The Roses in My Garden

I never knew that I loved roses. Even though, as a child I adored the Peace Rose in my mother's garden, I was always confused because it didn't smell like a rose. It smelled sort of like black tea. I found hybrid tea roses to be pretty, but boring. When I began to garden, I focused on everything but roses, and for a while I explored the world of poppies. But 17 years ago we moved to an old, crumbling farmhouse in the midst of the wheat fields. The house had been built around 1900. In the remnants of the abandoned garden there was a pink, fully-petaled rose that exuded a heady true rose fragrance. I joked that it survived on abuse and neglect, so it was perfect for my garden. I was smitten. I began to water and care for this tenacious beauty. When we moved, I took cuttings and managed to root one at our new house. It remains my favorite rose of all time.

The bush that I grew from a cutting has taken off with the care and water I've provided. Last year I chose not to prune it after blooming. It has grown beautifully. I just wish I had the room to let it grow to its natural size.

The best I can guess from my internet search is that this rose is a Desiree Parmentier rose, an 1848 variety.

Cultivating this rose led me to explore other old rose varieties, and I found plenty at Heirloom Roses. I looked for the oldest roses I could find. My first purchases were

Rosa rugosa alba, perhaps the oldest rose available,

Rosa apothcarius, a medieval variety used medicinally,

and Rosa Mundi, a variant of Rosa apothacarius.

I planted these three together at the back of an oval bed, which is gloriously pink and white:

Besides those that I purchased from Heirloom Roses, a number of roses were planted at our house when we bought it. The gardener who planted them had taste similar to mine, so there are a variety of centifolia roses whose names I don't know. They were in pretty bad shape when we moved in. I cut away the dead branches and kept them weeded and watered and they've really recovered well. My favorite is this stunning true lavender-colored rose. It was a single stick when we moved into this house:

It is now part of a group of cascading climbers along the fence, which includes an Alexander Mackenzie (a completely awesome, super cold-hardy climber):

an Alchemist - one of the most beautiful roses on the planet:

 And a few others.


These are just a few of the roses in my garden. This has been the best year ever. The roses are abundant. The colors are spectacular. If you know where I live, come by and I'll give you a tour.

A Brief History of My Gluten-Free Life

There are a million blogs about gluten-free living, so I hesitate to add my voice to the throng, but I want to share the part of my transition that might be the most helpful to others in case someone else can benefit.

I decided to give up gluten for the same reason I decided to do yoga: vanity. My daughter had gone gluten-free as an attempt to treat muscle pain and fatigue, and as a result she lost 4 pounds that she didn’t need to lose without trying. The promise of effortless weight loss was enough for me to want to try it. As with yoga, I discovered many surprising benefits.

I started noticing that my blood sugar spikes and drops became less dramatic. I no longer felt cotton-headed and draggy at 10:30 in the morning, and when my blood pressure was taken, it had dropped from borderline high to normal. However, I was not losing weight after several weeks without gluten, and I was struggling with what to eat for breakfast. I’ve had some form of toast for breakfast my whole life and I loathe cold cereal. I tried gluten-free breads from the local co-op, both commercial frozen and bakery-made, and I didn’t like the texture or the chemical flavor that I attribute to xanthan gum.

I began to experiment with injera, a sour Ethiopian flatbread made with teff flour, but I had an itchy reaction to the teff. I switched to buckwheat flour for a good long time, but eventually the strong flavor of the buckwheat became overwhelming for me. Most recently, I have been making thick pancakes with an equal mixture of oat flour and millet flour which I ferment until it’s really active and bubbly and cook in a round mold on a griddle. I store these English muffin-type cakes in the fridge. Each morning I split and toast one. So far, they are the closest thing to a satisfying toast experience that I’ve had.

Since I started eating fermented buckwheat (known as blini in Russia) and then oat/millet cakes, the pounds have slowly but effortlessly melted away. I have fewer cravings and less of a need to eat sweets. When I eat a meal, I get full more easily and I’m done eating when I’m full. At this point, I’ve lost about four pounds over six months. Certainly that’s not speedy, but the miracle is that it has happened with no effort and no sense of starvation or deprivation. I even gave up my Weight Watchers membership.

A couple of weeks ago, before I had figured out the oat/millet combo, and when I couldn’t bear to eat another buckwheat cake, I bought some of the food co-op’s gluten free chickpea flour bread made with conventional yeast. After about 10 days of eating it, I had gained two pounds, and I had a raging vaginal yeast infection. I treated that, created my millet/oat cakes, and immediately shed those pounds.

There is increasing evidence that our microbiome, the collective noun for the dear little creatures that inhabit our guts, play an important role in our overall health, from causing increased cholesterol, to influencing weight gain. There are many proponents of fermented foods, including Michael Pollan and Dr. Mercola. My own experience is enough to convince me that lacto-fermented foods and wild bacteria are really important for my health.

 My sour-dough starter came from organic grapes. It is about 15 years old. Here are instructions: http://www.food.com/recipe/nancy-silverton-s-grape-sourdough-starter-316306 While I started it with wheat, I was able (since I don’t have celiac) to use a small amount of the wheat-based starter to create a teff, then buckwheat, then oat-millet starter. After I ferment the batter, I take some out for the next batch before I add the salt which I store in the fridge for the next batch.

Here’s how I make my muffins:

1 cup oat flour
1 cup millet flour
1 ½ cups filtered or spring water
¼ cup sourdough starter

Whisk together and ferment at room temperature for 24 hours. Remove ¼ cup starter and store in the fridge in a glass jar. Add to the bowl ½ cup oat flour and ½ cup millet flour. Whisk until smooth. Let ferment again for 24 hours. It should be really bubbly. Add 1 tsp (or to taste) salt to the batter. The batter should be like very thick pancake batter. If it is too thin, add more oat flour.

Make a ring about 3” in diameter and 1” high with heavy-duty foil. Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle until medium hot. Wipe with an oiled towel. Spray the foil ring with cooking spray and place it in the pan. Ladle about ¼ cup batter into the ring and cook until the bottom is brown. Remove the ring and flip the cake over. Cook the other side until brown and done in the center. Repeat until all the batter is gone. Store in the fridge. Split, toast and eat with butter.

I think, although I haven’t experimented, that you could turn this batter into sourdough pancakes with the addition of two eggs, ½ a cup of milk, two tablespoons of sugar or other sweetener, two tablespoons of oil or melted butter and a teaspoon of baking soda.