Lifescapes

This Week in the Garden: Tomato Hornworms

Tomato hornworm. Yuck. If you grow tomatoes, you undoubtedly recognize this Big Green Monster, which can grow to be the size of your index finger, if you don't put an end to him before then. One season, I pulled a gross (in both meanings of that word) of these critters off my tomatoes.

They weren't as bad this year, but I stlll found a dozen or so--and squashed every one I found. I have a live-and-let-live disposition, but not where hornworms are concerned. They adore nightshades, and if you don't stop them in their tracks, their next targets of opportunity will be your peppers, potatoes, and eggplants. (If you're growing tobacco--we'll assume you're not--they'll go there, too.) Because they're green, they're hard to spot, but I've read that they glow under ultraviolet light (showoffs!). So if you have a black light, you might give it a try.

Please note: if the caterpillar has what looks like grains of white rice all over him, don't squash. He's being parasitized by a helpful wasp (helpful to you, that is). More wasps, fewer hornworm caterpillars.

If you can't bring yourself to squash, you can spray with Bt. Personally, I prefer to squish. It satisfies the soul

Of course, the Big Green Monster is only one stage in the maturation of this creature. You may also recognize his momma: the five-spotted hawkmoth.

If you're in the garden after dark, you may have seen this one: she's nocturnal--and about the size of a hummingbird.She has a long tongue, so she's helpful when it comes to pollinating tubular flowers. And because she works the night shift, she pollinates plants that bloom at night. Your moonflower, for instance, or your neighbor's datura.

But this hawkmoth has a dark side, because she prefers to lay her eggs on the underside of your tomato leaves. 6-8 days later, they'll hatch, start to eat, and begin the transformations that take them to Big Green Monster status. Assuming you don't finish them off, they'll completely defoliate your plants, then turn into pupae, like these two, found in one of the containers where I was growing tomatoes on the deck.

We live in a world full of mysteries, and all living things have their place in the natural order. But this is one creature that any tomato grower would be glad to live without.

Reading note. God in His wisdom made the fly/And then forgot to tell us why.--Ogden Nash

Works-in-progress: July

Happy news! I've just finished The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star and am coming up for air. I finished the last chapter on Saturday (thanks to Bill for reading the whole thing, carefully!), and finished the recipes, "tips from the Dahlias" (this set features home-crafted cosmetics), and the reading list yesterday. I zapped it off to New York, just to keep me from further tinkering (inveterate tinkerer, I). But of course it isn't finished. There may be editorial revisions (usually not), certainly copy editing, then galleys to proofread, and finally bound books. So it's still a work-in-progress.

The recipes, as usual, are regional, with historical interest. As you might guess, I'm more interested in how a particular food came about and how it was prepared, given the resources of the time. For instance, coconut in a 1930s recipe for sweet potato pie. What kind of coconut did a housewife have available to her at that time? Was it canned? Packaged? Fresh? I've found some information (mostly from post-WW2) but didn't resolve my questions--if you know something about this, please comment with a link or a reference that I can check out. 

Another work-in-progress. The photo above is my current needlepoint project, a pattern designed by Laura Perin, who blogs at Two-Handed Stitcher. Since I hadn't done anything quite like this before, I got a kit (saves shopping online for a chart, canvas, threads). It's working up beautifully--I like it so much that I've ordered another, just the chart this time. I'm also a quilter, so these quilt patterns rendered in needlepoint are a joy. And I love the colors! I work on this in the evenings, in front of the television or a movie--a relaxing change from the day's work.

I think of my Pinterest boards as a work-in-progress, too. I'm using them to "file" and display things I'm doing: various interests, research, projects, and so on. You can follow my boards here--lots of boards because I have plenty of (too many?) projects.

On the list of works-in-progress for the coming week: clean and reorganize my writing studio, which is a terrible mess. There are piles of books everywhere that have to be carted back to their bookshelves. There are papers and mail to sort and file. And the floor (naturally) is adrift with billows of puppy fur. (Yes, that's Molly's butt in the lower left: she's sleeping on her bed under the desk.) In case you're wondering, I currently have two computers because I'm using the desktop for writing (it runs on XP) and email and the laptop for web work (Windows 7). I don't like the email program on it, but I suppose I'll have to get used to it. XP won't be around forever.

After a book is finished (more or less), I always stop and take stock--and a deep breath. Then it's time for a nap.

Reading note. Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.--Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown's Little Book of Wisdom

 

July Book Update

My publisher (at my request) changed the publication date for the Darling Dahlias series from July to September, so The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose won't be out until September 4. But The DDs and the Naked Ladies is on the old schedule, so the paperback is out this week. If you haven't read it, now's your chance--also available in e-format and audio. 

If you're curious, I asked for the pub date to be changed because it was too close to the April pub date for the China Bayles series, which made it hard to manage the usual book promotion. And since the Cottage Tales series (which always came out in September) is now concluded, we just tucked the Dahlias into the Cottage Tales slot and called it done.

