Category Archives: Vegetable

Memories of Monterey

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It was a Thursday, and it was one of those days in Monterey when the air is washed and polished like a lens, so that you can see the houses in Santa Cruz twenty miles across the bay and you can see the redwood trees on a mountain above Watsonville.  The stone point at Fremont’s Peak, clear the other side of Salinas, stands up nobly against the east.  The sunshine had a goldy look and red geraniums burned the air around them.  The delphiniums were like little openings in the sky. From Sweet Thursday by John Steinback

Photo Credit: betta design via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: betta design via Compfight cc

It’s February in northern New Mexico.  The trees are bare and with the exception of a recently installed “forever” lawn in front of an office building on Paseo de Peralta, there isn’t a blade of green grass in sight.  Nothing is blooming.  It’s been unusually warm, but it doesn’t feel right to wish for an early spring when we desperately need snow.

So instead, I am rereading Sweet Thursday.  I can picture the rocky coastline along Monterey Bay, cypress trees yawning east, where Doc in his rubber boots, wooden pail in hand, is collecting samples from the tide pools.  When he returns to Cannery Row, Mack and the gang will be waiting, hoping to bum a dollar or two for beer.

I was in Monterey in February once. In pouring rain we drove down from San Francisco and had a flat.  Dave changed the tire on the side of a dark road.  A stranger watched and shared his umbrella and bottle of whiskey.  I think it was a Thursday.

By Saturday, the day of the wedding that we had come for, the air was clear and bracing and smelled clean and briny.  Wearing a scarlet dress I posed with the bride for a photo on the emerald lawn outside the chapel, our satin heels sinking into the damp dirt. It was a magical place where sea otters played in the bay and geraniums bloomed in the middle of winter.

I look back across the years and miles, longing to return, but I know it wouldn’t be the same.  California is suffering from a drought as bad or worse than New Mexico’s.  The forecast in Monterey today is for a high of sixty-five, cloudy with no chance of rain.

Downstairs by the French doors I have three big clay pots on wheels, planted with geraniums.  Too long indoors, the leaves are leggy, large and pale, pressing towards the glass, reaching for the sun.  Today I will give them a drink of water, but it will be weeks before the last threat of frost of has passed and I can roll them outside.

 

 

 

Hawaii: The Kiawe Tree

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Photo Credit: Rosa Say via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Rosa Say via Compfight cc

Kiawe trees (Prosopis pallida) like this one on A-Bay Beach are a species of mesquite native to Ecuador and Peru.  Introduced to Hawaii in the 1800s they thrive on the hot and dry, leeward (western and southern) coasts of the islands. I hadn’t been able to identify a similar tree behind the beach until Charlotte filled me in on its name with this note, “very common here in Hawaii with sharp thorns that stick thru your slipper.”

This one is huge; its sprawling and twisted limbs provide shelter and a multitude of perches for the cats.

By P. Nixon

By P. Nixon

A few miles up the road bees pollinate a forest of kiawe trees and produce a white honey that is said to have a “delicate tropical flavor“.  Dave purchased a jar to bring home not knowing it was related to the beach trees.  We were looking forward to trying it on our morning toast along with a cup of Kona coffee, but the sweet paste didn’t pass the scrutiny of airport security and with no time to go back out to the counter to check it, it was confiscated.  Next time . . .

NYC – Walking the High Line

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Note:  My final post about visiting NYC, slightly out of order.

High heels, even sensible ones, are not the shoes to wear on the High Line.  Late on Friday afternoon, our first day in New York City, Dave and I took the subway  up  Seventh Avenue to a stop a few blocks east of the elevated park that runs along Tenth Avenue.  The heels might have been fine if we hadn’t gotten turned around in Greenwich Village where the  north/south grid suddenly angles and not all of the streets have number names.

Eventually we found Gansevoort Street and the stairway going up to the High Line at its southernmost point.  The park is a recent addition, opening in phases, the first in 2009, the second in 2011, and the third under construction.   It sits on top of a rail line built in the 1930s to haul freight along Manhattan’s west side.

