities. Poole said there’s not a date for the next ads, “You’ll have to stay tuned!”

Best of 2019

Well, 2019 was so busy that it took longer than expected to say what was best about it.

Thanks to all of you who have read, commented on and suggested blog posts in 2019. It would have been much harder to do this without the insights and support of family and friends.

The old dining room at Musso and Frank,
Photograph courtesy of Tina Whatcott Escheverra

Musso and Frank Grill: As noted in the blog’s September 24th post, Musso and Frank Grill in Hollywood celebrated its centennial in 2019. This restaurant, which Dorothy and I discovered for ourselves some years ago, remains a great destination, with some of the best servers in the nation, a menu with much variety and expertly mixed cocktails.

The Barnsider: The Barnsider, in Colonie, New York, an Albany, New York suburb, continues to be an excellent, independently owned restaurant. It has a dining room and a bar with a tavern, also called the Iowa Hawkeye Grille. I am not sure why a place named after a Big 10 school ended up in the Albany area. But don’t wonder; the food and drinks are all you need to know!

In addition to many appetizer, meat, fish and salad choices, the Barnsider has tavern snacks: popcorn, pretzels, Ritz Crackers and that cheese spread. A Ritz commercial once said “Everything sits better on a Ritz” and that’s definitely the case when the cheese spread is added to the cracker.

One of the excellent martinis at the Barnsider

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute: About an hour from Albany, New York, is Williamstown, Massachusetts. In addition to being the home of Williams College, the village is home to “the Clark.”

Robert Sterling and Francine Clark opened the museum in 1955, as a place to display their collection of paintings, silver and other artwork that they acquired with Clark’s inheritance from his grandfather’s share of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune.

The first building on the Clark campus.
Photograph courtesy of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

Clark died in 1956. But the Institute remained a living memorial to him, expanding in 1973 by adding a new library and gallery space and expanding again in 2014.

The new Clark Center, added in 2014.
Photograph courtesy of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

The genius of the Clark is that it has something for everyone. It’s collection of paintings is astonishing and makes people grateful that Sterling decided to come to Williamstown. There are concerts and lectures throughout the year, on a wide variety of cultural topics. The 2014 expansion allows the Institute to bring in larger traveling shows and more modern art.

Richard Frisbie: Although Richard Frisbie died in 2018, his book It’s a Wise Woodsman Who Knows What’s Biting Him can still be found in used bookstores and some libraries.

In It’s a Wise Woodsman, Richard introduced the concept of “red blood density . . . describing a man’s awareness of himself as red-blooded and alive.”

He also introduced the miniaturized adventure. A person may be able to sail across the Atlantic, he observed, “but you can rig a sail on your canoe or rowboat and leave the shore astern.”

Writing styles and reader interests change. Books can be different when re-read. Despite 50 years of changes in outdoor technology and practices, the book remains relevant and indispensable. One reason for this is that Richard concentrated on basics rather than on products. For example, he focused on staying dry while hiking or camping, instead of whether the materials should be Gore-Tex, nylon, plastic or rubber.

The boxed set of postcards with Bob Eckstein's bookstore paintings

Bob Eckstein: I learned about Bob Eckstein’s art and love of books when my daughter, Lily, gave me a set of postcards with 50 of Eckstein’s bookstore paintings. Nearly all the painting first appeared in Eckstein’s book, 2016 book, Footnotes* from the World’s Greatest Bookstores.

Footnotes includes paintings of 75 bookstores. The book has an appealing accompanying text, opening with a Foreword by Garrison Keillor and an Introduction by the author.

In addition to sharing the world of bookstores past and present, Eckstein is a New Yorker cartoonist and author of The Illustrated History of the Snowman.

Eckstein invites people to visit his website where they can subscribe to his newsletter. A recurring subject in Eckstein’s cartoons is football. If you visit his website soon, you are likely to find cartoons inspired by the 2020 Super Bowl.

Milano Pizzeria: Pizza is one of those intensely debated subjects for the ages. I have fond memories of Santora’s Pizza from Buffalo in the first five years of my life. When our family moved to Staten Island, I added memories of different styles of pizza from places there.

Lately, my favorite pizza is from Milano, on Western Avenue in Westmere, a suburb of Albany, New York. The crust is thin yet well-cooked. The chef puts down the right combination of cheese and tomato sauces. The cheese pizza alone is great, but if you want toppings those are great, too.

Although Milano’s is my local favorite, a person can never have too many favorite pizza places.

So, my friends and I will continue in 2020 - - on regular luncheon missions - - to search for outstanding pizza places in the Capital Region.

