Natural Christmas Decor - Seashore Vignette

Living on Cape Cod, we are surrounded by seascapes and an abundance of interesting shells. So this year, I decided to create a holiday seaside vignette. This is one of three natural settings I was asked to design for The Boston Globe, although this one didn't make it into the final article. I used a mix of local and more tropical shells, corals, starfish, etc., that I have collected over the years, along with fresh greens cut from my yard, and branches that I painted red to resemble branch coral, using a floral spray from Michael's Crafts.

Inspired by my husband Jack's painting of two turkey wing shells, the setting is on a table in one corner of our living room.

I incorporated strings of pearls, since they come from the ocean, as wells as several carved cinnabar boxes I have, which are coral red. Crab shells and some orangey-peachy hued scallops bring out the colors of the shells in Jack's painting. The red buds visible in the foreground, here, are from our red mountain laurel bushes.

Little votive candle holders wrapped in caning hold tea light candles. I also tucked miniature white Christmas lights in and around the greenery (trying hard to hide the cord). When lit, the entire effect is magical - like a snowy beach.

A favorite garden container made of concrete with cherubim (a Christmas gift from Jack years ago) adds to the Christmas spirit. In it, I placed a tall topiary trellis wrapped with fresh ivy from our yard, and then hung glittery sea urchins and draped it with strands of pearls. (In addition to my own pearl necklaces, I bought inexpensive pearls at Michael's Crafts.) I glued a starfish to the top of the topiary frame.

In the end, I am thrilled with this holiday setting that comes almost completely from nature!

Natural Christmas Decor - Glittering Fruit Centerpiece

Some of my winter holiday decorating ideas were featured last week, in the Boston Globe's g magazine, their Arts & Lifestyle section. I had prepared three separate vignettes for the writer and photographer. As it turned out, two of the three were featured in the article. Since the article has now been published, I can blog about these three vignettes, including some background how-to info.

First off, let me say how terrific it was to work again with writer, Jaci Conry. She is a terrific writer, but also so personable and easy to work with. Jaci and I have worked together on several articles in the past, including this Christmas decorating article for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, a few years ago.

In the next couple of days, I'll post on the other projects I did for this year's, as well as that previous article, but for starters, here is how I created the sugared fruit centerpiece:

You must start this project at least 24 hours before you want to display it, as it takes time for the sugar coating to dry properly.

It is important to pick out fruits that are ripe, but not too ripe, as you will want them to last for several days. I always pick out a nice variety of hues, including three colors of grapes (green, red and purple), different pears (red, yellow and green), cumquats, small oranges, apples, lady apples (like oversized crabapples), lemons, limes, persimmons, and pomegranates. Get more than enough to fill your container, as it is nice to have the fruit spilling over onto the table, symbolizing seasonal abundance.

In a small bowl, whisk together one or two egg whites with a little water. The water thins out the albumen and makes it easier to work with. Do not over-whisk the mixture, or it will become frothy, which will detract from your finished product.

With a pastry brush or soft paintbrush, paint the egg white mixture onto the fruits, one by one, then immediately dusting each wet fruit with superfine sugar. This works best by using a sugar shaker, if you have one, a sieve with large holes or just by spooning it gently over the fruits. The idea is to get just a dusting covering the entire piece, but no big globs. Once each piece is covered, place it on a rack to dry overnight. As the egg white evaporates, the sugar crystalizes and dries as a hard shell on the outsides of the fruits.

I use cookie cooling racks placed over sheet pans to catch the excess sugar and drips.

Use lots of grapes as they drape so nicely over the sides of your bowl or urn.

Persimmons are so plentiful at Christmas, and I just love them!

Once the fruits are completely dry, I arrange the centerpiece, adding lemon leaves if I can get them, although other, similar leaves work just as well. The leaves must be thick and not likely to wilt over the course of several days. This year, I also sugared some whole walnuts, which added another dimension to the grouping.

The finished centerpiece looks like it has been lightly dusted with snow!

Here, I used a lovely footed silver bowl, which has repousse birds and grapevines all over it. I paired it with Daum fruit plates from France. The glasses are antique German crystal hocks, also featuring a grapevine pattern. They are filled with a cocktail I invented for the photoshoot - a pomegranate kir, made with pomegranate liqueur and white wine. (To make a pomegranate kir royale, use sparkling wine instead of still.) The silver is Tiffany's Chrysanthemum pattern, and the antique tea napkins are embroidered with "D" - a gift from my mother years ago. The tablecloth is white damask from France.

This project is relatively easy and makes such a beautiful display for a table or sideboard! Once the fruit starts to lose it's freshness, toss out the over-the-hill pieces, and then wash off and reuse the others in cooking. Lemons, apples, persimmons and oranges are most likely to be useable again, while the grapes and pears will probably not outlast the life of centerpiece.

