Tag Archives: summer

Tasteful Ginseng Adventures

#ginseng, summer, Uncategorized, ,

My latest excuse for not posting for awhile is having been off in “undisclosable locations” within several Appalachian states learning more about the ever fascinating American ginseng. My trusty colleague Arlene has been my companion on these trips. We were sworn by our hosts to secrecy…we dutifully un-geo-located our photos. I will not speak of those adventures here.

I found that ginseng can be found closer to home, however, though the roots may have traveled a bit to get here. In Northern Virginia you can buy fresh ginseng in the local Korean grocery store, HMart. This is not be the same sort of ginseng which grows wild (or “wild simulated”) in the mountainous woods, but its pale, fat, cultivated cousin. Hmart’s ginseng is of unknown provenance, but it is probably from Wisconsin, Ontario, or… who knows, maybe it came all the way from Korea where they also cultivate ginseng. Then it would be Asian ginseng, another related species. But that is a whole other story.

I invited my summer interns over to dinner, and procured some of this $39.99/pound version. (This may sound expensive but the same weight in wild ginseng would cost several hundred dollars.) I threw a liberal amount of slices into a pot with some chicken breasts along with some onions, ginger, dried hot peppers, and salt. This concoction simmered for about an hour, and viola – my own version of a Korean staple, ginseng chicken soup.

We used slices of the chicken as the protein in some Vietnamese-inspired summer rolls. But not before I made the interns all slurp up some of the ginseng chicken broth and give their opinions on the taste. After all, they had just spent the better part of the summer researching and writing about ginseng, but they had not tasted any except in candies.

“Not bad,” was the verdict on the broth, and the chicken had a nice, slightly bitter, slightly sweet flavor that complemented the crunchy veggies and soft noodles in the rolls. (Not to take anything away from the ginseng experience, but the spicy peanut dipping sauce was the real star of the show.)

Everyone left that evening a little wiser, a little healthier, and having completed their ginseng education for the summer. As for Arlene and me, our ginseng adventures will continue. Stay tuned.

Tomato Time

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The 100+ heat index last week was good for at least one thing: hastening the ripening of the tomatoes in our “suburban vegetable farm.” The moment the backyard gardener waits all year for, that first juicy flavorful bite that banishes all memory of the sad waxy things passing for tomatoes the rest of the year.

Unfortunately, that first bite is sometimes taken by some other creature than yourself. Grab onto a big delicious looking specimen, and you may encounter a messy, gooey, open wound. Chipmunk, squirrel, bird, or something else that comes by night and chews…no matter, damage done and hopefully something left to salvage.

Most of our tomatoes were grown from seed. This year, I got several varieties from the Gurney seed company because they had a sweet introductory discount. I was intrigued by a variety called Mortgage Lifter, explained (at a farm museum I toured last spring) as being so prolific that it raised Depression era farmers out of debt. Makes a good story, and, if I have figured correctly, a good tomato too.

“Figuring correctly” is what one must do in our garden, since the varieties of tomatoes somehow always get mixed up between the seedlings and the planting, no matter how I try to keep them labeled. So you just have to wait for them to mature to find out what sort of tomato they will produce. Even then, I am not sure sometimes, especially since I purchased a “rainbow” package of heirloom seeds with a number of varieties mixed in. Is it a Cherokee Purple or a Black Krim? Is this one going to stay yellow or has it just not started turning red yet?

  • I call this “BT toast.”

Who cares, really. They are all yummy. If you don’t have your own, go find a farm stand or a farmer’s market and pay whatever it cost for a few pounds. It’s the essence of summer, and it’s gone all too soon.

Seaside Sojourne 2 (sort of) Colonial Beach edition

#colonialbeach, #crabcakes, beach, culture, Northern Neck, tourism, , , ,

The widest parts of the Potomac River are not quite “seaside” but they have that sort of feel, nonetheless.  On a two-day tour through Maryland’s Western Shore (or, as some call it “Southern Maryland”), and the Northern Neck of Virginia, my friend Debi and I experienced a wide variety of sites, tastes, and even smells (fish guts on a public pier and fried food in a divey pub/Tiki Bar for instance).

For brevity purposes, I will concentrate on the Northern Neck portion of our journey.  For those of you who are uninitiated, the NN is the portion of land between the mighty Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers.  This area is billed as, among other things, The Birthplace of the Nation since several founding fathers and other historic personages were born and/or grew up there.

