Monday night meeting was "for the birds"

Monday night at our regular monthly meeting of the Crossroads Garden Club, Charlotte Nelson, usually referred to as "the Straw Bale Lady" talked about another passion of hers (besides gardening). Nelson loves animals and every year about this time, she mixes up winter treats for the wild birds and puts them outside her window and around her home and garden, so she can watch as they hungrily gobble up the winter treats she prepares.

Above is a bird feeder/birdbath she made from glassware, mostly platters and vases. Nelson finds yard sale treasures and glues them together using "goop" to make beautiful garden ornaments. The one above she made from two vases, a platter and a dish and we all were amazed when she unveiled her creation.

Nelson told us that she prefers to use suet (beef kidney fat), peanut butter, oatmeal, birdseed and raisins to make the bird food and below she shows us photos of her feeders. According to Nelson, birds need a diet high in fat and protein like the bugs they eat in the summer.

She said she never feeds the birds from March 1 through September 30, describing it as the time for the birds to eat insects from her garden and yard. As October begins, she prepares her suet mixture in a large sauce pan and forms the resulting concoction in squares that will fit into a suet holder or makes smaller suet blocks in cupcake holders to place in feeders for her birds. Though Nelson didn't provide an exact recipe, she said we could easily get one from the Internet and the recipe didn't have to be exact. It was just important to use enough fat to hold the mixture together.

Nelson said that at her home, one bird will begin peeking in a window around the first of October and that is when she knows to prepare the treats. Below, Nelson shows us photos of her winter feeders.

After Nelson spoke, everyone participated in a raffle and one of our members won the beautiful feeder. It wasn't me, though I did come home with a small cupcake holder of suet and plans to make both suet blocks and my own bird feeder. I just must go out and buy a supply of Goop.

Heirloom Gardener--a favorite magazine

If you are familiar with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, the company that has done so much to make the heirloom seed movement a success, has a great new magazine that gets keeps getting better in every issue.

You might have seen their beautiful Baker Creek catalog that is filled with pretty photos and tells the story of Jere Gettle who planted his first garden at age 3 and printed his first seed catalog at 17. His company has grown until he now lists 1,300 plants and you can request his catalog by visiting his website rareseeds.com.

He and his attractive family now offer the magazine, pictured above that is filled with great gardening advice, recipes, rare seed info, gardener profiles and more. It just gets better with each issue and I can't wait to get through this one because it is packed with useful information.

I can't wait to see the tips for growing early tomatoes and for re-evaluating my vegetable gardening. This is a must read and would make a good gift for any vegetable gardener.

Crossroads Garden Club Meets Tonight

Tonight is the November meeting of Crossroads Garden Club.



Our speakers will be Mike Christie and Charlotte Nelson.


Mike's topics are "Growing Tropical Plants in Georgia" and "How to Draw More Hummingbirds to Your Garden." He also will give us an update on New Leaf.


Charlotte will talk about "Birdhouses" and will demonstrate "How to Make Suet."


Come with questions because these two have the answers. Meeting time is 7:00 pm at 3072 Highway 152, Newnan in our regular Old Barn building and there will be prizes and refreshments. Everyone is welcome.

Making our own rum cake

My husband and I just returned from a very nice cruise to the Caribbean and the first order of business for us was to make a rum cake to celebrate our return.

A number of years ago, we took a trip to the Cayman Islands and while there were introduced to Tortuga Rum cakes. We brought back a few for gifts and thought we would find rum cakes on the other islands we toured during this most recent trip, but no cakes--just plenty of rum.

When we were on St. Thomas and St. Kitts, part of our sight-seeing tours took up to rum distilleries and I decided that though I don't use rum for any other reason, I would love to try my hand at making a rum cake like those from the Caymans. We bought some Brinley Shipwreck Gold vanilla-flavored rum in St. Kitts from for under $20 and since the only cakes available in the ship's store were were selling for around $33 each, we felt making our own cake would be a great bargain.

 

There are tons of recipes online for rum cake and one I found for the very famous Tortuga cake, one of the best at http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-Tortuga-Rum-Cake/. Most of them are the same. I did purchase a box of vanilla instant pudding to make the cake and I used buttermilk, rather than whole milk and omitted the nuts, but the cake was very good--and very much like the rum cake we remembered. We have left-over spiced rum to make a few more cakes and I think they would work well for family gifts--maybe at Christmas.

