Pleasant House

lawn and garden

Originally uploaded by art and chel

If it grows together, it goes together. Even the weeds in your lawn go with the vegetables in your garden. Here, a variety of tomatoes and tomatillos, herbs, chilies and your backyard chicken simmer away. When everything has sufficiently married, the tomatoes have begun to break down, a tangle of purslane, a common weed you may find in your lawn, is chopped into 4 inch sections and dropped into the stew. Put a lid over the pot and let the purslane steam until tender. The stew can be served as is with tortillas or with brown rice.

It is mid-August and Zone 5 is blowing up. The hot weather and intermittent showers have brought forth juicy tomatoes by the bucket-load. It’s been a bit of a tomato rave around these parts with all of the salads, pastas, sauces, and gazpachos. When I transferred a load of ripe black cherry tomatoes into a gallon pitcher, I was reminded of two things: 1. How Bruce over at Chicago Green Roof Growers told me that I’d be amazed at these black cherry tomatoes when they start growing. I picked up my starter plants from him. 2. How great it would be if the pitcher holding the cherry tomatoes were transformed into a pitcher holding bloody mary mix. So! After some careful thought and calculations, The Pleasant House Black Cherry Bloody Mary Mix was born. Rich, tomato-ey, and spiked with Chelsea and Morgan’s grandpa’s horseradish and some rooster spur chili (thanks to Bruce once again) and few more “secret but not so secret” ingredients, this bloody mary mix is the summer garden deconstructed. That’s a little star-shaped basil ice cube that melts into the bloody mary as it is stirred. Oh, and it’s no secret that our bloody marys are mixed with gin, not vodka.

cucumber martini

Originally uploaded by art and chel

We all know that you can eat your garden, but just to keep things exciting, I recommend drinking it every now and again, too. This is an adult beverage that is best savored after a long day of sweating in the garden under the hot sun. A simple gin martini–shaken, not stirred–with fresh cucumber and lime juices. You deserve it.

Who doesn’t love a theme? The best themed events are those that aren’t forced and instead come together organically. I admit, I’ve had the idea of having a Christmas in July party for quite some time now–in fact, for about a year-and-a-half, ever since Chelsea’s English (figgy) pudding began curing in the refrigerator.

Right before Christmas 2008, Chelsea prepared two figgy puddings with the intention of steaming one for the upcoming Christmas and the other for the following Christmas. We steamed the first one for Christmas 2008. When July 2009 rolled around, I saw the pudding in the back of the fridge and suggested we steam it. When Christmas 2009 rolled around, once again I thought of steaming it up. But another Christmas came and went.

This July, my distant cousin Baz and his friend Lyndsay from Sheffield and Darbarshire England, respectively, visited America for the first time. They stayed with us for a long Fourth of July weekend, which allowed them to join in our neighborhood garden party with friends and food. I roasted a whole goat in the Caja China and guests brought dishes to pass. During the planning stages of the event I thought of other things to serve and the elusive figgy pudding again caught my eye. A fresh cucumber growing in the garden and a hankering by all for Pimm’s Cups helped to inspire a signature cocktail called the Stroppy Sheep.

English house guests, a box of leftover Christmas crackers, the makings of an English garden, fireworks, Stroppy Sheep, July, flambeed dessert. This was the perfect recipe for a Christmas in July.

flaming figgy pudding

Baz, Lyndsay, Chelsea

‘Twas the night of the Fourth and all through the garden
A goat had been roasted and Stroppy Sheep toasted.
Beer kegs blew and bottle rockets flew,
The streets were littered with shrapnel like World War II.
Friends were made, Ranchera was played
And at the darkest of night it was the moment of truth.
We’d douse the pudding with 101 proof.
Then out on the lawn there arose such a clatter.
As the figgy pudding glowed and the crackers snapped,
Everyone gathered proceeded to clap.
Christmas in July, what better way to celebrate the Fourth of July?

Link to the recipe for Stroppy Sheep here.

goat tacos

Originally uploaded by art and chel

A shoulder from the previously roasted whole goat was braised in cast iron over the grill. The pot was lined with banana leaves and filled with goat stock, guajillo chili, garlic, onion, tomato, and beer. The tender nature of the meat makes for DIY tacos at the table.

roasted goat

Originally uploaded by art and chel

Crispy, tender, succulent. Marinated with olive oil, rosemary, and sea salt. Basted with melted butter, crushed garlic, lemon, lime, orange, sea salt, and Ethiopian peppercorn.

