Along the way I’ll be taking cooking classes, and although I don’t think I’ll do much blogging from the road — I’m not taking a computer, just a camera and phone — I may want to share some recipes when I’m back. That is, if I ever come back.

See you on the flip side!

This weekend, Berkshire Grown does their thing in Williamstown and Great Barrington on Saturday from 10-2. Full details at Berkshire Grown’s website, including a cute little video made by some Williams students. Bennington, VT is also getting into the spirit on Saturday with a holiday market at St. Peter’s Church in Bennington.

These markets are always great fun, and it’s encouraging and surprising to see just how much food there is available so deep in winter. Go, and get yourself something delicious for Christmas dinner — or whatever else you like to celebrate at this time of year. (Celebrating the return of longer days post-solstice is enough for me!)

The sound of grasses whispering in the wind, tides crashing up against rocks; the tastes of dungeness crab, wild mushrooms, crisp beers kissed with hops; the sight of the Pacific fading from ice-blue to pink at the horizon, someone’s footsteps stamped in a staccato march across the charcoal gray sand.

The first week back at work after a long vacation is brutal. It doesn’t matter where you went, or how long you stayed — it’s difficult to make that transition a smooth one. Dano and I spent the past two weeks working our way from San Francisco, to Mendocino, to Ashland and Portland, Oregon, visiting friends and family, awestruck, delighted — and savoring some really amazing meals together. Re-entry has been hard, and the red eye flight home — and the subsequent three-hour drive to our house — didn’t really help matters. I find myself awake for hours, moodily, at three in the morning, plowing through the remnants of novels once abandoned, then sleeping late, my internal clock a bit hazy.

We promised ourselves we’d eat well upon our return — such was our gluttony while away. (Have you guys ever been to Portland, Oregon? This was my fourth visit, but holy hell, the food scene there is insane.) And mostly we’ve stuck to it, making hearty but interesting and nutritious meals bolstered mainly by Dano having obtained, before we left, the really fantastic Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi. Plenty is a delight to cook from — all vegetarian recipes with unique and unexpected flavors using simple and surprising ingredients. Last night, we cooked a dish using Persian lime — something we happened to have, but had never used before.

Persian limes are rock-hard, brown dried little orbs. They give off a great citrusy, sweet, and sort of barnyard scent that you sometimes find in wine — and which I happen to like a lot. Wondering, as we were, what the heck to do with them, we were overjoyed to see this simple and fun little recipe. Ottolenghi recommends tossing them whole into stews, where they’ll perfume the whole pot, but for this recipe you grind them up in a spice grinder. (We use an old coffee grinder.) One Persian lime makes about two tablespoons ground, which is exactly what you need for this recipe. As far as we can tell, they last forever. No Persian lime? You can order it ground from Kalyustan’s, or search for it at a local middle eastern market.

The flavors are bold, layering bright, sharp herbs like mint and oregano with the subtle warmth of sage, and the zesty funk of Persian lime. It makes a great light dinner, or you could serve it as a side dish in a larger meal.

• It tastes better.
• It enhances our landscape.
• It creates jobs.
• It protects natural habitats.

Keep Farming is a grassroots, community-first workflow of sorts that aims to eliminate impediments to farming in rural communities like the Northern Berkshires. Join us for a Keep Farming Kickoff event on Monday, October 24 @ 7 PM at the First Baptist Church on Main St. in North Adams. If you’re interested in local food, land preservation, healthy air and water, economic growth, or beautiful vistas in North Berkshire County, you will have something in common with the other farmers, residents, local officials, and local business people who will be present at the event.

Please join us.

(And if you want a PDF of the posters to print and distribute, let me know.)

If you don’t follow me on Instagram (frangrit), you probably missed the comment-inducing photo of my dining table coated in a layer of ripening plum tomatoes. Yes, covered. Dan’s rough estimations put the tomato count at somewhere between 300 and 400. That is a lot of tomatoes.

The thing is, a hurricane was barreling up the coast. It was imperative that I pick them before they became waterlogged and ravaged by the wind. So, one afternoon I spent a few hours in the tomato beds at the farm, and hauled out two five-gallon buckets full of blushing tomatoes. Farmer Don assured me they’d ripen off the vine — “on your porch” was what he said, and I should be so lucky as to have a porch that sunlight actually reaches (have you seen my backyard?). But they ripened just fine on the table in the sunniest room in the house, and Dan and I were content — somewhat — to eat our dinner on the coffee table in the living room, seated on the floor, with the dog peering hungrily over our shoulders.

Sadly, some of these tomatoes were lost to some spotty rot, but I managed to salvage almost all of them, or cut out the less offensive spots. Then, just like last year, I proceeded to roast, sauce, and can them over a period of two weeks.

Tonight, the weather calls for a frost, so this is probably the very last I’ll see of tomatoes for another ten months. Goodbye, my darlings; I loved you so!