Bob Eckstein and His World's Greatest Bookstores

Thanks to a birthday gift from my daughter, Lily, I am in the universe of Bob Eckstein’s paintings of the world’s greatest bookstores.

Lily gave me a set of postcards with 50 of Eckstein’s bookstore paintings. I am not sure if you will notice this but Eckstein’s painting of 192 Books in Manhattan, above, has a feel similar to that - - but brighter - - in Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.

The set has the bonus of including two sets of cards. A person could mail cards from one set and use the others as keepsakes, desk/wall art or bookmarks.

My wife Dorothy, Lily and I got another bonus from the postcards. On my birthday, we looked at all the postcards and shared our own anecdotes, as individuals and family, about time we have spent in bookstores.

Of the 50 painting on the postcards, 45 appeared in Eckstein’s 2016 book, Footnotes* from the World’s Greatest Bookstores. Tied to the asterisk is the phrase “True Tales and Last Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Booklovers.” Eckstein added paintings of five other bookstores to the postcard set.

Footnotes includes paintings of 75 bookstores. The book has an appealing accompanying text, opening with a Foreword by Garrison Keillor and an Introduction by the author.

Of the 75 bookstores, 72 get two pages each. On the left page is the bookstore's name, location, dates of operation and a brief history. On the right page is Eckstein’s painting of the bookstore with one or more hand-lettered anecdotes.

The Strand Bookstore, New York, New York

Because of their importance, Eckstein devotes four pages each to Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Barbara’s Books in Chicago and Gotham Book Mart in Manhattan.

The back of each postcard has the bookstore name, location and dates of operation. On the front of the card is the painting without the anecdotes.

Except for six stores, including Gotham Book Mart, all the bookstores in the book are open; no closed stores are included in the postcard set.

Bookhampton, Main Street, East Hampton, New York

In his Introduction, Eckstein states he started with a list of over 150 bookstores and chose 75. The selections, he wrote, are “based on recommendations, word of mouth, social history and contributions to the locale.” Near the Introduction’s end, he observes, “While I was unable to include every great shop in this volume - - my apologies to those I did not get to yet - - I’d like to think this book is about all bookstores.”

Book Court, Brooklyn, New York

Eckstein also wrote “there had to be a good story,” from a reliable source, about each store. He started with over 300 stories and quotes, not including “the hundreds of ‘shop cat’ stories,” stories about cats in bookstores, he heard. In a recent e-mail conversation, Eckstein recalled, The bulk of the work on this book was “tracking down and finding amazing stories . . . I used a third of the stories I reported.”

The most frequent story Eckstein heard was about someone proposing marriage in a store - - and some of these newlyweds had the reception at the store.

One of my favorite stories includes the late William Safire and John K. King Used and Rare Books. While browsing, Safire lost track of time and realized he would miss a radio interview. “We had to rush him uptown, running through red lights, just to get him to the gig,” recalls owner John King. “Luckily,” King said, “we were driving an old police car.”

When William Faulkner finished his first novel, he told Sherwood Anderson and that author walked away. Later, Faulkner met Mrs. Anderson while out walking. She said her husband “would make a trade with you. If he does not have to read your manuscript, he will tell his publisher to accept it.”

Regrettably I do not have space to share Eckstein’s anecdotes about Anne Rice’s arrival at a bookstore or Dave Barry’s unsettling book signing. In addition to this book and postcard set,

Eckstein’s website proclaims that he is the “world’s leading snowman expert.” His research on this subject led to the recently published, The Illustrated History of the Snowman. He has drawn illustrations and cartoons for National Lampoon, Mad, The New York Times and The New Yorker. His work at The New Yorker helped him prepare his 2019 book, Everyone’s A Critic: The Ultimate Cartoon Book by the World’s Greatest Cartoonists.

Bob Eckstein

This portfolio of bookstore paintings originated when Eckstein painted some of the most beautiful bookstores in New York City for The New Yorker’s website. Within hours of the piece appearing in The New Yorker, Eckstein’s agent called and told him that Penguin Random House had offered a book deal for a worldwide portfolio. Eckstein recalls that he “was excited and grateful but at that time I was unaware how big a project it would become.” “Slowly as I meet dozens and dozens of bookstore owners,” he continued, “did my impressions of this business unfold.”

The paintings in this book look as if they have been done in oils, acrylics or watercolors. But Eckstein explained, “I use a computer painting software and a drawing tablet.” Although the paintings have an on the street feel, Eckstein said, “Just a handful were done plein air and those were done at the project’s beginning - - before I realized the scope of the job.”

