strawberries!

on this past saturday, lee and i went to pick strawberries. folks, i'm sorry to say that russell orchards in ipswich is no longer my favorite place to go. they used to feel a lot more homey. these days, they are very commercial feeling and have lost that family friendly attitude that i feel farms need in order to survive. this year, they announced that ALL people 2-years-old and older will be charged $3 just to walk into the fields or orchard. they say that this will count toward what you actually purchase, yet they also say that this will help them recoup what's eaten in the fields. they basically say on their web site that if you eat in the fields it's the same as stealing and they want to put a stop to it. so it felt a little too policed for my taste. i probably won't go back even though they've been my go-to pick-your-own place for apples and strawberries for the past 4 years.

we went to shelburne farms in stow instead. you just purchased your quart container before you went into the field and went away to pick :) it was a cute little farm and you knew it was operated by the people who own it. oh, and when we came out of the fields, we asked in the farm store if the berries were sprayed or fertilized and they said, "no! anything that can be eaten by pickers in the field can't be sprayed. we don't want to poison you!" so they basically said that they know people will eat while they're picking. funny...

full disclosure: i ate 1 berry while picking. i wanted to taste the goodness i was smelling. but then i didn't eat any until i came home. no smorgasbord in the field for me--and i can't be the only honest person out there put off by russell orchard's new policy...

but the picking was great!


and then i came home and had to make things with my new fresh berries, so we had crepes for sunday morning breakfast. these are blueberry and strawberry crepes, with a bit of maple cream, cinnamon and sugar.


and then i made strawberry banana muffins, adapted from a recipe in gluten free baking by rebecca reilly. these were partially made with the gluten free flour blend suggested by the author, which was a mix of brown rice flour, tapioca starch and potato starch. if anyone wants the exact quantities of this blend, let me know. i don't always like the grittiness of brown rice flour, so i mixed this with my preferred gluten free flour, namaste perfect flour blend.


strawberry banana muffins

1 c gluten free flour blend
1/2 c namaste perfect flour blend
3/4 c packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
pinch salt
1 banana, peeled and mashed
1 dozen strawberries, roughly quartered
1/2 c soy milk
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
white granulated sugar, for sprinkling

1. preheat oven to 350 and line muffin cups.
2. mix together in a large bowl gluten free flours, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, xanthan gum and salt.
3. whisk together mashed banana, chopped strawberries, soy milk, oil, egg and vanilla. pour into dry ingredients and stir until well blended.
4. scoop into muffin cups (and ice cream scooper works well) and sprinkle with sugar before baking. bake on middle rack for about 25 minutes or until done.

i'm into biographies

another good biography, just finished: murder of a medici princess by caroline p. murphy. this is incredible by modern standards!

here was a well-educated, bell of the ball who received the utmost in protection and freedom from her father, medici duke cosimo i. he loved his daughter, isabella, so much that even when she was married at the age of 16, she remained in florence and eventually he gave her her own villa, as well. the man she married, paolo giordano orsini, was a not-so-well educated playboy who couldn't keep track of his money very well. so cosimo gave his daughter everything. she didn't even have her first child until after 14 years of marriage and was the accepted first lady of florence for many years.

unfortunately, being that this was the late 1500s, her father had to die in his 50s. not even 2 years after his death, both she and her beloved cousin (married to her disturbed youngest brother and also adored by her cosimo) were strangled to death by their husbands. oh, and all of this was sanctioned, and perhaps even ordered by her older brother, francesco, who had taken over the duchy of florence upon cosimo's death.

highly recommended to anyone interested in women's history. it was a page turner, despite the fact that i knew she was going to die the whole time. it's also proof that fact is often stranger than fiction...

great reads!

i just finished 2 books that i could barely put down: georgiana, duchess of devonshire and a children's edition of king arthur's tales. both were FANTASTIC!

i highly recommend anyone interested in biographies to read georgiana. lady georgiana cavendish was the duchess of devonshire from 1774 until her death in 1806. her marriage to the duke of devonshire was (by modern accounts) a disaster. but in her day, she was a leader of fashion, a lover of politics, a published writer, and what we might call a "proto-feminist." the most fascinating part of this book is the "menage a trois" that governs most of georgiana's life, but i won't spoil anything for you here.

if you're not into reading the book, the movie the duchess from 2008 which starred keira knightley is loosely based upon her life and upon this book. warning: plenty of poetic license was taken. however, the book is considered one of the foremost biographies on the duchess. it would make a great bookclub read!

(that's a hint for any of your georgia ladies, i.e. jessica, that might be reading--wink, wink!)



the other book i read is a children's edition of the stories of king arthur by roger lancelyn green. it was purely delightful. i have never read any king arthur. people were asking me what i've been reading lately (i'm a librarian, after all), and when i told them i was reading king arthur they all groaned and said it sounded like homework! i'm shocked! perhaps a more "grown up" reading would be a little difficult--i imagine the stories studded with plenty of thees and thous and archaic sentence constructions... but this one was a wonderful page turner and a great classic edition (possibly done in the 1930s?). again, i completely recommend it to anyone who might be interested in the stories but thinks they don't have time for such heavy literature.

and i, for one, will be renting BOTH disney's the sword in the stone (one of my childhood favorites) and monty python's quest for the holy grail--one of my all-time favorites!



and for those of you who might not be familiar with this one:



p.s.--i hope to have some more food pictures and whatnot up soon, but we're in the middle of closing on a condo, planning a move, and going on vacation, so... maybe it will and maybe it won't happen!