Talbot County’s Buttercup Fields

If you had to choose a color to describe May in Talbot County, it would be hard to not choose yellow. The wild buttercups (ranunculus acris) cover every field that isn’t planted with cover crops. I drove across Delmarva a couple of times recently, and didn’t see much in the way of buttercup fields, till I got back to Talbot County…and then – wham. They’re everywhere. If you drive Rt. 33 out of St. Michaels, toward Tilghman Island, you’re sure to know this one:

This is the field surrounding the long lane leading to a Broad Creek property where the State troopers hide on a regular basis, nabbing their ticket quotas. I pulled in, got out of the car and just sat for a few minutes, watching the birds skim the field of bright gold. It was calming, watching the wind over the buttercups. And it won’t last long – one by one, fields are being turned for corn and beans, and in a few weeks, the buttercups will be a distant memory.

Along the sides of the road, they’ll persist for a while, till the Queen Anne lace takes over, with red clover, chicory, and the native rudbeckias. Until then, I’ll appreciate and celebrate the brilliance of Talbot County buttercups.

Checking oysters, baiting a crabtrap and tiny marsh periwinkles appear…

 

Evenings on Harris Cove

There’s a new feel in the air – day and evening. Daylength-induced? It’s palpable. These are the evenings – the long ones, when fireflies spark the conversation. They’ve been spied nearby, but I haven’t seen any on Harris Cove yet. 

Mid-May. Perfect.

More free food, falling from the sky…

If I hadn’t almost walked into it this morning after our walk, I may not have discovered that the mulberry tree at the edge of the yard is bearing fruit. Luckily, I did almost walk into it. The tree is a particularly good one, because it’s located far away from my everyday activities, so there’s no nuisance or bees, and its branches are low to the ground. I picked a pile of berries from eye level – no shaking branches and no reaching – easy as can be.

We’ll eat these raw, and I’ll mix some into a smoothie and my bran muffin batter later today. The tree has tons of berries, so later this week, I’ll add jam to my list of things to do. I love mulberries, and not just because they’re free food, falling from the sky. They’re packed with nutrients and there’s something wonderful and unruly about fruits that stain everything they touch. If I were a fruit, I just might be a mulberry.

Rigging Elf, the classic racing yacht from 1888

…for the new season. Each fall, Captain Rick Carrion and volunteers remove and carefully store the mast, boom, bowsprit and topping lift,  then in spring – varnish and re-rig them all.  And Rick rigs those lines carefully, because once the 70 foot mast goes up in the air, the only way to change anything is to go up there in a bosun’s chair…….which is pretty tippy.

In the photo below, you can see the tall ship, Sultana towering over the scene. She is at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum for a few weeks, offering educational workshops, visiting from her home port of Chestertown, MD. What you can’t see in the photo below are a few of the crew from Sultana, swimming and frolicking in the Miles River harbor.

A crowd gathered at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum as Pete Mulally, President of Eastern Shore Flagpoles, showed up and set his enormous crane next to the dock. It took about 30 minutes for the crew to lift the mast into place and set it into Elf. It will take another day to fit everything into place. Finally, a shakedown cruise will happen early this week, to put all the sails up and sort everything out. They’ve got one week till the 2nd annual Elf Classic.

The ELf Classic is set for Saturday, May 19th, and features Elf, and 18 other classic yachts – you can see the list of registered yachts here. You can be guaranteed that this race will be beautiful, with 18+ gorgeous classic wooden yachts racing across the Chesapeake Bay.  

The race will be run in the style of the 1880’s featuring the nautical version of a “Le Mans start”. Captains will be rowing their dinghys to their vessels in Annapolis harbor from the Eastport Yacht Club at 9am, competing to be the first to raise their anchors, sails and get underway.

It will take some 6-7 hours to cross the Bay, and the in late afternoon, the captains finish the race by anchoring off the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, and rowing to shore to sign the race log at the bandstand on the museum’s grounds. Last year, some of the captains came up looking pretty sharp in yachting costumes. We can assume that in year 2 of the race, there will be some new twists.

Fomr more information on the Classic Yacht Restoration Guild and the Elf Classic, click here.

50+ food bloggers go into a restaurant….

….and what do you THINK happens?

Well, yeah….cameras are whipped out right and left….

LOTS of photos were taken before anyone touched anything.

Tweets, flying around the globe….. these folks are ON social media. Constantly. In fact, a number of them – in addition to their food blogging, recipe development, consulting, cookbook writing and such – tweet for hire. This was a social media-engaged crowd. It was cool to be in it, and watch them go….

…and go and go. “Well, yeah, I’m re-tweeting your tweet, and we’re sitting right next to each other and it seems dorky” said Jennifer Farley of Savory Simple, “but I’m WORKing” whispered Stephanie Nuccitelli - 26 year old author of 52kitchenadventures whose blog gets over 100,000 hits a month. She offers social media services to Sacramento companies and has blogged for food brands like Lipton, Crock-Pot, McCormick and more. Her media kit even includes her Klout score (46). She is a seriously impressive young woman who knows exactly what she’s doing. The retreat was filled with creative and talented bloggers from around the country and Canada.

But wait – that’s not even the main part of this particular story…..

This was the second day of the Washington, DC food blogging workshop – Eat, Write, Retreat, and we walked a few blocks to Elizabeth’s Gone Raw for lunch. After 25 years in the food business, Elizabeth Petty turned to a raw/vegan diet after dealing with breast cancer treatments. She is cancer-free today, and offers a raw menu inside beautiful urban architecture on Friday evenings.

We had some dozen different tastes including drinks, sushi, desserts, a spring pea salad, her famous kale chips, hummus and spreads, flatbreads, and more. Of course, each was made with organic, raw, natural ingredients – no dairy, no gluten, no meats. This is about living foods, created in inventive, simplistic but complex combinations. 

Elizabeth made a celery sorbet that I will remember for the rest of my life – cold, salty, sweet celery – on a spoon, frozen. More celery flavor might never be possible on one spoon again. And so on….because everything we ate was fantastic. Including this “cheesecake” below – of course there’s no cheese, but ground nuts, etc….

 

How did it taste?

Guess.

Yes. Fantastic.

After lunch, EWR co-founder Casey Benedict interviewed Michael Natkin, chef and author of the award-winning vegetarian blog, Herbivoracious – who autographed copies of his new cookbook for us all and told stories of the book writing, marketing and tour that he’s on right now, courtesy of The Harvard Common Press.

Here’s Stephanie Nuccitelli on the right, with Ariana Bastianini who handlers PR for OXO – an event sponsor who sent us home with more awesome swag than you could ever imagine…..how did everyone get all that stuff onto their planes to go home? We got SERIOUS loot.

 …and some raw vegan “sushi”….

…and delicious ginger-something cocktails.

Overall, the lunch, the place, the story, the talk, the food, the experience? On a one to ten scale?

Ten.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what we learned about food photography…or….maybe about our morning in culinary school? Stay tuned and you’ll get that and more.

The osprey took flight

…just as we passed their nest on the mark. Both of them – off in separate directions, near us enough that we could feel the wind from their wings.  I closed my eyes, and took a deep whiff. Salty water and air smushed together to make a perfect memory – and my mind rocketed back to the feeling of freedom – as a teenager – when I was heading off to the beach with my friends.

 Exhilaration. Freedom. Summer. Beach. All in a flash of a moment. And we motored on past….