The DDs and the Confederate Rose captured a big thumbs-up review from Publishers Weekly, the dominant industry review magazine. The reviewer calls it "captivating" (that's nice!) and adds: "Charming characters, a fast-paced plot, and a strong sense of history help make this a superior cozy." Makes me smile and delights the ladies of Darling's premier garden club.

Nearly finished: The DDs and the Texas Star  --a mystery that features a flying circus that lands in Darling in July, 1932. I'm making the last editing pass through the manuscript but still have to rewrite a chapter, write the final chapter, and finish up the recipes and Lizzy's Garden Gate newspaper column.

I might have finished this project a week or so sooner, but at the last minute (in the writing process) I was surfing some 1930s airplane sites and stumbled on a book called On the Wing: Jessie Woods and the Flying Aces Air Circus, which is loaded with wonderful stories and revealing details of a wing-walker's life in a flying circus. The book is full of richly realistic background material for the Texas Star, but it has resulted in a substantial rewrite of the airplane and circus scenes and a makeover of a couple of the characters.

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Susan on Pinterest

 

Tonight, I'll be watching The Great Waldo Pepper again: more research. Extra fun: the movie stars Robert Redford (be still my heart) and was filmed in Elgin, Tx.

Some people might call this writing thing "work," but to me, it is a great delight, most of the time (except for possibly between 4-5 in the afternoon, when I'd like nothing better than a nap).

I've been filing some of the photos and documents I use for the 1930s research--hair, hats, clothing, furniture, food, tableware, etc.--on my Darling Dahlias Pinterest board. Have a look. 

Reading note: Real reading, of course, is a kind of work. But it’s lovely work. To read well, you have to respond actively to what the writer’s saying. You can’t just lie there on the couch and let it pour over you. You may have to read with a pencil in hand and underline passages and write notes in the margins.--Wendell Berry

 

 

 

The Joys of Cooking

 

For me, one of the great delights of my life as a writer is learning new things every single day. For the past several months, I've been working on the 2013 Garden Club mystery, The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star. Because the books are set in the 1930s, this involves a lot of research--and a lot of learning, some of which I've been photo-documenting via a Pinterest board. 

Since this series is "cozy," foods and cooking are important, and of course there's a recipe section in the back of the book. Since the Dahlias are Southerners (the town of Darling is located in southern Alabama), the foods are regional. And since the action is set in the 1930s, the characters are cooking and eating 1930s food, both at home and in the local diner.

Well. southern food is pretty easy, as it turns out, and the information is easy to get. Witness the large number of hits you get when you google "southern food." And then of course there are the dozens of good Southern cookbooks. Hush puppies, grits, fried green tomatoes, red-eye gravy, buttermilk pie, stewed okra--there's no shortage of great regional foods for Lizzy, Verna, Myra May and the others to enjoy.

But while many foods are timeless (okra was first documented as a vegetable in Egypt in 1216), others are definitely rooted in history. In this case, in the U.S., in the 1930s. Vinegar pie, for example (I have my mom's recipe, clipped from a 1934 newspaper). And "Canned Sandwich Filling," from a 1932 cookbook, which begins this way: "At butchering time take the liver, kidneys, lights, melts, rinds from lard meat, cleaned, bony head pieces, etc. Cook until meat drops from bones..." Spam, anybody?

Let's cut to the chase. In the mystery I'm working on, the Dahlias are creating a party menu, and they would like to serve quiche. But wait! What about quiche? It's French, right? No, I remember seeing it--as a savory pudding--when I translated a 14th century English cookbook years ago. But what about 1930s Americans? Did they eat quiche? Was there a 1930s recipe for quiche?

Well, yes, there was. After a couple of hours of research, I think I've gotten to the bottom of this little culinary mystery. So far as I can tell, the first recipe for quiche, under the name of Cheese Custard Pie, appears in the very first edition (1931) of Irma Rombauer's Joy of Cooking. I'll write more about this wonderful book (I have the facsimile edition) later, in another post.

But for now, let me just say that the Dahlias will indeed be serving quiche--or rather, Cheese Custard Pie--at Mildred Kilgore's party in The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star. And if you happen to have the 1931 edition of Joy, you'll find Mrs. Rombauer's recipe for this dish on page 60. There, she tells a marvelous little story about the "vile tempered cook named Marguerite" that the Rombauers hired when they lived in Switzerland. Marguerite regularly served Cheese Custard Pie "in solitary state." Its flavor "varied with [her] moods and her supply of cheese" and was "never twice the same, as she had no written rule." Mrs. Rombauer's written rule is very simple: 3/4 cup top milk, 1 cup grated cheese, 2 eggs, salt, cayenne (a "few grains"), paprika. Sound familiar?

As I understand it, Irma Rombauer's 1931 recipe for what has become a weekend treat at our house is the first quiche recipe in an American cookbook. If you know of one that's earlier, please tell us. I would love to hear about it.

Reading note: Cook-books have always intrigued and seduced me. When I was still a dilettante in the kitchen they held my attention, even the dull ones, from cover to cover, the way crime and murder stories did.--The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book (1954)