I'd love to see readers's own versions of this holiday project. Email your pictures to me at kate@katedickerson.com. I'll try to highlight some of them in a future post.

Bon appetit!

Also, check out all of the holiday table settings on Tablescape Thursdays, at Between Naps on the Porch.

Concord Grapes - One of Autumn's Sweetest Gifts

Last week, in my post on foraging, I promised to write more about making Concord grape jam with grapes that are ready to be harvested this time of year. Concord grape jam has such intense flavor and fragrance - there is nothing else like it! While we are picking the grapes, the aromas wafting from the vines and even down the road are strikingly vivid.

 Looking up under the wild vines, you see the grapes hanging down, plump and fragrant.

 The baskets we use for picking the grapes happen to be made out of grapevines, themselves, which somehow adds to the fun of it!

Grapes don't have much pectin in them, but (as with all fruits) the less ripe ones have more pectin than ripe ones. So I always try to combine some under-ripe berries with the riper ones. I also happen to like that they make the jam just a bit tart - not overly sweet.






The first step in making jam is to pick through the grapes, discarding any that are past their prime. They can be very ripe, but you don't want anything that is brown or moldy or smells "off". Then I rinse them in a strainer, under cold water. (Technically, if you are using organic produce you picked yourself, washing shouldn't be necessary, but I always do anyway.) Only wash the grapes right before you use them. You don't want them to become waterlogged.

Making any jam is all about proportions and cooking time. For Concord grape jam, the proportions are easy: 5 lbs. (2 1/3 kg) grapes to 5 cups (1 1/4 liters) of sugar. I measure my grapes on a digital scale, after I've picked through them and removed the stems, but before rinsing them.

This year, I made two different batches of grape jam, one incorporating the pulverized skins and one with the skins discarded after they had cooked. The batch with the skins produced a thicker jam, but no difference in flavor. The following pictures are of the former process:

If you do incorporate the skins, you must first separate the skin from the meat of each grape. This is surprisingly easy, as these grapes are of the slip-skin variety. Just a squeeze and the grape pops open...the inner grape will actually shoot across the kitchen if you're not careful where you aim! (Don't let your kids catch onto this fun little fact!) This part does take a while, which is why some people prefer to skip the skin separating stage.

 You end up with little Pac-Man shaped skins!
(You can always spot someone who likes to prowl around in the woods, by the scratches on their arms!)

Then, before cooking the grapes, pulverize the skins in a food processor, with a small portion of the sugar, before adding them to the pan with the grape meats and the rest of the sugar. I also add a generous splash of lemon juice. This helps activate the natural pectin in the grape skins. As happens so often, once I got into making the jam, I completely forgot to take pictures. However (luckily) Jessie, the author of one of my favorite food blogs, The Hungry Mouse, posted a superb description of this process, including her own great photos. Also included is this video submitted by one of Jessie's readers:

One thing I do a little differently, is to add some additional liquid fruit pectin to the pot, if needed (and I find it usually is). I add it sparingly, as I don't like my jams to be stiff. As I said above, cooking time is an essential part of making any jam. If you don't want to use pectin (although there is no reason not to, as it is completely natural) then you need to simmer your jam for longer, to reduce the amount of liquid in it, thereby thickening it. The main reason I add pectin is that I find the grape flavor is fresher when not cooked so long. I hate to smell so much of the flavor goodness going up in steam!

If you decide to go the easier route and just use the grapes whole in the jam pot, then you want to crush them with a potato masher. In either case, I strain the jam through a finer sieve than shown in the video, because, while the seeds may seem huge in your mouth, they are still small enough to pass through the holes of many colanders. They are quite bitter, if bitten into, so I like to keep them out of my finished product.

The finished jam has an incredible perfume to it, evoking for me, a combination of sweet red wine and jasmine flowers in full bloom - very heady.

I always end up making a lot of jam (and many different kinds), so I do process my filled jars in a boiling water bath, just to insure that the airtight seals will last a long time. Here's what we still have, after giving away quite a few jars:

Just divine!

Okay, so now I'm dating myself, but who remembers begging their mom to buy Welch's grape jelly in the Flintstone glasses? I always find it shocking when I discover something from my youth available at antique sales! LOL

Bon appetit!

They don't call it the KING for nothing!

Well, we were back in the woods today, foraging for more mushrooms, and we also came home with some beautiful rose hips and cranberries. They were all growing together, so what the heck - the more the better! 

We got a lot of both Boletus edulis and Boletus bicolor today. The Boletus edulis are called King Boletes, and for good reason - they are very large and almost regal, sometimes hiding, sometimes out in the open - just amazing to come across. They grow to about 8" (20cm.) across the cap, as well as in height.

