potatoes . pangratatto . camera house

The potatoes on the farm are up and growing strongly. The potatoes in my cupboard in the city are perfect for roasting. Camera House has faltered.

Good morning from sunny Melbourne in the morning. Don’t forget to hit LIKE on your way past! I love a good like. Don’t you?

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Gardening in two hemispheres holds so many challenges. I prepared this plot for potatoes in Illinois last summer. I dumped tractor loads of compost and old straw into this plot then we dug it all in. I sowed field beans into it to add some green compost, let it grow all summer, then turned it over again and left it alone all winter. Then I was called away to Australia, so I left my gardens to my farm workers. They have cut and planted the potato pieces and they are growing beautifully. It has been rainy and warm. Now all they have to do is continue to mound the old straw up around the plants and let summer do its thing.

With a good year in the gardens already underway I hope when I get back to the farm on July we will have feasts of food from the kitchen gardens.

The tomatoes are growing too. I have asked for more pictures to see what is happening out there but you know how that is: I can’t control what I can’t control so I will show you when more pictures arrive!

It is all about the food here as we await baby’s arrival. And potatoes are high on the list of easy to cook and eat foods. I am working on getting some coffee sacks to grow our own here (in Melbourne) - in the summer - in the little city garden - but in the meantime we buy them from the vege store down the road.

And one of our family favs is roast potatoes.

Misky’s Extra Crispy Roast potatoes.

Yes - this is Misky and I have known her for years without knowing her in real life. We follow each others blogs - mine a farm blog and hers a poetry blog. I think I met her online about 15 years ago. She is an immigrant in the UK and I am immigrant in the US. (Though presently in Australia to help out my daughter). She is a published poet and her work has drawn me in from the start. Years and years ago, in amongst her poems, she published her favourite roast potatoes and I have made them ever since. They probably have morphed a little, as things do in the kitchen, but we have always called them Misky’s potatoes.

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Misky’s Roast Potatoes

Cut the potatoes into random but similar sizes. Cut in a way that gives you as many long flat surfaces on the potato as possible. Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water to within an inch of their lives. Then a little bit more. If they start to break apart then that is just right. Strain. Leave in the colander for a while to steam all the water off and out of the potatoes. And for them to cool a bit.

Shake in the colander lightly to roughen the edges.

Heat the oven to 400F or 180C.

Heat a heavy roasting dish. Add olive oil and butter to cover the base. Lay the cooled potatoes into the hot oil and butter and turn to coat (be careful, everything is hot). Add pepper and salt (and sometimes garlic) then roast untouched for twenty minutes. Turn the potatoes, roast again then turn a third time to get as many sides roasted and golden brown as possible. The potatoes will take about 45 minutes in all. Maybe longer - everyone’s ovens are different.

But it is inportant not to bother the potatoes - let each side cook until crispy then turn.

Serve hot and crispy.

The potato variety you choose has a lot to do with crispness I try to use Russet or Yukon Gold.

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Camera House

I have had a rough start to the week with the demise of my camera. I know. I am devastated. It is old. Trusty. I know it inside out and adjust the apertures and speed and focus without any thought. It became an extension of my eye. It was given to me second hand (it has a story) and it was older then - a Nikon D90. A beautiful camera actually. I loved the weight of it in the crook of my arm and it has done years of work in rubbish conditions on the farm and recorded the most amazing images for me. But the mirror return has been a little inclement lately and finally it has seized altogether. I will try to oil the little wheel way back in the assemply today with a drop of sewing machine oil but I have no idea what I am doing (utube made this offer) so I am not holding my breath

To be honest, this camera - any camera I own - has a hard time because it is out in the dust and the rain and the snow and the heat and the humidity and the sea air. I never use straps and bags slow me down. The camera is almost always settled in the crook of my arm or dumped unceremoniously into my voluminous hand bag. There are moving parts. Eventually something had to give.

Such bad luck - and some bad management over the last twenty years.

I did a quick search to try and find another second hand camera-back here in Melbourne but this is such an old model I could not even find one to look at.

Those of you who have been with me for years will know what this means to me. My camera even had a name: Camera House. What does one do with a fallen camera? It feels like I lost an arm. Do I dig a grave? I can’t just throw Camera house out. How stupid is that - all the things going crazy around us and I am gutted over losing my camera.

But I still have my phone and that takes perfectly adequate photos. So all is not lost! Of course! All is never lost!

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But this is life. We make all these plans - to take beautiful photos of a new baby maybe - but life is not a dependable state. Life itself is unreliable. We struggle with this don’t we. We are encouraged to have plans and objectives and clearly defined goals. We search for the perfect home and the perfect relationship and the perfect work balance. We ache for time to rest. We chase financial stability so we can do the stuff we love to do. I always was the one with the camera. I hid behind that label and viewed the world through a lens. It made money and defined me. But there are no guarantees that our lives are linear or even stable. There will always be changes and challenges. At some point our walls are gone

My challenge is to go on without my good camera until I can get back to the farm and haul out my older Nikon and dust it off. And hope that works. I could go back another generation and get out one of my film cameras but where does one even buy film nowadays or get it processed. I used to have my own dark room. I literally exhibited my black and whites on walks in galleries. I am not even sure where all my gear is and - to be fair - I move about too much lately.

Something will turn up. We need to trust that.

Embracing the change. Not just making the best of it but embracing each change is more powerful than we know.

So, I will roll with the punch.

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Pangratatto

Crunchy crispy fancy Italian breadcrumbs.

I did not mean to do another stale bread recipe again so soon after the crostini but there you are. Daughter made these last night to go on the gnocchi. So now is apparently the time: breadcrumbs are a great use for old bread. These are herby Italian breadcrumbs and can be used as a topping for a myriad of dishes. Make a good portion so you have some to store for later.

Two cups of pulverised breadcrumbs from quite stale bread plus 1/4 clove of garlic, (micro-planed on a zester — just a little, we don’t want the pangratatto too garlicky). Pick a small handful of mixed green herbs (we used sage and parsley), finely chop. Mix with a little good olive oil in a bowl, then roast on baking paper in the oven at 150°F for about twenty minutes. When cold use the paper to funnel the cooled crumbs into a container.

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I have had a croaky voice for the last few days so I have not read any new narrations. Hopefully by tomorrow!

Love ya.

Celi