Dedicated to Marjorie

He has given us a heaven

In which to wing our way home 

This Year's Garden

Fair Warning:  this post may bore you to tears.

Those of you who have gardens measured in the hundreds of acres
may find our few square feet amusing.

This spring Amy and I decided to make our small garden behind the garage a bit bigger by adding two plots.  We dug and rototilled eighteen inches down adding humus and manure as amendment, then surrounded them with 4 x 4s held in place with very long bolts driven into the earth.

Since I didn't think the whole area could be reached with a lawn sprinkler and had no wish to water weeds I put in a simple irrigation system aimed to water the plants and nothing else.

Amy came up with a design for a tomato vine support system that used drift wood picked up from the shore of the Long Island Sound lashed to driven stakes.  To make the half circle pieces she tied heavy string from one end of a stick to the other, then soaked them in the bathtub for a few days.   As they got more pliant she would repeat the process tightening the string.  It brings Georgia O'Keefe's desert style to my mind.

We planted eight potato-tomato plants in the supported bed as they get very tall.   We put Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes, Black Russians we got visiting in Vancouver with Evan and Janice and tomatoes from Tuscany all started from seed in the third bed.  I had no idea the Black Russians would get so huge and dense as I'd never seen the plant before.

The hot Thai peppers start out purple then turn cream, then orange then red when they're ripe.

The squash is doing well with enough to go to neighbors and friends along with tomatoes, basil, rosemary and sage.

They've been tasty hardwood grilled with a little olive oil.  Also very good butter steamed.

We've never tried tomatillos before but they're coming in nicely.  We like the papery outer "lantern" which should eventually turn brown and burst showing ripe fruit much like ground cherries.   These will be going into Amy's guacamole, the best that any of us around here have tasted.

This Spring when we started to transfer the plants from pots into the beds I discovered a Yukon Gold potato in the pantry that was sprouting all over, cut it up and and stuck the pieces into the ground.  They grew large, bloomed and eventually two of the plants turned brown and died and withered.  I cut off the dead tops and didn't pull the roots or disturb the salt hay covering them.  Yesterday as Amy was driving us to Agway for birdseed a hopper truck fully loaded with potatoes passed us in the other direction and we said to each other, "time to dig them up".  It was fun digging in the dirt with our hands discovering  more potatoes of all sizes one after another.

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

The dark tomatoes in the upper right are Black Russians, dark throughout and the sweetest tomatoes we've tasted.  The soup was nearly a third Black Russian.  This batch put six quarts in the freezer and lunch on the table.  I wonder what next week's harvest will bring.  It looks very promising.  One slice of potato-tomato stuffs a sandwich.

.....

Here is the soup recipe Adelia Kreider, we five brother's grandma, jotted into a book in 1919, the year J. Robert Kreider, our father, your grandfather and great grandfather was born.  This recipe survived through the efforts of Aunt Rachel W. Kreider, wife of our Uncle Leonard.  She and brother Evan saw fit to include this and a few other recipes in "A Genealogy Prepared for the Descendants of Lloyd and Adelia (Stover) Kreider".  Thank you Aunt Rachel and Evan, this soup has been enjoyed by so many of our family and friends.  This is the 14th year that I've made it.

Note the figures for fall wheat production that year.

 Making lumpy soup the first time after spending hours to parboil and skin the tomatoes and peel the onions, I jotted notes in the left margin to help me the next time not only eliminating the lumps but also saving a huge amount of time and effort  It is incredibly simple and easily done with the instructions below.  Leave the butter out and it is strictly vegan.  

Ready for the food mill.

Chilled and ready to freeze.

Yuri & Family

We've enjoyed introducing Yuri to our family... of course we've had several visits from Vivian and UBS (that's Uncle Big Steve), and he met his Grandma and Grandpa Kreider mere seconds after birth. Most recently, we've had visits from Aunt Kara, Grandma Kay and Great-Grandma Sutter, as well as a quick trip out to Kansas City to see Bill's family (and he was a pretty good traveler, so look out!). In KC, Yuri met his Grandma & Grandpa, two uncles, and 5 of his 6 first-cousins. His Grandpa Sunderland recently had surgery for an acoustic neuroma, and so it was good to see him recovering nicely at the nursing facility.


Yuri is a pretty happy baby, but Aunt Kara had a way to really get him going. I see family resemblance!


4 generations. I hope to get this same photo with Dad and Grandma Kreider one day!


Yuri with his first-cousins ... all but one who was away at camp. They were all excited to meet the lastest addition to the family.


Yuri's Grandma Esther and Grandpa Jim Sunderland.



The growing kid himself...

And, this weekend we'll introduce him to Evan and Janice at Steve's 50th birthday bash in Hoquiam.

Visiting Grandma in Goshen

After the Brothers 2010 Reunion, three of the brethren went to Goshen to visit Grandma for a few days. Grandma was both in fine spirits and the best health we have seen her enjoy for some time.

We played several games of Wii-Bowling (or whatever) in the chapel on the games TV. Grandma is of course a champion. I wish I had a picture of Aunt Rachel playing. She joined us briefly and actually caught on which was very impressive, considering that she is 101 these days. I did, however, sneak a shot of her eating with a table mate. Usually, they conversed while eating, but this shot caught both examining the food which had just arrived.