McNally Jackson Bookstore, New York, New York

When Eckstein started this project, he approached it as an artist. “By the time I was half way through the assignment,” he said, “I became very emotionally invested in the plight of independent bookstore owners.” He has become preoccupied with raising awareness for bookstore owners by writing Op Eds about them and appearing on radio and podcasts to explain the importance of these beloved institutions. “I call them,” he concluded, “Main Street’s intellectual hubs.”

Eckstein does not have a bookstore sequel in the works. “If there was more public demand for one," he is “ready with 75 bookstore stories and paintings to share in a sequel.” “I have instead moved on,” he said “and worked on other books, including a thank you to bookstores for supporting my bookstores book, called The Ultimate Cartoon Book of Book Cartoons By The World’s Greatest Cartoonists.”

The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, California

Bob’s postcard set, Footnotes and his other books are available at independent bookstores and at his website.  This website also includes a link to Bob's free newsletter, which includes cartoons and stories.

Musso and Frank Grill Centennial: An Appreciation

Musso and Frank Grill, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, is turning 100 this September 27th.

Over the last 100 years, the restaurant has seen more adventures and plot surprises than fit in a short blog post. Please take time to visit the Musso and Frank website . It has a delightful history of the place; in the “press” section of the website are great articles and radio clips.

When our daughter Lily was attending college in Los Angeles, Dorothy and I wanted to learn more about southern California. To paraphrase the Randy Newman song, we already knew that we loved LA. We had impressions of the place from watching TV shows such as The Closer and reading authors such as Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler.

During a visit to see Lily, we went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In the gift shop we found Borislav Stanic’s Los Angeles Attractions, an informative guidebook with appealing

writing, lots of color photos and great maps.

In his section on Hollywood, Stanic describes Musso and Frank, which regulars call “Musso’s.” It lists some of the restaurant’s classic menu items, a photograph of the restaurant facade and references to famous writers.

After reading about the menu and seeing the facade, we were reminded of a favorite Albany restaurant, the Larkin. The idea that this was a writer’s eatery, a West Coast version of the Algonquin Round Table, was also appealing.

We had to go. And we have gone - - three times so far!

Our favorite meal at Musso and Frank is lunch. Whether we drive or take the subway and Metrolink, we can enjoy the service, the meal and the restaurant ambiance and be on the way home before the insanity of the evening commute.

This is one of two large dining rooms in Musso''s and
our favorite place to have lunch.
Photograph courtesy of Tina Whatcott-Escheverria

With 200 items on the menu, there is something for everyone. Vegetarians have found a good lunch at the place, although I am not sure if they have vegan items on the menu.

The restaurant has daily specials which have been on offer for decades: Tuesday is corned beef and cabbage; Wednesday is sauerbraten and potato pancakes; Thursday is homemade chicken pot pie; Friday is bouillabaisse Marseillaise; Saturday is braised short ribs with vegetables; and Sunday is duck confit. Another Musso’s specialty is flannel cakes, described on the menu as “lighter and sweeter than a pancake yet not as delicate as a crepe, truly an original.”

So far, we end up at Musso’s on Thursdays. While homemade chicken pot pie has potential, it’s never been a favorite. So, I order the Musso’s Burger, which is consistently excellent!

Although we were attracted to Musso’s by tales of writers and movie stars, we have decided the restaurant’s real stars are the waiters, bartenders, busboys and maitre d’s. When we lunched at Musso’s last October, our waiter, Boris, explained the restaurant hires waiters to be full time waiters - - rather than people seeking employment while waiting for another career. Boris and his colleagues know the menu and bar offerings forwards and backwards.

Musso and Frank owners and staff. 
Photograph courtesy of Tina Whatcott-Escheverria

They are very welcoming to new customers. They also know what their regular customers like for food, seating and level of attention.

Our standard cocktail at Musso’s? A Tanqueray martini. The bartenders make it perfectly dry. We order it with a twist but if you like olives, you can get one with olives of just the right size.

The Musso's martini.
Photograph courtesy of  Tina Whatcott-Escheverria

Musso’s is also a place to see and reconnect with friends. My friend Jim Burns once met a friend he had not seen in years at Musso’s. The friend was in town pitching a movie idea and, as Jim concluded, “it made perfect sense that we’d meet in front of a Hollywood mecca!”

Regarding old-school and new-school celebrities and authors: the Musso’s website or Michael Callahan’s April, 2016 Los Angeles magazine article “Don’t Change Anything” also on the website are full of many great stories, too many to share here.

The quote which I think best captures Musso’s decisions to stay the same and change and its star-studded pedigree came from Bobby Caravella, Musso’s assistant general manager. In the main dining room is a mural that may depict a hunting scene, but it’s so faded no one is sure. Callahan writes that when asked why it was not restored, Caravella said, “Because it’s painted with Humphrey Bogart’s cigarette smoke.”  

Happy 100 years, Musso’s!

At 11:00 AM on Friday September 27, 2019, a star-shaped “Hollywood Award of Excellence,” the first ever, will be awarded to Musso’s and unveiled outside the restaurant. The star will be in the sidewalk near the stars in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This event is open to the public.

A Peachy Blog Post

Photograph courtesy of the
Ohio Department of Agriculture 

Right now, peaches from local orchards are a must-eat food treat.

From California’s Central Valley, up the coast into Washington, across the Great Lakes and throughout New York and New England, it’s now relatively easy to find a peach that is ripening naturally. This is in delicious contrast to those months when retailers set out peaches that are hard, sour and green - - and then rot in seemingly hours or minutes.

Of local peaches, Mark Gade, at Gade Farm Store near our home, said, “There is nothing like the taste of a fresh peach in season.” Mark gets local peaches from Klein’s Kill Fruit Farms in southern Columbia County, in the Hudson valley.

Peaches at Gade Farm

 At one point while researching this post, I thought a fun opening sentence might be,  "Peaches are the greatest Chinese food in America that is hiding in plain sight." According to Cornell’s CooperativeExtension website, peach cultivation “began in China as early as 2000 B.C.” Traders brought peaches to Europe. European settlers brought peaches to the Americas, where, the website continues, “peach cultivation thrived on the east coast.” “By the mid-1700s,” the website concludes, “peaches were so plentiful in the United States that botanists thought of them as native fruits.”

Worldatlas, an online atlas, shows that China is the world’s largest peach producer, growing over 14.2 million tons of them in 2017. Spain was the second most prolific peach producer that year, growing nearly 1.8 million tons. The United States follows China, Spain, Italy and Greece with a nationwide crop of over 750,000 tons.

The ton is a major measure of peach output. This is paradoxical.

Eating a peach is such an individual, intimate experience. Each has a snowflake-like individuality in its coloring. Even two ripe peaches can taste just a little differently or have a slightly different firmness or juiciness. A “ton” is an industrial measure, more appropriate to cars or steel mills.

These two peaches weigh one pound.  If a ton is
2,000 pounds, how many of this size peach are in a ton?

But by what Bertie Wooster might call their peachiness, peaches subvert this measure. Bill Shane, a Michigan State University researcher and peach specialist, advises “there is not a firm number for how many peaches are in a ton. The number varies based on size and size varies by peach variety, crop load, time of year and growing conditions.”

Summer peaches from local orchards have an intense flavor. At the same time, their fruit and flesh are more delicate than apples or oranges.

The delicateness of a peach suggests that special growing conditions are required so that you can bite into a perfect peach on a warm summer day.

Photo courtesy of Jim Bittner

I assumed orchard fruits required river valleys or large lakes like the Great Lakes or Finger Lakes to buffer temperatures. But when Steve Lyle from the California Department of Food and Agriculture sent me information on where peaches are grown in California, I saw that much of the Golden State’s peach production came from the landlocked Central Valley where freezing temperatures are rare,

Thanks to Jim Bittner of Bittner Singer Orchards in Niagara County, New York, Bill Shane and my friend Bob LaRoche, I now better understand the delicate, balanced dance required to put that marvelous peach into your hands this month. In an email, Jim wrote, “Peaches cannot be grown where temperatures get below zero degrees Fahrenheit very often.” “Temperatures of 5 below,” he continued “will start killing next year’s flower buds; temperatures of 15 below will kill the tree.” Jim’s orchards, he writes, “are protected by open water all winter” on Lake Ontario.

Peach trees in bloom at Bittner-Singer Orchards. 
Photo courtesy of Jim Bittner

Although peaches cannot stand extreme cold, they need cool temperatures. Bill explained that peaches need “chill hours,” days during the winter months when air temperatures range from 34 to 42 degrees, to bloom properly. A Michigan peach, depending on the variety, needs about 700 or more chill hours. Bill said that southern peach growers use peach varieties that require fewer chill hours or use varieties requiring more chill hours if local climate permits. There is some controversy about whether varieties needing fewer chill hours taste as good as those with a longer chill time.

