Posts Tagged ‘rustic’
collards!
garden to table
this time of year you see collards everywhere. the frost has sweetened them up, and out in the country, you might see a whole truck load of collards. if a crowd is coming for new years, you may see people cooking up a black cast iron pot full over a fire. some people still do it that way, but most cook a big pot full in the house. we picked a pile of leaves and simply chopped them up, and cooked them down. we ate them seasoned up with a little soy sauce and apple cider vinegar. we had enough to eat for 4 days, just keeping them in the pot on the back porch at night. good eatin’!
spring like weather
in the country
over the holidays, we had a lot of pleasant warm weather. sunny and 60’s in the daytime. a couple of days, it felt more like spring, with grey skies threatening rain and just blowing on by.
red barn beauty
homes and habitats
i visited a new friend and was captivated by his mindblowing red barn. check out these pics!
romanesco cauliflower soup
garden to table
i always love getting our weekly box of fresh vegetables from our farm. this week was especially exciting when we opened up our box and saw this amazing romanesco cauliflower. last night we made some soup with it. one of many wintry soups to come.
recipe follows
unloading the kiln
in the country
it’s a long process to produce wood fired pots. first, there’s cutting and hauling and stacking all the wood. then there’s the making and glazing, then the loading, bricking up the doors, then 6 days of firing around the clock. but the hardest week of all is the week after the firing is over,when you have to WAIT for the kilns to cool off so you can see the results! finally the doors are taken down and we can see inside. everyone is anxious to see how it all turned out. there’s winners and losers, surprises and failures. it’s all a continual learning process. luckily for me, i made out like a bandit with lots of good surprises and great textures and colors. yeah!
a country retreat
homes and habitats
when john and carolyn malone’s cabin made its first appearance on their spread just south of high shoals, it was a pile of logs on a flat-bed truck. now, thirty years later, it forms the heart of a light-filled complex of cabins and farm buildings transformed by john’s beautifully proportioned window panes and by carolyn’s dexterous use of humble textiles, utilitarian objects, and simple furnishings that reflect the owners’ deep connection to their home, and to the world beyond their sturdy walls.
this place proves that comfort doesn’t have to be derived from central heat and a.c., or from room-sized walk-in closets. it’s derived from implementing your vision, from living how you love.
the kitchen wing was added later. john decorates his chinking with a fringe of stones. a guest-room bedpost peeks out from the handmade window above.
guests awake to the scent of a crackling fire and coffee brewing in the kitchen below.
delicate green tendrils soften the conical light fixtures and industrial edge of the kitchen’s suspended shelf system, both designed and implemented by john, of course.
a profusion of vines as well as tall pines lend natural insulation to the buildings’ thick log walls.
click read more, it’s worth it!