 

King Boletes (above)

 I just love the beautiful stems of the Boletus bicolor - almost like mini tree trunks.

Today's haul

Wild cranberries

Cranberries grow all over Cape Cod. They are just starting to ripen right now, so we didn't pick that many, but will go back for more in a couple of weeks.

The opposite is true for the rose hips, which have been mature and ready to pick for well over a month, now. It was fun to get some at the tail end of their season. Some people even pick them after the first frost, as they are the sweetest then. Although they are probably most commonly thought of as ingredients in tea (think Red Zinger, one of my favorites!) rose hips also make wonderful jelly - a Cape Cod tradition.

 Rose hips and cranberries (above)

For dinner, Jack sliced mushroom caps and stems (the least woody parts) and sauteed them in a combination of olive oil and duck fat, with a touch of butter.

When the mushrooms were tender (in literally a few minutes for such fresh specimens) Jack added lots of coarsely chopped garlic and a little heavy cream. He then added creamy cooked orzo to the mushrooms, followed by freshly ground nutmeg and black pepper, and some grey sea salt. He tossed it all together in the pan, quickly, and the dish was ready to serve.

As an accompaniment to this somewhat rich dish, I made a simple salad of mixed greens, heavy on arugula (my favorite). I added halved, sweet, red cherry tomatoes from our garden and my regular everyday dressing of extra virgin olive oil (a light French one), freshly squeezed lemon juice, grated fresh lemon zest, dijon mustard (my favorite is Maille), freshly ground black pepper and French grey sea salt. Actually, I almost always add minced garlic and shallots to my dressing, but for this dinner, simpler seemed better. The lemony flavor contrasted well with, and provided a welcome foil for the creamy mushroom orzo. Additionally, the greens and reds of the salad provided a beautiful visual contrast to the creamy whites, tans and browns of mushroom dish. (Sorry no picture of this!)

The next dish I want to try with our mushrooms is soup. Our Russian friends said that this is their favorite way to use the bolete mushrooms.

King Boletes - a meal fit for a king!

Autumn on the Terrace

Another great quality about Autumn is its still sunny, but noticeably cooler weather. We enjoy lunches, and often dinners as well, on the terrace outside our kitchen, almost as frequently this time of year as we do in the summer months. The light is different now, with the sun crossing the sky at a lower angle than it did a couple of months ago. The shadows are more intense throughout the day, creating contrasts not seen in the summer.

We are keeping the pool open as long as we can. It's a bit of a challenge keeping the pool free of falling leaves, but well worth being able to sit outside and enjoy the look and sound of the water. I believe the sound of gurgling water is one of the most calming and enjoyable sounds on Earth. And I wouldn't trade the oak tree near the pool for less leaves in the Fall, since it provides such beauty on its own, and welcome shade in the summer months. Jack is braver than I am, still taking daily dips in the pool, despite the fact that the water temperature has dropped significantly.

This past week, to our great delight, we received a surprise anniversary gift from our oldest son, Giles, and his wife, Mia. Do you remember the post I did last year on decorating our pool terrace? I ended the post with a tongue-in-cheek phrase that all I needed to complete the outdoor decor was a set of Missoni beach towels (at sky-high prices, which I notice have been reduced slightly since last year).

Well, at the recent Missoni for Target sale, Mia quickly nabbed us our own set of Missoni towels, and a fabulous Missoni box to put them in. According to Mia, on the day that Target opened sales of these products, there was such a rush of people trying to buy these items, that they crashed the Target website! I feel so lucky to have a daughter-in-law who knows just what will make a silly girl like me happy. I mean just look at how perfect these colors are on our terrace: the coral-y rust colors of the tiles and the blues of the pool water.

Another pleasure of Autumn is the bright berries and goldenrod we can cut. I keep a pair of hand pruners in the car, for just such treasures found along the road.

I am so glad to have the Autumn months to enjoy these great additions to our terrace, and can't wait to actually use them next summer when the water is warm enough for wimpy moi to venture in again!

Another Autumn joy is chrysanthemums. They bring such vibrant color and last for so long, just when other flowers are beginning to fade. These mums in our hanging planters (below) are beginning to fade, themselves, right now...but they have been in full bloom for over a month now! We bought them before our pig roast in August. Behind this setting is a Euonymus alatus, aptly called a burning bush because its leaves (which are just starting to change here) turn slowly to an intense burgundy red by late Fall.

So what is my next big idea for this terrace? Look what is still available at Target stores, as well as - already(!) - on Amazon.com. They're non-breakable, which is a must by the pool.

 Melamine dinner plate

Melamine salad plate

Acrylic tumbler

Now I think our terrace will be complete (until the next big idea). And the best part is it all looks at least as great in Autumn as it does in Summer!