Daina Savage

In a snow-covered landscape, plants that spice up that expanse of white make the winter more interesting. Evergreen boughs iced with a frosting of snow, multicolored peeling bark, deciduous branches cupping icy decorations, lingering berries on shrubs and trees, and the seed heads of fall blooming perennials all break up the monotony of the bleakest of seasons. Now’s the time to check out the bones of your garden and see what structure is missing. Check out your neighborhood for the plants that make the winter more colorful to add to your spring shopping list.

A love of artisanal foods naturally leads to a desire to try your hand at making your own. Unfortunately, my first attempts at the ancient culinary craft of cheesemaking were, frankly, embarrassing.
Inspired after reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,” I had dreams of making my own mozzarella to top grilled pizzas and tuck between slices of heirloom tomatoes and basil.
I procured the milk, rennet tablets and citric acid to make the “30 Minute Mozzarella Magic” created by “Cheese Queen” Ricki Carroll, whose “Home Cheese Making” manual has inspired legions of novices to turn into cheesemakers. The founder of the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company in 1978 in an attempt to preserve the milk on her own farm, she has taught more than 7,000 people how to make cheese in workshops, not to mention the more than 100,000 who bought her book and presumably attempted it on their own. Read the rest of this entry »

After all the glitter and baubles from the holidays are put away, we embrace the simplicity of winter. Yet we still seem to hunger for a bit of color to remind us that spring will come again. Thankfully, long-blooming orchids fit the bill, with their stark, elegant lines, culminating in a singular spray of heady, extravagant blossoms. Varieties of phalaenopsis and dendrobium orchids are generally the best for beginners. When you’re starting out, it’s best to match your selection with your home’s conditions, rather than trying to artificially create an environment for a fussy, expensive showpiece. When you’re ready for a challenge, the Susquehanna Orchid Society and Little Brook Orchids can be helpful resources.

“It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter.”

Walking through the Tanger Arboretum next to Wheatland Mansion, I was surprised to see a bed of blooming iris on St. Nicholas Day. Added to the garden about two years ago, they came from a Wheatland Garden Club member’s garden as pass-along plants from her grandmother. So old, they probably aren’t even a named cultivar. According to club co-founder Donna Mentzer, “this is the first year they have bloomed, which would be consistent with the remontant, or reblooming iris which need to be establish for two to three years before rebloom.”
Donna shares that “there is an old yellow cultivar called ‘Sangreal’ that was hybridized back in the 1930s and also a nice yellow iris with a bit of ruffle that was hybridized in 1987 by Beyers – it is a consistent rebloomer and was named ‘Billionairie’. I don’t know the parentage of either, but it seems this may have been a parent for one or both of these, judging from the great bloom. Since this is the first rebloom, I can’t tell if this is when they would normally bloom or if the rather warm autumn was the cause.”
Although there are a number of reblooming iris on the market, Donna is partial to a pure white cultivar called “Immortality,” which she says is one of the oldest and most reliable.

Sure plenty of trees have great fall color, but how many smell like cotton candy? As the county’s autumn fairs finish, it’s a way to recapture that festival scent a little later into the season. The lovely heart shaped leaves of the Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) turn a mix of bright yellows, pinks and orange-reds in the autumn. But after they’ve dried and fallen, the fragrant leaves release a strong sweet fragrance when crushed or chopped in a mower. The scent is often described as burnt brown sugar or cotton candy.
It’s a fast-growing shade tree, often multi-stemmed, when it planted in moist soil, but is very sensitive to drought. When mature, it also will exhibit some bark peeling for winter interest.

It’s a reason to hold out hope for a late freeze. Just when they’ve come into their own in prolific showy displays, upward facing daturas and pendulous brugmansias make a heroic last stand in the face of their certain demise. Incongruous amidst the surrounding autumn foliage, these tropical beauties, more commonly known as Angel Trumpets, herald their end exuberantly. Terribly toxic, wear gloves when removing dying stalks from the garden. Brugmansia cuttings can be potted and overwintered in cool, dark spots that don’t freeze, like an unheated cellar. Collect datura seeds and start new plants in the spring.

Sure it won’t be the showiest plant in your landscape, and if you’re lucky, many of the leaves will have holes in them by the end of the month, but planting some perennial milkweed (Asclepias) in your garden can bring longer lasting delights than just a few blooms. Sure the flowers are interesting and the seed pods are terrific for crafting. But most importantly, the broad leafed plant plays host for the yellow and black striped Monarch caterpillars, who voraciously work their way through the leaves, seeming to double in size each day. The caterpillars themselves are lovely, and their jade green chrysalis trimmed in gold look like tiny jewels. But the real delight is the lingering garden visitor in autumn colors of oranges, rusts and blacks, who will migrate to Mexico, and just may return next year.

The last time I was in Latvia, I made it a goal to eat some of the country’s great mushrooms at as many meals as possible. A wonderful culture of forest foraging abounds, yielding wonderous displays at farmer’s markets of wild berries and assorted mushrooms. My favorite Latvian meal might be thought of more peasant food than haute cuisine, but mushrooms fried with onions and bacon, finished with cream, and served with a variety of the county’s incredible assortment of deeply flavored potatoes, then topped with fresh dill, is my food of choice. In the city of Riga, we shop at the Tirgus market in the old zepplin hangers. Sold by the kilo, we order up scoops of our favorites.