I will say, right off the bat, that when someone tells you they are going to show you the “real” anything, it means that they are unabashedly biased and passionate about the subject, whether it be their favorite dish, sport, motorcycle, or in this case, a state, city, and region. It’s important to preface this post with such a disclaimer so as not to offend anyone who may live in other parts of the beautiful and unique State of Florida.

Chelsea and I had only a few days to spend with her brother Morgan, our friends Tim and Nicole, and Morgan’s posse who live in and around the Tallahassee area of Florida’s panhandle. We were excited to learn that Morgan had mapped out our stay in advance and that our exciting ride would be devoid of pirates, gigantic personified rodents, magical castles, expensive tickets, and long lines. Instead, our journey would involve poisonous snakes, meat-eating plants, magical forests, and gigantic sea cows.

carnivorous pitcher plant

copperhead, a poisonous snake

The area we visited around Tallahassee, and much of the entire Florida panhandle, is considered to be a global hot-spot of biodiversity. Chelsea and I will admit that going to Florida came with the prospect of going swimming. In the end, we went swimming, but not on a manmade, white sand beach, and there were no palm trees. Our swimming took place in and among the waterways, the backdrop composed of the flora, fauna, and wildlife of this incredibly lush and delicate ecosystem that stretches from the forest to the Gulf of Mexico.

The real Florida, I would learn, has more than 10,000 natural springs that flow out of the porous limestone and clay earth. Groundwater trickles out of rock faces called steepheads and cuts ravines into the forest that support endangered wildlife and plant-life that are unique to these micro-environments. Some species of salamanders, for example, can only be found in the isolated pools of a particular steephead. In Morgan’s words, this area is “a pliopleistocene sand deposit, deposited roughly 10,000 years ago during the last ice age…northern tree species migrated south and got stuck in ravine forests (beech-magnolia forests) when sealevels dropped as glaciers melted. They are fractal-like in composition, rare in nature!”

Morgan’s friend Daniel lives in and tends to a sizable chunk of steephead forest, and he and his wife, Mary, educated us about the area even more during our visit to their property. We admired some baby hummingbirds above their back porch as well as impressive pyramid magnolia trees, Florida anise, and oakleaf hydrangea.

While later canoeing down the tranquil, Jules Verne-esque Wakulla River, a crisp natural spring itself, Chelsea came face-to-face with a large manatee. The gentle endangered beast bumped the middle of the canoe, raised its face out of the water, and spun around onto its back. Human interaction with manatees is highly discouraged, as there are only a few thousand of these animals left in the wild, and some fear they could become too used to humans. Manatees can often be identified by their scars, a result of being gashed by motorboat propellers. I guess humans have been known to love things to death.

Wakulla River

A trip to Apalachicola on the Gulf Coast revealed white sandy beaches, but not like the ones I’m used to seeing in Miami. These northern gulf beaches are lined with dunes and native foliage. The sand of these dunes and beaches were not trucked in or dredged up from the ocean itself, but carried through the earth from the very forests that we visited an hour or so inland by way of springs and groundwater. It was nice to find that the water temperature of the gulf is extremely warm compared to that of the natural springs, which is very cool and crisp. The springs also had a therapeutic effect on me, making my skin and hair feel fresh and clean–kind of like all the feelings of Irish Spring, without the soap.

sand dunes, Gulf of Mexico, St. George Island

Morgan also took us to farmers’ markets; fish markets that specialize in gulf seafood; his friend Ben’s mushroom farm, Manatee Mushroom Farm; and Ben’s intensive home garden. While my cold-weather greens were bolting and tomato seedlings were just getting used to the outdoors back in Chicago, it was incredible to see tomatoes already ripening on the vine, ripe peaches, and squash vines proliferating from a compost pile like a gigantic octopus. We munched on freshly picked carrots and spotted an endangered gopher tortoise hanging out in the garden. There is one downfall to touring such an amazing garden: bugs and mosquitoes. Chelsea sustained some pretty big mosquito welts, but it was good to learn that tiger balm delivers quick relief.

gopher tortoise

We celebrated our last night in Tallahassee at Morgan’s friend Beau’s house. I already waxed about that meal and couldn’t think of a more real experience to celebrate our introduction to the “real Florida.”

What does “real” mean to me now, after I’ve interpreted it through the eyes of those who call it so? It means real beautiful, fragile, unique, fascinating, and worth preserving. Morgan is also drawn to the great music scene and sense of community that exists there. If you get a chance, check it out for yourself. Thanks to Morgan, Tim, Nicole, Beau, Josh, Daniel, Mary, Ben, Grant, and anyone we may have missed.

Morgan’s Florida links: