Malus domestica
ROSACEAE, The Rose family

A new favorite! A medium size, late-ish apple (mid October) with clear green-gold skin, a rusty blush and beautiful reddish lenticels. It is sweet and slightly tart.
I chose it as one to serve at the studio show because it resists browning when cut. I was delighted with the flavor and texture, as were my apple collecting field trip companions.

The other apples for the show:
Braeburn
Empire
Cameo
Critereon

We visited Kiyokawa Family Orchard and the Draper Girls again. The two little pigs were up to their neck in pumpkin. (Happy as a pig in pumpkin?)

The new places we visited were Apple Valley, which had a lot of good food for sale such as pear dumplings, and Cascade Alpacas. They have a herd of 40 animals that they raise for fiber. Have you ever seen a baby Alpaca? Very shy but incredibly sweet, the two-week-old bleated and trotted around its mother. The other animals were also timid, unless you had some alpaca chow in your hand.

Crape myrtle
LYTHRACEAE, The Loosestrife family

Fun facts about Crape myrtle:

1) They have gorgeous fall color!

2) They are in the same family as Lawsonia, the source of henna, Cuphea, a group of popular ornamental annuals, and Lythrum, genus of the dreaded purple loostrife.

ERICACEAE, The Heath family

At first glance it looks like Drimys..
dark pink stems,
neat, upright habit.

The spring blooms will be pink, small with crinkled petals.
But really it is pretty now.

Vitis vinifera
VITACEAE, The Vine family

It was a nice weekend in Seattle:

Yuko and her friend Zach took us to Woodinville for wine tasting. It was a beautiful misty day- perfect fall colors. First we went to Chateau Ste. Michelle, where there were peacocks on the lawn. The tour guide reminded me of Liz Lemon. One of our favorites in the tasting room was 2006 Columbia Valley Muscat Canelli: sweet, but still light and crisp, with ginger and pear scents.

We visited Columbia Winery, which had nice landscaping. The wineries here use grapes grown on the other side of the Cascade Range, in Eastern Washington, where the weather is much drier and the temperatures are more extreme. To top it off we lunched (and tasted beers) at Red Hook Brewery.

Muscat grapes, called Moscato in Italian, are used to make Asti Spumante.

Horse Chestnut
HIPPOCASTANACEAE, The Horse Chestnut family

Volunteer Park has a winding road lined with Horse chestnut trees. The nuts were falling all over the ground (they are not edible). Michael and I had a nice time there today, walking among the beeches, cedars and glowing katsuras. The dahlia garden is fun to look at. The Asian art museum there is a neat building (and there is a good Katagami exhibit there now). We also went to Cal Anderson Park in Capitol Hill neighborhood to meet Yuko. There is an interesting fountain over a covered resevior. Luckily, Seattle in autumn is beautiful in the rain.

CAMPANULACEAE, The Bellflower family

Today my coworker and I visited Mostly Medicinals nursery. One of the things that caught my attention was an attractive vine I remember well from the woodland garden at Kew (in photo).

The nodding bell shaped flowers have an intricate purple and gold pattern. I knew it was tolerant of dry shade, but I didn’t know it was an important herb in TCM. It is hardy perennial in zones 5 to 9, where it can grow 6 to 10 feet long.

Apple
ROSACEAE, The Rose family

The first apples appeared at the farmer’s market today. One stand had Gravenstein and McIntosh. I was so excited to see them. After this long summer of berries and peaches and other delights, the best is yet to come.

Gravenstein is early, large, irregularly shaped and very fragrant. The two I bought are a clear greenish yellow with red striping on half, which is the classic coloration. There is also a sport that is much redder called ‘Red Gravenstein’. Gravenstein is an heirloom apple that originated in Denmark and is now grown widely, especially on the US West Coast and in Nova Scotia. While a few commercial growers still produce thousands of tons in the Sonoma Valley, Slow Food USA considers it endangered because it is being out-competed by easier to grow and harvest apples (Gravenstein has short stems and the fruits ripen over a long period, making harvest labor intensive), and small orchard lands are being developed.

I am going to grate these apples and mix them into pancake batter.

Golden Fall Raspberries
ROSACEAE, The Rose family

Fall raspberries are such a nice surprise. Just when you think berries are a thing of the past (at least for another year), fall and everbearing canes put forth a nice little crop. These golden raspberries are fragile and delicately flavored. You must eat them right away. I know golden raspberries were the plant of the day already, but this is a different cultivar.

We picked some yesterday at a nice little farm in Hillsboro, Smith’s Berry Farm. They had several kinds of berries ripe for the picking, as well as U-pick vegetables, friendly goats, milkshakes and a cute little shop with French soaps and culinary items.

ROSACEAE, The Rose family

U-pick.

I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

This book is to me about food as Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber is to me about synthetic chemicals. Both books are well written and well researched. They are personal, political, hopeful and practical. They both get to the point about what’s wrong, what could change and why it matters.

Kingsolver talks about the relationship between country folk and city folk, how that relationship has more to do with what divides our country than abstract notions of red and blue. It made me reconsider, in a larger context, the relationship between my four cousins who grew up on a farm, and my sisters and I, from ‘the cities’.

Over and over the point is made that changes will happen when we as a society value awareness of our food, make efforts to preserve cultural knowledge, and stay connected/reconnect to food and land. We have to be engaged: to wonder and care and doing something about it.

I’m all inspired to eat more from the farmer’s market, pick more of my own food, find a place to grow it myself, and save food for winter.

The more you know about where food comes from, the harder the choices at the grocery store. For me, buying food was already fraught with some anxiety, but also much pleasure. But even more so after reading this book: I have a sense of food, food everywhere and not a bite to eat. No clearly sound options. The fruit section, for instance, at my doorstep Wild Oats (soon to be Whole Foods!), right now has seasonal fruits next to completely out of season ones, conventionally grown foods mixed in with organic, and local along with produce from Chile, Argentina and other places on other continents.

Just to compound the dilemma, I’m aware that this is richness: having a store with so many affordable foods available every day. Many people on earth don’t have access to this kind of abundance. So I don’t turn my nose up at it- I just feel like I have a responsibility to use it wisely, to direct production towards the greater food with my small food dollars, if possible.

I no longer consider bananas staple food, as I had for my whole life up until last week. I used to buy organic bananas, but I never really thought about their transportation miles.
Today I rejected the organic peaches (I will pick some farm fresh ones for myself soon,) and the plums (conventional and therefore suspect,) and the berries ($6/half pint!), and everything else. I did, however, buy local, organic huckleberries ($4/pint).