But this summer, I wanted to join the early-rising, basket-carrying foragers, hoping to find some of Latvia’s famous “Black Gold” mushrooms, the baravikas.
Fortunately for me, a new friend, Sandra, is an expert mushroom hunter. She led me through the forest near her home in Saulkrasti.
The woods are so mossy and spongy, with soaring pines. It’s hard to keep your eyes peeled on the ground to hunt for mushrooms when there is such beauty to see all around. And plenty to taste as well, as the forest floor was carpeted with wild blueberry bushes laden with sweet, ripe berries.
But we were on a mushroom hunt, and find some I did, though fortunately Sandra was there to keep me from picking them. It seems I have an eye only for what’s poisonous. Sandra found plenty of edible varieties of gailenites, bekas, and other assorted senites to bring home to cook. After cleaning and peeling them, Sandra likes to boil her harvest with a small onion, assuring me that the onion will turn bluish purple if any of the mushrooms are poisonous. A bit skeptical of this method, I nevertheless trusted Sandra’s eye for fungi and her expertise at the stove.
During my visit, in addition to my favorite mushroom gravy over potatoes, she prepared a mushroom and eggplant ratatouille, and an incredible mushroom stuffed pepper dish.
Not yet a mushroom expert, but now well-schooled in foraging, I was on the hunt for edible delights in the Gaujas National Forest. Hives of busy bees lead me to a cache of wild raspberries, delightfully sweet. Then there were tiny wild strawberries with their fresh complexity of flavors to savor and ripe red currants and blueberries. To round off our foraging, we sucked the honey out of clover flowers and sampled the new, light green “candles” of pine trees.
Foragers by necessity during the war, rather than out of curiousity and pleasure, my family remembers eating these needle tips, as well as nettle soup.
An excited shout from nearby foraging children lead me to the granddaddy of the baravikas. They were harvesting bagfulls of the prized mushroom, which would no doubt fetch a great price at the market.
After they left with their treasure, I searched the area and found an old giant. Too mature and bug-ridden to have for dinner, it was still nice to finally find one myself that wouldn’t kill me.

When faced with a long layover in Sweden, we relished the opportunity to sample the flavor of the country, if only an appetizer. With a bit of pre-planning, we discovered the city offers an all-inclusive museum and tour pass, the Stockhomsortet, allowing visitors to choose from dozens of destinations for one low price. The pass also includes transportation, making it possible to zip from one museum to the next. Also keeping us efficient was the Arlanda Express train, which whisked us from the airport to the city in under 20 minutes. We took advantage of the two for 250 SEK special, but those travelling without a companion can hook up with other singles to get in on the deal. Once we arrived at the train station, we set out for old town, soaking up the charm of the historic buildings, narrow streets, and delightful coffeeshops and cafes. Window shopping all the way, checking out the variety of Swedish horses, trolls and gnomes, we eventually wandered down to the harbor to see the morning’s commuters stepping off the shuttle boats.

We checked out the guards at the Royal Palace, smartly attired in blue and gold, then strolled across more bridges to more harbors in search of a canal tour ferry, the M/S Emelie. Though advertised with hourly departures from Nybroviken for a 25 minute tour to the island of Djurgarden and Hammarby Sjostad, we could see no signs of her. Ready to give up, we were joined by German tourists who had been in search of Emelie for two days. We all decided to use our passes for the trolley instead, heading to Galarparken to the famous Vasa Museum of the world’s only surviving 17th century ship, and to Junibacken, a lovely tribute to children’s book authors. The highlight was the story train tour, open boxes that meandered through elaborate diaoramas of Astrid Lingren tales. An interactive display of Elsa Beskow settings, including the giant orange from the story “The Sun Egg” was a hit with the tons of toddlers climbing and sliding through the land of Woody, Hazel and Little Pip. A quick trolley ride through Stockhom’s version of Fifth Avenue, and we were back at the train station, then back to the airport, with time to spare. Satiated with our sampler, we can’t wait to return for a full course.

Spent the afternoon in daylily heaven. Connoisseur Jim Stauffer played the perfect host, showing off his 130 varieties planted in the front yard of his Kissel Hill home. Subject to extreme conditions, new varieties must pass the macadam test by weathering a winter in a pot on his driveway. The winners can vie for a spot in his garden and eventually proliferate in the gardens of fans when Stauffer offers the best for sale in the summers. He hosts free garden tours during peak bloom times in June and July.
He also ensures visitors don’t leave empty-handed by gifting each with a small division of a premium variety. But those blown away by the breadth and depth of the display often indulge in larger plants, purchasing their favorites.
Stauffer loves them all, but when pressed, settles on a few outstanding in their classes.
Best everblooming double: the golden D.J. James.
Most fragrant: the cream-colored Vanilla Fluff.
Most unusual form: the hot orange Primal Scream.
Best early bloomer: the large, true pink blooms of Selma Rose.
Largest bloom: the 13-inch blossoms of Webster’s Pink Wonder.
Best rebloomer: the near white Porcelain Ruffles.
Most blooms per stem: the yellow The Jury’s Out.
Best late rebloomer: the red Apache War Dance.
Best eye and edge: the lavender and purple Her Purple Eye Liner.
Best variety to make his wife happy: Sue’s favorite orange-red Alabama Jubilee.