Last weekend I harvested Jerusalem artichokes with friends at their community garden. These are generous plants, each stalk producing about five pounds of crunchy tubers. With eight pounds of chokes in my possession, I decided to plant a couple at the farm, store some in the crisper for later use—perhaps in a creamy gratin—, and pickle most in brine in the basement. The chokes have been burping like frogs in their crock now for about five days and are nearly ready to eat.On the farm mom and I have been swimming in quince. My room at the farm doubles as the produce pantry, and while quince’s perfume is lovely when emitted by one or two set on the kitchen counter, I’m here to tell you that sleeping in the company of 20 pounds of quince is overwhelming. Its perfume gobbles up every particle of air much like bacon does on a slow Sunday morning. We’ve turned the fruit into quince paste and lemongrass/ginger/quince jam.
Our apple orchard offered meager fruit this year, but we managed to harvest a few handfuls of Pink Lady apples and have benefited from the generosity of my little sister’s in-laws who dropped off a box of Red Delicious from their backyard tree. The abundance of quince (and this is only its first year in production) has more than made up for the lack of apples. Last week, we found ourselves with just enough apples to pair with the quince to make a large dish of hearty brown sugar and oat topped crisp.
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