greg mosser

also worth noting - these pears are prone to split themselves to bits - they form really tight-angled crotches and have just the right kind of brittleness. it’s rare to see one above a certain age that hasn’t been intentionally pruned for longevity.

Timothy Norton wrote:A little nutmeg in savory dishes is a favorite of mine. I was confused why historically American colonists back in the ye olden times used nutmeg in nearly everything so I tried it. It just gives it a little something something. Use it sparingly, it works well with cheesy dishes too.

similar to this, a bit of star anise in something like a chicken noodle soup can be a big (but not fully identifiable) change.

i think the word is ‘rogue’.

three of my blueberry bushes did a late-ish bloom this year (i think in early july? there’s been a lot going on). i’ve eaten ripe berries off one of them.

i too make a fair amount of hot sauce, both vinegar-based recipes and the kind with fermented peppers (and hybrids!), but if i’m purchasing it, my long-time favorite is Marie Sharp’s from belize, specifically the green habanero/nopal cactus one.

i agree that acorns smell amazing - and most species smell different from each other!

northern red oak is kinda borderline oily enough to press for oil, and i wouldn’t expect a piteba to do much against them, even if you could find a way to grate them up into fine threads. the tannins are water-soluble, not oil-, so one can press unleached acorns and get good non-tannic oil, but it’s super fiddly, even using an originally $10,000 press like we do at the nuttery. there’s so much starch in them and amount of oil is so low (as opposed to the more commonly pressed nuts like walnuts and hickories) that it’s easy to accidentally scorch them just from the heat that builds up without all that much pressure. and they’re pretty hard, so it takes a fair amount of pressure. southern reds have more oil (and generally have an orange-colored kernel because of it) but i can’t imagine that’s what you’re dealing with.

collecting them green definitely the way - they just turn brown when dried for storage.

ripe cantaloupe. they love it. their noses are very good though - it pays to make sure you don’t actually touch the trap with bare skin, since they seem to be able to pick out the smell of human skin oils.

that family is so cool. i like how so far, these guys look like a cross between a ground cherry and a litchi tomato.

there is definitely some flavor in the oil - with another of my hats on, i press pretty amazing edible oil from black walnut kernels. but this is really a fairly tiny amount - like a curl of little bubbles that goes halfway around the top of the liquid in a full-ish quart or half-gallon mason jar, and only along the edge. tiny bits.

the walnut is just a flavor extract of good ripe kernels (and sometimes the presscake from pressing the them), nothing like the medicinal extract, more pleasant by multiple orders of degrees. for use like vanilla extract.

sounds like i’ll be trying to chill & skim.

i make a number of alcohol-based extracts for baking, etc, out of various local products of farm and forest. among them are hazelnut and black walnut extracts, which always seem to end up with a bit of oil floating in them after straining out the solid bits they’re made from (probably not surprising when working with ingredients with high oil content). i want to remove the oil and lose the least amount of the alcohol/water extract that the oil is floating in. how would you do it?

i’m afraid not. will dig them in the fall! sorry!