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Tag: Home for the Holidays

  • Christmas tree farm damaged by Hurricane Helene spreading Christmas cheer

    CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. — With the holidays fast approaching, Christmas tree farms are beginning to pop-up across the Tampa Bay area.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Avery family’s farm in North Carolina was ravaged by Hurricane Helene this past year, damaging more than 60,000 trees
    • Recovering from the hurricane-related losses has been tough, but that has not stopped the family


    It’s a popular industry for the state of North Carolina, an area that was also impacted by Hurricane Helene this year. But, as damaged as farms may have been from the storm, they’re still helping make the season bright.

    Nestled on a plot of land off of Gulf to Lake highway, you’ll find A Very Merry Christmas Tree Farm.

    “Thirty-eight years ago, my dad and my mom wanted to have a side job, so we got them into selling Christmas trees,” said Dawn Avery, co-owner of the Christmas tree farm.

    The Avery Family, hailing from North Carolina, has called Crystal River their “second home” for more than 30 years. But no year has been quite like this one, with Hurricane Helene recently ravaging their Christmas tree farm.

    “We had lost about 60 to 80,000 Christmas trees,” says Avery. “The recoup time on that will be, at least, 15 to 20 years. It takes a tree, from a seed to about a 6 or 7-foot, is about 14 years.”

    Recovering from the hurricane-related losses has been difficult. Christmas tree farms, Avery says, are the second biggest industry in their county, behind tourism. But that hasn’t stopped the family from spreading a little Christmas cheer, whether big or small.

    “Everybody that comes here, we just give them a Charlie Brown tree,” said Avery. “Kids love it — they can put them in their rooms. We take it to elderly people who can’t do a tree.” 

    Showing that there is still plenty to be grateful for this holiday season.

    “Everybody in this community has been so kind to us and so encouraging; they could not be any nicer,” Avery said. “You feel like when you’re here, you’re part of a family. Definitely a nice community.”

    Bonded by a difficult hurricane season for both states and grateful to the community that has continuously welcomed them. 

    The tree farm will be getting a fresh delivery of trees on Wednesday. They will be open every day until they are out of trees. Dontations are also being accepted online.

    Calvin Lewis

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  • Carrot Pâté Recipe: A Vegan Take on a French Bistro Classic

    Carrot Pâté Recipe: A Vegan Take on a French Bistro Classic

    A bright carrot pâté, creamy but vegan, will be welcome on any holiday table and inspire recipe-requests at potluck celebrations—and it’s perfectly portable for winter picnics. It’s also shape-shifting in a magical way, because it is the basis of a comforting soup, as well as a substantial filling for hand pies and galettes. That’s why I  always double the recipe. Bonus: It freezes well and can be made ahead.

    Here is the adaptable recipe you didn’t know you needed, ready for your next gathering.

    Photography by Marie Viljoen.

    Above: Carrot pâté served with olive oil, walnuts, and sun-dried figs (Fig & Walnut Pairing, $9 from Ziba Foods).

    This carrot pâté is a spread. A schmear. And a dip. Oxford defines pâté as “a rich, savory paste made from finely minced or mashed ingredients, typically seasoned meat or fish.”  Or root vegetables? To me, weaned on my mother’s French-inflected decadent chicken liver version, pâté is a mouthful that is entirely satisfying, lacking nothing. Fat is important. So is bread, or a cracker, at the very least. This carrot iteration evolved in my kitchen to serve to vegan attendees of the botanical walks I lead, and to use esoteric forage-pantry items, like linden flower vinegar and ramp leaf salt. But it also welcomes more conventional ingredients.

    It has proved very adaptable: to season, to pantry limitations and inspirations, and to cosmopolitan appetites. And the basic recipe—oil, carrots, onions, acid, salt, and something sweet—is designed for variation and improvisation.

    Above: Schmear the pâté on your support of choice. Here, it is cornbread.

    Above: Roasting the vegetables with bayberry leaves.
    Above: Roasting strawberries alongside the carrots and onions.

    Above: Carrot pâté with linden flower vinegar.

    If there is a trick to successful improvisation, it is choosing elements that belong together in a palate-pleasing way.

    For the foundational funk: To amplify the onions, in spring I may add the leaves of wild onions like field garlic, ramps, or three-cornered leeks. Garden-grown and market-bought fresh chives, and later chive flowers, work just as well.

    For the salt: Ramp leaf salt, preserved lemon, or shoyu

    For the sweetness: I may add a spoonful of pine cone jam, or yuzu syrup. Once, I use red currant jam. Maple syrup is winter-perfect. Chestnut honey sublime. Strawberries roasted with the carrots are surprisingly effective.