“Air drainage,” can allow people to grow peaches in cooler regions, away from large water bodies because - - at least on still nights - - warmer air is at the top of hills. Bob explained that air drainage is key to peach production in southern states. Bill said that in Michigan, it is possible to grow peaches in the vicinity of Grand Rapids, many miles from Lake Michigan, because air drainage provides good growing conditions on ridges, the so-called Peach Ridge growing area.

Once an orchardist determines if the temperatures are right , that peach is still not in your hands. Bob grows peaches in Maine; if frost comes too early or before harvest, he loses the crop.

My friend Joe Freda lives in the southern Catskills and wrote the following about another peach growing peril:

“We had a bumper crop this year. The peaches were so sweet we had them every morning for breakfast. In previous years the squirrels and crows got them before we did. This year we took pre-emptive action: started harvesting as soon as they looked good, at the end of July. We’ve been so pleased with them. Elise (Joe’s wife) was eager to harvest the rest of them, and I’d been waiting for the last full-growth day. A risk, a game of poker with the crows. Elise ate the last harvested peach for breakfast this morning, and asked me to go get the rest.

“As I walked up to the orchard, I could hear crows laughing at me: “Haw! Haw! Haw!” And when I got to the peach trees, there wasn’t a single fruit left! Those little suckers got me again, and they broke a couple of limbs in the process. Oh well, crows gotta live, too. And if they can dine on peaches as sweet as these, I’m sure we’ll be in competition for quite some time.

Marc Fuchs, a professor at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in New York’s Finger Lakes, advises that, in addition to Niagara County and other counties on Lake Ontario, Columbia, Dutchess and Suffolk Counties are big peach producing counties. For as long as possible, I plan to chase fresh local peaches - - before the frost lowers the boom.

You're right!  It's not a peach.
But this sunflower was so beautiful
I had to share it.

A Garden Interlude

My next post was intended  to be an appreciation of local

peaches, but the research is going slowly.  Until it's

finished, here's a gardening update.

After a late, wet and cold spring, a bout of seasonal

allergies, and three weeks away in July because

of medical issues, the garden is shaping up!

My fellow gardeners have had their triumphs and setbacks.
Some had corn that did not mature, or things that
did not grow because of the wet and cold.

But lots of things are finally starting to ripen.

So far, we have picked and enjoyed more sweet corn

than the five, misshapen ears which grew last year. 

Two people in the Guilderland Community Garden have

gigantically tall corn stalks and I hope to meet them and

learn their recipe for success.

This ear of corn looked better in the camera view finder
than it did in the above photograph
But it tasted pretty good in the end

In the early 1980’s, Hurley’s tavern in downtown Albany

served delicious chicken wings and a wide assortment of

beverages.  One of our favorite past-times was to order

wings and small, “pony” bottles of Rolling Rock.  

Each bottle of Rolling Rock has a “33” on the back of the

bottle, representing the number of words in product’s slogan. 

“33” is also a symbol used by journalists to signal to printers

that an article has ended.  

After picking plum tomatoes for two days, I was reminded of

both of these facts when I learned that I had picked “33”

tomatoes.  More green tomatoes are on the vine. I hope the

“33” in the number I picked does not mean the tomato sauce

I made will taste like beer - - or the tomato harvest is over.

33 plum tomatoes

I pulled these carrots in early July. 
From the size of the carrot tops , I thought the carrots were larger. 

One of my favorite crops  is carrots. When I was growing

up in Bloomington, Indiana, my mother encouraged the family

to plant radishes and carrots.  The radishes always worked

well, perhaps because they could fill out at a shallow depth

in the ground and the carrots did not work well. 

It’s been nice to finally succeed with a favorite vegetable.

I like a variety called Scarlet Nantes.  The first year in the

garden, I tried a variety called Danvers.  Although friends do

well with Danvers, mine were woody and not as tasty as

the Scarlet Nantes.

This year, the weeds overwhelmed the carrots and fewer

came up.  But the ones that did were longer and wider

than in previous years.  

I pulled these carrots in early August.
What a difference a month makes!

During our first year in the Guilderland Community Garden,

I planted pumpkins.  Our garden there is 25 by 33 feet and it

seemed to have more than enough room for pumpkins.

But by July that year, the pumpkin vines overran everything. 

We have planted pumpkins in the backyard ever since.  

Last week, three green pumpkins started filling out.  Now,

we are in a mad race between the pumpkins ripening and

assorted animals who want to eat the vines and the fruit. 

Last night, something got the smallest of the three. 

Let's hope the feasting ends there.

As of mid-August, more corn, carrots and tomatoes remain

to be picked.  And waiting in the wings are cauliflower,

Brussels sprouts, broccoli, fennel, peppers, eggplant and beets.

I hope that you are having gardening success too!