Photo Credit: D. Betzler

Photo Credit: D. Betzler

In 1999 the long-abandoned railway, slowly being reclaimed by nature, was slated for demolition when Joshua David and Robert Hammond met at a community meeting.  Two average citizens who wanted to save the structure, each one promised to help if the other would spearhead the effort.  Within months of that meeting they co-founded The Friends of the High Line and spent the next ten years, first, saving the rail line from destruction and, then, coordinating the creation of the park.  I read their inspiring book, High Line:  The Inside Story of New York City’s Park in the Sky, during my trip to the city.

Photo credit: P. Nixon

Photo credit: P. Nixon

On the warm October day of our visit lots of people were enjoying the park, strolling the narrow path, admiring the view of the Empire State Building, and taking photos of a few lingering  blossoms.  My pinched toes forced me to abandon the walk at 23rd Street.  

We returned on Sunday after our trip to New Jersey and walked the park from the north end to the south—in sneakers.

If I lived in New York City, the High Line would be my park.  I imagine early morning walks in the spring savoring each new bloom, lazy summer afternoons lounging on a bench watching the world go by, and snowy winter evenings strolling the quiet path, pausing to watch the city lights blink on.

NYC – Day Trip to New Jersey

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The line to buy train tickets at Penn Station was unexpectedly long for a Sunday morning–red shirts behind us, green in front.  We were all headed for New Jersey. The hubbub subsided when we reached the tracks and conductors directed the Patriots’ and Jets’ fans to a separate train.

Ours was a short, quiet ride to Cranford, the town where Dave grew up.  We walked the mile and a half from the station to the neighborhood of two-story, one garage houses, scuffing our feet through piles of oak and maple leaves.   To Dave’s surprise Maryland Street still dead-ends at the edge of the woods, a few doors down from his former house.  He played in the woods as a kid, riding his English racer on the trail in the summer and sledding with his brothers, one piled on top of the other on their Airline Racer, on snowy winter days.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32455386@N05

On our way back downtown we paused to jump on the hopscotch grid at the Walnut Avenue School and picked up a few  red and yellow leaves–mementos of our trip to New Jersey.

Mementos of Autumn

 

 

 

 

NYC – The Survivor Tree

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I didn’t set out to write about visiting the 911 Memorial at the World Trade Center (WTC) site.  My feet were sore and my camera battery was dead by the time I finally cleared security.  Peering over the edge of the reflecting pools, I contemplated a single white rose placed on one of the engraved names and remembered the horror of that day.

After leaving the memorial I kept thinking about the tree, one of the last things I noticed.  The  elaborate web of guide wires trussing it up and holding it in place was what caught my eye.  It wasn’t until later that I learned the tree’s story, a lone pear tree in a grove of swamp white oaks.

Photo Credit: jev55 via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: jev55 via Compfight cc

The Survivor Tree, as it came to be known, was rescued from the WTC site a month after the 2001 attacks, a charred eight-foot stump with one living branch.  It was taken to the Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx where park staff nursed it back to health, not knowing at first if it could be saved.

The tree, a Callery pear (Pyrux calleryana), is a common one and was planted at the WTC in the 1970s.  Originally imported from Asia in the 1800s, the trees are now found throughout most of the United States.  We had a similar tree in our backyard when I was growing up in western Kansas.  It was was the most exotic tree in our yard, especially beautiful in the spring when it was transformed into a cloud of white blossoms.

The Survivor Tree was moved back to the 911 Memorial site in December 2010.  It still bears scars and always will, but has grown tall and strong, a resilient survivor.  Its legacy will continue to grow through the Survivor Tree Seedling Program. During its rehabilitation tree experts propagated several hundred seedlings and over time they will be shared with other communities that have suffered tragedy and loss.

 

NYC – On the Cusp of Fall

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Walking around the city yesterday, I saw lingering signs of summer on the High Line,
image but today in Battery Park City it was looking more like fall.
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So far, no Pale Male sightings.

Lunch hour in Redwood Park

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With such a short stay in San Francisco this week I don’t have time to visit the coast redwoods in their native habitat in Muir Woods.  The next best thing is this peaceful park in the heart of the Financial District.

Out on Montgomery everyone is in a hurry, hustling down the street with a carryout lunch to take back to the office.  Cab drivers vie for position with motorcycles and pedestrians, honking when someone doesn’t move fast enough.

Inside the park a fountain muffles the street noise and tourists sit on benches, pens poised over postcards.