    For the acid: Wild-fermented vinegars, according to season: apple, elderflower, linden, wisteria. But white balsamic is perfect. So is any sour citrus juice, like lemon, yuzu, or calamondin.

    For the herbs: Tender bayberry in spring, mugwort in summer. But fresh bay leaf, thyme, marjoram, or rosemary are very good, too.

    For the spices: Juniper, spicebush, and sumac for foraged and local flavor. But cumin and coriander are delicious.

    For the heat: Aleppo pepper, urfa biber, Korean chile flakes, regular chile flakes; it’s endless.

    Above: Sourdough toast fingers offer crunch for the carrot creaminess.

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  • Virgin Hot Toddy: A Non-Alcoholic Holiday Cocktail

    Virgin Hot Toddy: A Non-Alcoholic Holiday Cocktail

    A surprise hit on the botanical walks I lead, where a picnic rewards the exercise, is the hot toddy that I pour in late fall and winter. When “toddy” is mentioned, eyebrows are raised—some in hope and anticipation, some in trepidation. Because it means alcohol, doesn’t it? It can, but not necessarily. Some eyebrows sink in disappointment when they learn that this is a virgin version. But the surprise, for the eyebrows’ owners, is that their first, steaming sip is a happy one, because this warming toddy tastes satisfyingly grown up. It is portable for picnics, scaleable for big holiday parties, and comforting sipped during a gift-opening pause on Christmas Day.

    Photography by Marie Viljoen.

    Above: A hot toddy (and soup) are portable winter picnic fare.

    Above: Cold creek, hot toddy (in a heat-proof Picardie glass).

    I call my forager’s version of a hot toddy a Forest Toddy. It is spiced with local, seasonal aromatics, featuring the edible herbs and spices of maritime forests and land-locked woodlands.

    Above: A frigid New Year’s Day picnic, with hot Forest Toddies.

    The flavors of a hot toddy that tastes of place can shift. They may include the gin-y bittersweetness of juniper (otherwise known as eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana), bayberry (Morella pensylvanica), citrus-like spicebush (Lindera benzoin), sumac species, and the perfumed resin of needled evergreens like fir, hemlock, pine, or spruce (Abies, Tsuga, Pinus and Picea, respectively). Variations I have made include pine cone jam, which you can make or buy; dried magnolia petals, for their gingery, cardamom-like bitterness; and fragrant sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina).

    Caveat: Does it go without saying that you should never use yew (Taxus), also a needled evergreen? Not only is yew not aromatic, but it is decidedly toxic.

    Above: Virgin Forest toddies with hardy orange and fir garnishes.

    The fun of this hot toddy recipe is that it is endlessly various and open to creativity. You can glean ingredients from your pantry, garden, farmer’s market, or grocery store. Its success depends on balance: between sweet and tart, tannic and aromatic. Layers of botanical flavor give it a sense of toddy gravitas and the complexity that is often associated with booze. I’m not saying you can’t add a dash of your favorite spirit (bourbon and rye spring to mind), but I can assure you that no one will miss it.

    Above: Blood orange and yuzu peel, crushed spicebush, fresh juniper, and bay leaf.

    In winter, the juniper in my recipe is fresh, since its season is from late fall through spring; the spicebush is the dried fruit from late summer (or purchased online), or the tree’s aromatic winter twigs, scraped. The fir, well, that is trimmed from my (unsprayed) holiday tree. While fir is the most aromatic of the needled trees, hemlock and spruce have plenty to offer, as do pine needles.

    Above: Farmer’s market apple cider.

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  • No-Knead Focaccia Recipe: Just Add SeasonalToppings

    No-Knead Focaccia Recipe: Just Add SeasonalToppings

    Good homemade focaccia is irresistible, and impressive. Straight from the oven or savored later, focaccia should be crunchy with olive oil on the outside, tender on the inside, and taste of the moment. The toppings, whether garden-grown, wild-foraged, or hunted down at at your local farmer’s market or supermarket, offer endless ways to be creative. It is ideal rustic fare but impressive enough to share at a Thanksgiving table.

    Here’s the no-knead focaccia recipe that makes the most of any season.

    Photography by Marie Viljoen.

    Above: A summer sour cherry and mugwort focaccia.

    For years, my baking life has included focaccia. The round cast iron skillet I usually bake it in allows the bread to fit and travel snugly in a backpack for the botanical picnics I feed to adventurous attendees in just about every month of the year. But it’s also a comforting foundation for cheese suppers and a perfect dunk for soup lunches.