We started our adventures in Colonial Beach.  The first thing we noticed was the mural that we parked near, depicted in the large photo at the top of this blog, which might tip one off to the fact that the town, while still charming in its own way, may have had its heyday at an earlier time period.  Other murals we encountered around town had a vintage feel as well (you can view a slide show of more of them here).  

What does one do in Colonial Beach?  We started out by indulging in some retail therapy at a very nice second hand store.  Then, we walked down and out onto to the town pier, where locals were catching some impressive catfish.  Next, walked along the beach on a pathway that leads to, among other things, the humongous Riverboat on the Potomac, a casino and restaurant which apparently gets around strict Virginia laws against such gambling establishments by being located on the river, which is technically part of Maryland.

When asked about the best crab cakes served in a beachside atmosphere, the proprietor of the second hand store recommended  The Dockside, a couple miles out of town.  Basically, you just follow the road that parallels the water until it ends in a marina and the sprawling restaurant, offering a slightly seedy but cool interior as well as two levels of “outside dining” – steamier but with water views.  There is a little beach and a small performance venue on the grounds, no doubt very popular on weekend evenings, and the de rigueur “tiki” furnishings – thatched huts and Hawaiian style decor.  The crab cakes and hushpuppies were very satisfying (I gave it a good rating on Tripadvisor.).

Our appetites being satiated, we next turned our attention to history.  Which eminent figure’s birthplace to visit?  George Washington seemed too obvious.  James Monroe was also vetoed.  Robert E. Lee…well, who could resist such a controversial and complex personage?  We headed for Stratford Hall, birthplace and boyhood home (till he was little more than a toddler) of REL.  This site did not disappoint.

In addition to the Great House, which has an oddly truncated appearance and layout despite its impressive cadre of brick chimneys, the museum at the visitor’s center and the grounds are worth lingering in.  Unfortunately, we caught the last tour of the day and didn’t have enough time to do the site justice.  But we caught the gist.

I came away feeling sad for Robert E. Lee, a brilliant and conflicted figure.  His father was a poor money manager and they had to leave this idyllic home on the Potomac for less impressive digs when the lad was four years old.  Our tour guide indicated that he seemed to yearn for this home for the rest of his life.  (The stately Lee Custis House now located in Arlington Cemetery was his wife’s family home.)  No denying, he was one of the most prominent Confederates and, of course, one of the statues in his honor was a major catalyst of the recent tragedies in Charlottesville.  But visiting his boyhood home also reminded us that he was a human being with an extremely complex history.

The Northern Neck is worth visiting for all of the above reasons:  crab cakes, scenic views, and historic circumstances that continue to haunt us all.

Lake Effects

childhood summers, Lake Champlain, , ,

Everyone should possess at least one special body of water in their lifetime.  A watery place that you have grown up with, return to, know the feel and smell of blindfolded.  When I was growing up, that was Lake Champlain, an almost-Great lake that forms a wide swath of the border between Vermont and New York, narrow in our own patch in Addison County, Vermont then broadening out in a wide bay all the way to Canada.  It was at least three lakes to me in its vastness:  one, of my earlier childhood, and two in my teenaged and young adult working lives.  Someday I will write about the working lake, the lake of summer camp adventures as a “kitchen girl” and then a cook, but for now, the summer childhood lake is on my mind.

My uncle Jim had a “camp” (in this context, a small cottage) on the lake that we visited often, and my friend Sandy, one year my senior whose family owned the camp next door, was my constant companion those summers.  Jumping off the dock into the chill and often weedy water, venturing out in the leaky rowboat, or just sitting for hours on a ledge of the shaley shore sharing secrets,  partially hidden from the outside world (and her pesky siblings) by scrubby trees.  The lake had an earthy and tangy mud smell.  The swimming area started out painfully rocky, and then progressed to a soft, squishy muck that you wanted to get out from under your toes as soon as possible.  Kids accustomed to pristine swimming pools would not have set a foot into this sometimes slimy watery playground, but to us it was heaven.   We would stay out in the water long after our fingers wrinkled, haul ourselves onto the dock to sunbathe awhile, then jump right back in for more.

The lake water lapped the shore gently, in a reassuring way, on lazy summer days.  But, it could also get riled up during wind and rain storms, being almost-Great, throwing wild white caps into the air and beating the shore in a primordial fury.  I loved the lake in its many moods and I loved having a friend to share it with.  I know The Lake (there was no other in our lexicon), and this friendship revolving around it, helped shape my future self in ways I cannot fathom, like the unfathomable depths of Samuel de Champlain’s “discovery,” which is in my mind truly is a great lake.