We were only gone for 48 hours.
Just a quick trip to the Cooperstown, NY area to see two performances by the Glimmerglass Opera -- Oklahoma! and Porgy and Bess. If you haven't discovered this gem yet, you're too late for this season, but you really should build it into your plans for next summer, when they'll be doing West Side Story, among other productions. We've seen some of the best performances on any stage anywhere at this amazing venue, where each summer season is filled with first-rate talent and productions of both classic opera and opera-like works -- think Sweeney Todd -- plus special musical events, readings, lectures, and a wonderful young artist program.
Glimmerglass Opera Festival, Cooperstown, NY
It's a 3 hour drive for us (3 1/2 from Manhattan), and in the summertime, the New York State countryside is gorgeous -- rolling hills, farmland, vistas of the Mohawk Valley. As long as you stay away from the ruined hulks of once-prosperous industrial towns that line the Thruway along the barge canal, it's possible to avoid getting depressed. The names of the cities have far more vitality than the cities themselves today -- Herkimer, Amsterdam, Fort Plain, Fonda, Canajoharie. With shuttered Main streets and paint peeling off the once-grand homes that line nearby boulevards, the aroma of despair is particularly sharp.
Cooperstown is about 30 minutes south of the New York State Thruway, in a little green oasis surrounding Lake Otsego, the headwater of the Susquehanna river. Best known as the birthplace of Baseball (which may be a myth) and the Baseball Hall of Fame (which is very real), there's enough tourist trade year round to keep despair at bay. It's a lovely area, and we visit it two to three times each summer, usually staying overnight at a nearby bed & breakfast. Most years, we time our visits during July, while the garden is still gearing up. This year we went at the very end of their season, which coincided with both the solar eclipse (only a partial in Cooperstown, and nicely timed during intermission) but also with "Garden Gone Wild" time.
We left early on a Sunday morning, and were home for dinner on Monday. But oh, what lay in wait for us in the garden! The tomatoes, beans and okra had been very busy in those 48 hours. And the zucchini -- I swear there wasn't one more than an inch long when I last harvested late in the day on Saturday. It's as though all the plants got together to get even with us for leaving them alone -- perhaps Mrph put them up to it -- he wasn't very happy that we had left, either!
Tuesday morning dawned sunny and hot. We were out in the garden at the crack of it... and we were there for quite some time. Four kinds of beans had matured; tomatoes of all sorts were ready to drop, red okra pods stood long at attention, and the zucchini -- out of nowhere -- were just shy of tugboat size! After pressing into service the largest harvest containers I had, we hauled our bounty into the kitchen. Apart from admiring the king-sized output, I knew I was also looking at a long day in the kitchen wrangling veggies.
Group portrait... and close-ups below...
After a session of triage -- what gets put by now; what can we eat in the next day or so -- the next six hours were consumed with blanching, freezing, saucing, pickling, washing, and prepping. At the end of which, the "put by" camp had 8 quarts of zucchini pickles, 4 quarts of cucumber pickles, 1 quart of pickled beans, 2 bags of frozen Garden of Eden beans, and 4 pints of tomato sauce.
All safely packed away for the winter...
I also had beans and okra set aside for succotash the next day, and of course, tomatoes for every meal in the foreseeable future. In case you're wondering how we deal with all of those, here's a collection of all the ways we arrange and serve them.
It's a bit indulgent, I know, but this is the only time of year we eat tomatoes at all; once you've grown your own, you know that out-of-season tomatoes are merely little red rocks, and not worth even a second glance.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to go out and check the garden today. It's still August; still "garden gone wild" time, and so between now and my next post, I'll probably be either out there picking and cutting, or in the kitchen canning and freezing. See you then!