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The grove of redwoods tower overhead. How tall are they?  I try to gauge based on the buildings behind them, but I’m not sure–my best guess is 150 plus feet.  They are the tallest trees on earth and can reach 300 feet.

I could stay here all day, but will venture back out to the street to catch a bus.

Sunshine and Green Chiles

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Fall has arrived in New Mexico.  Temperatures dropped into the thirties the last couple of nights, but no hard freeze-yet.  Days are warm with clear blue skies and the chamisa is at its prettiest, full of golden flowers.  Small patches of yellow are starting to appear up high in the cottonwoods.

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Several weeks ago the green chile harvest began to trickle into Santa Fe. Vendors haul  burlap bags full of the New Mexico state vegetable (actually we have two, the honor is shared with the pinto bean) in from fields near  Hatch and Socorro.  The air fills with the scent of roasting chiles and you can choose–mild, medium, or hot–at the temporary stands that pop up in the parking lots of restaurants, grocery stores, and strip shopping centers all over town.

I never get around to buying my yearly supply until mid-September, trying to delay the end of summer as long as possible.  But it was time last week.  I paid the $25 for a roasted bushel at Jackalope without comparison shopping.  Another potential customer moved on when he heard the price.

The chiles sat in a cooler in my kitchen for a couple of days before I got around to the bagging.  At my house we don’t eat too many at once so it takes a lot of sandwich bags, each filled with a few chiles before they are loaded into the wire drawer at the bottom of the freezer, more than enough to get us through the winter and probably all the way through until next chile season.  We eat them with everything, not just tacos and enchiladas, but in macaroni and cheese, tuna salad, and mixed with garlic on top of grilled steaks.

After living in New Mexico for sixteen years, I still remember a woman I met at a shop in Albuquerque shortly after I moved here.  She told me she could never leave the state; she would miss the sunshine and green chile too much.

 

Side Trip to Scottsdale

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Carefree AZ

Photo by P. Nixon

When Dave told me that we needed to stop to look at a project in Scottsdale on our way home from San Francisco, I pictured a faux Italian shopping center in the heart of the city, all asphalt and manicured gardens.   I set the map program on my cell phone to the address and was pleasantly surprised when we kept driving, all the way to the northern border of Scottsdale.  Right next door is the small town of Carefree, surrounded by the  Sonoran Desert.

It was overcast when we arrived, keeping the temperature below ninety, so I was able to comfortably go for a walk.  Black Mountain and this pile of boulders provided the backdrop to the desert landscape filled with saguaro, cholla, and ocotillo.   A family of Gambel’s quail scattered when  I tried to get a closer look at a prickly pear cactus loaded with red fruit.

Saguaro

The clouds burned off and the temperature started to rise, so I took refuge under a green-trunked Palo Verde tree.  Just like it does for the baby saguaros, it sheltered me from the desert sun.

 

Weekend in the Desert

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RivieraLasVegasNV

Photo Credit:  Riviera by James Marvin Phelps

I first visited Nevada on a family vacation when I was a kid.  After spending a July night in the Mojave Desert  camping out at Lake Mead, we were all ready to check-in at a motel with a swimming pool on the Las Vegas Strip next door to the Riviera.  We were wowed by the lights and Englebert Humperdinck’s name on the marquee next door..

Last weekend my husband, Dave,  and I visited Las Vegas to see family and to take in a show.  The temperature hovered at about 100 degrees, dipping below 80 degrees at night, amazingly pleasant.  Last month National Public Radio (NPR) did a story about people who visit nearby Death Valley in the middle of the summer to feel some of the hottest temperatures in the world.  I wasn’t up for that, but did want to experience the Mojave in some small way.

As we climbed the steep driveway to my in-laws’ house in Boulder City, I noticed bushes with little “cotton balls” on them.  My mother-in-law, Mary, told me they were creosotes bushes that bloom yellow in the spring.  I have been visiting her at this house for more than twenty years and had never noticed them.  I went back outside and broke off a piece of one to take a closer look.

Creosote Closeup

Creosote bushes (Larrea tridentata) are the most common perennial in this part of Nevada.  Real drought survivors, these along the driveway thrive on six-inches or less of rainfall a year.  My little sample is all dried out after a week in a plastic bag, but it still has the distinctive smell of camphor that is especially noticeable when it is wet–in the the desert they call it “the smell of rain”.