I do need a bundt pan. I don't know why I never purchased one but it would make a prettier cake than my regular tube pan makes. I don't think the cake will make us tipsy, though the flavor of the glaze can be kind of strong and I am not planning to consume large amounts. The conventional wisdom is that the alcohol evaporates when heated. I'm not really sure about this but I know that I don't need the extra sugar, butter--or the alcohol after my vacation.

I do know that the cake is very good and we are really enjoying our last taste from our amazing trip.

Decorating with "Turkey Day" Cupcakes

Here is an idea from a couple of years ago but still one everyone loves for Thanksgiving.

Make the cupcakes any flavor you like--a mix works fine. The decorating is the most important part of making turkey cupcakes. I used a butter cream frosting. Tint the frosting using brown food coloring.

The turkey is simple to make. Use a large icing bag--at least 16 inches and a large tip coupler with a large star tip. Make large stars all over the tops of the cupcakes.

To make the head, nose and wings. Use two or three small (or mini) vanilla wafers and trim each wafer with kitchen shears until it is the perfect oval shape. The head is one wafer and the wings are each a half-wafer. You can save the "shavings" (which is what you will have) when you trim the cookies into the perfect shape for other recipes.

The nose is a candy corn. I placed the large end of the candy corn underneath the edge of the head.

The wattle is a piece of strawberry fruit roll-up, carefully cut with kitchen shears, or a sharp knife into a large teardrop shape. It was gently laid over the "beak" and part of the face.

The eye can be drawn with a food coloring maker, or use a mini chocolate chip "pasted" on with a tiny bit of frosting.

Add two rows of candy corn in the icing for the tail feathers. Use five in the back row and then alternate with four pieces of candy corn on top.

If you don't want to make a turkey there are plenty of ways to decorate cupcakes for the season. How about tiny leaves and pumpkins on top.

About "The Collected Tabletop"

A few weeks ago my friend and colleague Angela and I visited the beautiful Boxwoods store in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. While there she found a beautiful coffetable-sized book, The Collected Tabletop by Kathryn Crisp Greeley. Later Angela ordered the book and has mentioned several times that she really liked it.

Later, she graciously let me look through it and at first glance I thought it was pretty and the more I looked, the more I understood how Angela felt about the book.

Greeley is a decorator who often entertains and has spent a great amount of time and energy collecting some very beautiful dishes she uses for entertaining. She plans parties or get together with her collections in mind and with attention to the finest detail, she entertains beautifully.

In some cases she has spent years collecting items that fit themes. With photos, she shows how her ideas are developed from the invitations to menus, recipes and beautiful table settings that I have no doubt both show off her skills and delight her guests.

At first I thought the book might be a little pretentious, but as I turned page after lovely page I started to really "get" her message and though I doubtless will never have a martini party, wine-tasting party or Scottish Gamekeeper's Dinner. I could really see the value in her collections and I loved her beautiful decorating ideas.
I started really getting into the book with the Irish Party. My mother has some very similar dishes with green leaves surrounding each plate. Those were always my favorite dishes growing up. My mom's dishes are not quite as formal as the ones shown here, but I do love the look.

I really could picture the "High on the Hog Bar-B-Que" where she gave a thank you party for one of her friends' contractor and crew, working on their house. The party was given in the unfinished house and proved you could provide beauty and elegance when the gathering was just about anywhere.

I really loved that one and it has given me some really great ideas for my Thanksgiving meal. I really love the idea of using burlap.

Another thing I really loved was the "Fall for Football" menu. I am always looking for great tailgating ideas and she comes up with some grand ideas. I don't know if I will ever make a 'Smores Brulee but I think the idea fits the occasion perfectly.

I also love Thanksgiving ideas since we always have a huge meal on that day and I loved the ideas there, too. Some of the recipes look very good and Greeley is obviously a very accomplished cook.

I can say her ideas are inspirational and I appreciate Angela for sharing her book with me.

Keeping children entertained

My daughter sent me this photo of her son reading his homework assignment to his younger brother. I don't really know whose idea this was but I think it is brilliant! It is so hard sometimes to get the older child to do homework and keep the younger one entertained. This is a perfect solution.

Small children need to gain an appreciation for reading later. The little one might not get the story yet, but he is very interested.

It's brilliant. Enough said.