    Above: Three-cornered leek and waterblommetjie focaccia in Cape Town in spring.

    In spring, my focaccia may be laced with pungent ramp leaves, field garlic, dandelion flowers, nettle purée, or pheasant back mushrooms. In early summer, cherries with mugwort leaves, black currants, and elderberries, or chanterelles. Fall’s figs, persimmons, and local grapes follow. Winter’s focaccia feature hoshigaki (dried persimmons) and honey, dried aronia, or preserved mushrooms. The possibilities and improvisation are endless. Focaccia is an adaptable medium for edible creativity.

    Above: Black currant and elderberry focaccia, using my kneaded focaccia dough method.

    My go-to focaccia recipe has always been based on a kneaded dough. The dough is scented with Earl Grey tea and the soaking water for the fruit (the recipe is in the persimmon chapter of my cookbook Forage, Harvest, Feast). It makes a beautiful loaf, open to variation.

    Above: Fig and mugwort flower focaccia, about to be baked.

    But since spring this year I’ve been improvising wildly on a no-knead focaccia recipe shared generously on Instagram by the founders of Keepwell Vinegar. (Based in Dover, Pennsylvania, their inspiring line of vinegars is available online; but they appear to excel at any yeast-related.)

    Here it is:

    You can see why it is is irresistible.

    The deep appeal of this focaccia is that the wet dough is not kneaded. Mix, rest, fold, rest, fold. The fun part, dimpling the delicately jiggly dough with olive-oiled fingers, follows. Toppings happen. And after a brief, blazing bake, you have a glorious focaccia.

    Above: Blanched ramp leaves and ramp leaf stem confit adorn an April focaccia.

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  • Foraging for Blewits, An Autumn and Winter Mushroom

    Foraging for Blewits, An Autumn and Winter Mushroom

    In fall, when I move my potted citrus trees indoors until spring, I know that it’s time to start hurting blewits. These pretty edible autumn mushrooms pop up in lawns and in woodlands after a serendipitous combination of a cold snap and rain. Blewits feed on fallen tree leaves and evergreen needles (they like wood chips, too), and the mushrooms appear in the same spot annually, often in fairy-like rings, or clustered closely. In the Northeast, they fruit in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Mildly flavored and substantial, their juicy nature makes blewits a succulent substitute for canned mushroom soup (sorry, Campbell’s), in that icon of the Thanksgiving table: the green bean casserole.

    Here’s a guide to identifying blewits, and a recipe ready for the season.

    Photography by Marie Viljoen.

    Above: A plateful of blewits.
    Above: Lawns near deciduous trees are a good place to hunt blewits.

    The name “blewit” generally refers to two* species of mushroom. One is the so-called wood blewit, classified as Lepista nuda and sometimes as Clitocybe nuda (the names are synonyms). The other, the field blewit, Lepista personata (also called Lepista saeva), is associated more with Europe. Despite two common names that seem to decree where your blewits must grow, the so-called wood blewits I find grow in wide lawns (near leaf-dropping trees) that look a lot like fields, to me.

    For mushroom-hunting cooks wanting dinner, the precision of names is less important than knowing what a blewit looks like, and being sure that its spore print is white, or very pale. That’s an essential tell, when distinguishing blewits from a potentially toxic lookalike.

    * As the science of mycology evolves, more blewit species may be parsed.

    Above: In lawns where trees preside, blewits can be camouflaged among fallen leaves (on which they feed).

    Above: A symphony in the key of lilac.

    Blewits are chameleons. When they are young the color of their cap, stem, and gills can include swoon-worthily deep or ethereally delicate shades of amethyst and lavender. But these vivid colors may fade to pale buff and cream, sometimes pale tan.

    Observing that color transformation is key to learning how to identify blewits, a view endorsed by MushroomExpert’s Michael Kuo.

    Above: Blewit caps laid gill-side down on cardboard for spore printing.

    Above: Ghostly, Halloween-ready blewit spore prints are white, or very pale.

    Essential to identifying blewits is the color of their spore print. A blewit’s spore print is white or very pale. Never brown.

    To make a spore print at home, slice the mushroom’s stem from the cap. Lay the cap gill-side down on paper (a recycled shopping bag is perfect), foil, or cardboard. Cover the mushroom with an upturned bowl, or a cloth if you have lots, to protect the dust-like spore from drafts. Leave overnight. Unless the mushroom is ancient  and has already shed its spores in the field, in the morning its spores will be beautifully arranged in the shape of the gills.

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