I haven't been writing Bob for a while, for reasons too numerous and riddled with self-pity, sloth and other undesirable character traits to name.  One of them, I am happy to report, is genuine horiticultural zeal.  My dear, you should see my River O' Flowers this year!  Maybe I'll post a pic.
     But I'm back up and running now, and in fact planning a new blog, this one for -- brace yourself -- real local news.  STAY TUNED FOR EXCITIN' DEVELOPMENTS!
    

Moah Coffeh?  How to Freeze Tomatoes, Save Time and Avoid Love Triangles

By Robin Ford Wallace

Here is a story a friend told me, that happened in the 1950s.

            A man she knew had decided to move to the country and spend his retirement raising tomatoes.  He had also decided his wife would can them.  Somehow he had gotten the idea that their return to Nature would transform the Little Woman into a full-scale farmwife complete with floury hands and bib apron.

            It did not.

            One evening the man approached his house from behind after a long, satisfying session in the vegetable patch.  From that vantage point he observed a stream of tomatoes sailing gracefully through the air from his back door and into the woods beyond. 

Just visible in the doorway was the dainty white hand, complete with diamond rings and long red fingernails, that was propelling Nature’s bounty back the hell to Nature where it belonged.  That’s what the Little Woman thought of farmwifery! 

I like the story because it shows that even before the advent of feminism women made their own choices.  A girl couldn’t become a doctor or an astronaut, maybe, but she still got to make up her own mind whether she was a glamour-puss or an earth mama. 

Me, personally, I was born late enough to run for senator but as it happens I am the perfect 1950s farmwife throwback.  I don’t own an apron but I adore that blood-red lipstick they wore then and by God I could can for the Olympics.  Nothing makes me happier than cooking from scratch and growing the scratch.     

One summer evening about 9:30, in fact, I was snuffling around in the hay for potatoes so I could start supper when it struck me I had carried the thing a bit far.  I had reverted beyond 1950s farmwife all the way back to hunter-gatherer.

That’s why it’s ironic about my lettuce this year.  I didn’t plant it.

How did it happen that someone who starts chili by planting jalapenos six months before dinnertime is too lazy to transplant a few lettuces?  For the answer we return, of course, to the 1950s.

 Specifically, to the old Bette Davis movie where she plays twins.  Remember that one?  One Bette is shy and outdoorsy, the other a flashy vamp.  Still, the sisters are close, so Shy Bette (the trusting fool!) takes her new boyfriend home to lunch with Vamp Bette. 

Vamp Bette of course goes into slut overdrive, fluttering her eyelashes and saying flirtatious little things like, “Moah coffeh?”

 Which the boyfriend (the stupid sap!) finds irresistible, so he dumps Shy Bette and marries Vamp Bette.  Then one afternoon the two sisters go sailing.  A nor’easter blows up and –

            Why am I telling you this? 

Oh, lettuce. 

Salad is a very big deal at Bob’s Little Acre.  Not only is it the daily Fat Girl Lunch Special, I’m so proud of my garlic vinaigrette that when we have dinner guests I push salad like Bette pushed that coffee.  (Only I don’t say, “Moah salad?”  I say, “Eat salad or I’ll kill you.”  Everybody has a different vamp style.)   

So I used to kill two hours every week washing lettuce.  Then this year, Ingle’s started selling Harvest Farms Certified Organic Triple-Washed Spring Mix lettuce blend, in fully recyclable plastic tubs, yet.  At first I thought it was too expensive, but before long higher math kicked in and I realized the time it saved more than made up for the money, even figuring my labor at well below minimum wage.  (Writers dream of minimum wage!) 

So I got spoiled, and this spring every time I tried transplanting my lettuce seedlings I remembered how much worse it was washing lettuce from the garden.  You have to pick out the grass blades, police each leaf for caterpillars or God forbid slugs, rinse with another suspicious scrutiny, spin dry – and that’s always supposing you manage to pick it before it bolts. 

            WHAT’S NEXT?  CHEWING DOESKIN TO MAKE OUR OWN CLOTHES?  WASHING THEM IN THE RIVER, AGAINST A ROCK?   

            That’s my evil twin.  She looks just like me except for the long red fingernails, but unlike me she is prefers to spend her leisure time not slaving in the kitchen but sipping drinks adorned with tiny umbrellas. Those lettuce seedlings drove her berserk and before I could stop her she had thrown them the hell into the compost where they belonged.

            Why am I telling you this?  Because, horticulturally, everybody’s twins.  The hoe may make your heart sing while the canner sends you screaming for the fingernail polish. 

So even the most militant from-scratchers should know a few shortcuts.  Here’s one for those tomatoes:  If you have room in the freezer, you can freeze them, whole and unprocessed, instead of canning.  Just put as many as will fit into plastic bags and seal.  When ready to cook, set the bag in tap water 10 minutes and the skins come off easily.

            All peppers can also be frozen raw, and my friend Mary, who showed me the tomato trick, also freezes chopped summer squash without blanching.  She says you just whack the bag against a counter to break some off to use in stir-fries.

            You can freeze chopped herbs instead of drying them, or – get this – don’t.  Pick them when you need them and otherwise leave them to live out their herby little lives unmolested.  Don’t think of it as waste, think of it as the Prime Directive. 

Above all, don’t plant any crop beyond your own breaking point.  If you grow something that requires the help of an unwilling spouse – as I learned with shell peas one year – you’re practically begging for trouble from your evil twin, and all I can say to you is:

              “Moah coffeh?”

     Robin Ford Wallace lives in Deerhead Cove, where she plays quietly in the dirt, disturbing no one.