We were thankfully safe, and relatively dry, after Irene raged through town, but some of our neighbors were not so lucky. It was hard not to feel just a little embittered at the folks down in New York shouting Overrreaction! while whole towns and historic covered bridges rattled down swollen rivers in Vermont.

But, like I say, we were safe and dry, and only lost power for a few minutes. Which meant that my emergency plan of grilling and canning the rapidly melting food in the freezer thankfully never came to fruition. Instead, one rainy evening, I made a meal that looks toward autumn, while still taking full advantage of the plentiful; produce of summer — roast local chicken (Square Roots Farm), small salted red potatoes, chard sauté with dill, parley, and green onions, and smashed purple haze carrots with cumin and caraway. The last one is the recipe I want to share with you today.

Kimchi fried rice is the ultimate hangover lunch.

I’m developing a bit of a Korean food addiction, and it’s all thanks to my dear friend Lina, who sent along a simple book of Korean recipes after she visited us recently.

First, I made a few batches of cucumber kimchi. Easy. (Undeniably delicious, too.) Then, I branched out to the  more traditional kimchi, using locally-grown cabbage from Square Roots Farm, and kohlrabi and garlic chives from our CSA. My recipe was a sort of hybrid of Tigress’s, and David Lebovitz’s. It seems nearly impossible to really mess it up. It sat on the counter for about a week, and has that fermented, sharp, spicy, crunchy kimchi thing going on — you know what I mean if you love kimchi. If I had the capacity, and stamina, to make the 20 or so pounds Tigress makes, well, I’d be a happy (and garlicky) woman.

In the meantime, I dump great crimson piles of kimchi on just about everything, and I prepare this, the ultimate hangover lunch: kimchi fried rice.

Yes, I am one of those people who hates runny eggs.

Actually, scratch the hangover modifier. This is just a really good lunch. Top it with a fried egg, and feel free to swap in other vegetables or even meat. The original recipe calls for 4 ounces of pork loin to be browned with the onion in a little bit of vegetable oil, before adding everything else. Also, although I used white rice, brown works, too — and it really is best with leftovers (though that hasn’t stopped me from making a pot of rice in the morning to fry later that afternoon). However you do it, it’s fantastic, and it’ll take all the willpower you can muster not to eat both servings straight out of the pan as you hover over the stovetop, chopsticks — or fork — in hand.

Dilly beans, pre-bath

For the third year in a row, Berkshire Grown is offering a spate of canning and preserving workshops throughout Berkshire county. The first, tonight, is a kid-friendly pickling workshop at Wild Oats in Williamstown. The events continue through August and September, covering cheesemaking, lacto-fermentation, preserving in spirits (that sounds appealing!), seed saving, and more.

Check out the full calendar at the Berkshire Grown website for details.

Aisle of raspberries at Caretaker Farm

We must be nearing the end of summer, because the weather has turned hazy, with filtered yellow light settling down over everything. And every afternoon I hear the sound of a particular summertime insect — maybe you know it? The one that sounds like a sizzling electrical wire? That bug means it’s hot, said Dano the other day. It’s true.

Last Friday at the farm I found myself waist-deep in a patch of raspberries, turning over leaves in order to find the ripe ones. Then I found this fellow.

I don’t usually snap shots of bugs or wildlife, but I grabbed my camera. What a summer, I thought. What a place.

So, in case you were wondering, the above is what twenty pounds of cucumbers looks like. I picked them up from the farm on Saturday morning (they filled an entire industrial five gallon bucket), one of the many perks of membership at our CSA. Every summer there’s gobs of produce for preserving — last year, I canned twenty-five pounds of tomatoes, and roasted another twenty-five pounds. I plan to do it again this year.

That is, if these cucumbers don’t kill me.

You see, twenty pounds of cucumber is a lot of cucumbers. Or a lot of pickles.

Here’s what I’ve done with them, or plan to do very soon (i.e., today or tomorrow). What would you do with so many cucumbers?

• About five pounds went into crock pickles (fermenting on the countertop as I write this)
• Another two or so pounds went into cucumber kimchi (pictured above) — this stuff is going to be spicy
• A few pounds went into some liters of refrigerator pickles along with some fresh farm dill, garlic scapes, and myriad dried spices (I tasted at lunch today and found, to my surprise, they already taste good)
• I think I’ll also hot-water bath can some traditional dill spears
• And make some other, Asian-inspired fridge pickles

What the heck else can I do?

• Matt Bites has a great-looking cucumber lemongrass agua fresca recipe
• Happy Valley Locavore (hi, neighbor!) has a simple cucumber basil salad with tomatoes
• Then of course there’s tabbouleh — David Lebovitz’s recipe looks delicious, and I could add cukes
• Oh, and Korean cold cucumber soup

Any other ideas?