On one of the days, Grandma took her customary time to volunteer at the library cart in the hallway across from the dining room. She clears away the magazines from a large table once a week, gets out the library cart with its new selection of books, sets out at least some of the books on a table for those unable to reach the lower shelf, organizes the borrowing cards and generally helps anyone interested in borrowing another Goshen Public Library book (at least I assumed that is where they usually reside). This is a very important service to Evergreen, particularly for residents unable to get to the library to borrow interesting things to read. Mark took this picture showing Grandma helping someone. This reminds me of how very useful her electric wheelchair continues to be, fitting nicely and unobtrusively under the table. The Goshen Library has been very important to her life for decades. I wonder if anyone has read as many of their important holdings as has she.


Grandma then took us to Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, IN, Bruce driving his new and beautifully air-conditioned car. We got a table for five for lunch on a (?) Tuesday. Even so, the place seemed essentially full. Helpings are substantial (as are some of the faithful patrons) and the menu reflects earlier midwest traditions of cooking beef, chicken and pork. Nobody leaves the table hungry.

I like to photograph our food in restaurants with Janice's point-n-shoot. I'll start with Grandma's most sensible plate, obviously the most healthful on the menu.

My photo of Bruce's pile (as in Heaping Pile) of dripping deep-fried chicken unfortunately got blurred in all the excitement, but you can imagine the scene . . . no room for veggies on the plate, etc.

My plate seemed like a good choice at the time, recalling Grandma's beef noodles made with leftover beef, but it could never match my memories of her cooking, and the serving would have sufficed for the 5 of us. Naturally, I nevertheless cleaned my plate.


Since Janice so rarely orders anything but health food, I simply had to record, for posterity, what she had to eat that noon:

Mark took it all very seriously, photographing everything in sight, the closer the better. Look carefully and you will see Bruce polishing yet another bone while wondering why the helpings are so tiny.

I'm of course never happier than when two beautiful women pretend they are interested in hearing one of my stories. Mark took this photo while the youngsters let the elders of the family sit together on a bench at the restaurant, waiting for our table.


And back in Grandma's apartment, Janice took a picture I will always treasure. I entitle it,

Mother with one of her five favourite sons

In the beginning, the brothers said, "Let there be coffee!" And it was good!

Each part of each day of our 2010 Brothers Reunion began with or somehow included coffee. Interestingly, aside from our traditional trip to a fabulous ice cream farm (yes, farm), we never ate out. Since we prefer to do the cooking ourselves, this draws us into the general kitchen area, which means that at least one of us will think to ask, "Anyone care for coffee?"

Paul has spent decades discerning which outfit roasts the best beans to his satisfaction, exactly what measure of beans is required for the perfect pot, how to best grind the beans, etc. I have no idea how many bags of roasted beans were consumed, but they did the trick.

Alex was the sole male uninterested in coffee that weekend. Judging from how much he slept, he could have used a cup or two, but nevertheless, he kept a watchful eye on everything.


Paul either produced each and every pot, or taught yet another brother how to use the equipment at hand.

Paul was also ever ready to refill cups as might be required. After all, when two brothers are engrossed in on-line poker, there is obviously no time to get up and make coffee. As evening approached, we usually switched to decaf.


As 17th-century Londoners discovered, sipping excellent coffee is the perfect way to keep conversation flowing.


Occasional breaks were taken so that Mark could try to convince Frank to get a new camera (". . . and, it's a tax write-off!" . . . .)


And at times, one was simply forced to wait for the next pot to be brewed . . . .


Thanks for all the coffee, Paul!

We Brothers Rolling In Dough

A decade and two weeks passed since our inaugural brothers reunion held in Springfield, Ohio in the year 2000 at the home of Paul and Kay.  This July we came full circle back to Springfield to their welcoming home for another gathering with great fun and food along with time for some of the deeper stuff.  We want to recognize that Kay was instrumental in bringing about the first reunion, an important milestone, and graciously thank her for this invitation into their home again.  We were also very thankful that you had central AC on this particular weekend of blistering heat!

Here is a compilation of photos taken by various brothers as bread, cinnamon rolls (Mom's recipe) and yes, pasta was made.

 The yeast is good.

 Bruce made sure that no mistakes were made.

Frank possibly indicating that one loaf wouldn't be enough.

Okay... so instead of one oven busting loaf Paul made three.

Warm, aromatic and lightly toasted with cereal and fresh fruit.  A great way to start the day...




.........




...along with a dozen eggs and a pound each of bacon and sausage.  We are growing boys.

If you want a perfectly browned sausage Bruce would be the go-to guy.

Cinnamon Rolls

What is as sweet as the first day of Spring?  That would be Mom's cinnamon roll recipe rendered to perfection by brother Evan.  All it took was one of the brothers saying, "how about some cinnamon rolls?" to get the ball rolling.  Evan remembered that he'd posted the recipe on this very blog at an earlier date  (blogs do come in handy now and again) Paul had a freezer full of an assortment of flours and the rest is history.

The evening before.

Putting the goodies on the dough (a portion was raisin-less so Bruce wouldn't have to remove the pesky things).

The first two of four plates.

A close up of the goo before baking thanks to the miracle of macro photography.

YUM!