Posts tagged Bonnie Jo Manion

Grape Clusters Forming

After the grapevines flower, the grape berry clusters being to form on the vines. Still immature and green, the berries will continue to gain in size, and the march is on to harvest. Grapevines thrive on warm summer temperatures with cooler night temperatures. In a few weeks the grape berries will begin to change color which is called verasion, and the onset of the ripening of the grapes. At Domaine de Manion, once the berries begin verasion, we estimate we are about six weeks away from harvest.

I love the look of the vineyard this time of year because the vines are full, flowing in the wind, and unbridled. With the onset of verasion, we have to net each vineyard row and clip the nets together using clothespins. Birds and other wildlife will be eager to eat the grape clusters as the grapes continue to ripen and their sugar (brix) rises.

The Summer Vineyard at Domaine de Manion

Bon Appétit and Bon Weekend….Bonnie

Vineyard to Vintage, MusingBonnie Jo ManionJuly 15, 2021grape clusters forming, Domaine de Manion vineyard, Bonnie Jo Manion, grape berries, verasionComment

Cantaloupe and Avocado Salad with Chili Dressing

This is a great seasonal salad for summer, and possibly for your Fourth of July festivities. It is not a red, white, and blue salad you typically see this time of year, but it packs a punch! This recipe is from my dear Mom, from a Colorado cookbook, and other than it is so flavorful, colorful, and seasonal—that is all I know about this recipe.

This recipe is so easy, and simple to make. The recipe calls for making the chili dressing ahead of time, and chilling it covered in the refrigerator. I make it a day ahead. You can also take liberty with the type of greens you use.

In California, cantaloupes are in season from May to November, and avocado peak season is April to August. Key to this recipe is having a beautiful, sweet, and room temperature ripe cantaloupe to slice. I recommend Reed avocados that are round like baseballs, creamy dreamy in taste, and don’t brown once exposed to air. You can find them at Farmers Markets, or you might be lucky and have a tree in your garden. Other ripe avocados can certainly be used, with a squeeze of lemon or lime over them before adding to the salad.

This is the best kind of salad because it has refreshing flavor, texture, presentation, sweetness, and spice all in one. The chili dressing will stand up to and complement barbeque flavors. The original recipe doesn’t call for it, but to further dress up this salad, you could add chopped, lightly toasted pistachios as a garnish. Avocados and pistachios are a particularly nice flavor combination.

Cantaloupe and Avocado Salad with Chili Dressing

Chili Dressing

1/4 cup prepared chili sauce

1/4 cup honey

3 tablespoons white wine or champagne vinegar

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons minced onion

1/2 cup canola oil

Fine sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste.

Salad

1 small head butterhead lettuce, torn

1 small head red leaf lettuce, torn

1/2 cup chopped celery (optional)

1 small ripe cantaloupe, sliced

1 large ripe avocado, sliced

Garnish option, 1/3 cup chopped, lightly toasted pistachios.

Directions:

For the dressing, combine the chili sauce, honey, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and onions in a bowl and mix well. Add the canola oil and whisk until blended. Add a pinch of fine sea salt and desired cracked pepper to taste. Chill, covered, in the refrigerator. Whisk before serving.

For the salad, toss the lettuce and celery in a large salad bowl. Add the desired amount of dressing and toss to coat lightly. Compose the cantaloupe and avocado slices on top of your salad greens. Drizzle desired chili dressing over cantaloupe and avocado slices. Sprinkle pistachios over the salad. Serves 6.

French Fabulous! We all know and love Ina Garten for her numerous cookbooks. Did you know she has playlists she shares too? I had no idea, until dear visiting family mentioned it! Search Spotify, Sonos, etc.

Ina Garten’s Trip to Paris

Ina’s Dance Party

Other Ina Garten genre playlists people have created:

Ina Gartens Cooking List

Ina Garten French Dinner Menu

Ina Garten’s Summer Playlist

Bon Appétit, Bon Weekend, et Bon Fourth of July….Bonnie

Food Styling, RecipesBonnie Jo ManionJuly 1, 2021Cantaloupe and Avocado Salad with Chili Dressing, Summer Salad, Reed Avocado, Domaine de Manion, Bonnie Jo Manion, Seasonal Living, French Country Living, seasonal saladComment

Kitchen Garden Inspiration

The Kitchen Garden at Allt-y-bela in Wales, Garden Design 2012 Magazine — The Kitchen Garden at Allt-y-bela in Wales, *Garden Design* 2012 Magazine

From my post last week, Down The Garden Path, followers were asking me where I got my willow fencing. I thought it might be fun to revisit the original post and my original kitchen garden inspiration from photos and the Garden Design article. I hunted “high’ and “low” to find willow products, and finally found them at Master Garden Products in the Pacific Northwest. I actually called them as I had several questions and needed more information to make my order. Master Garden Products couldn’t have been more helpful and so friendly. I highly recommend the company and their products.

Now is a great time to get your gardens plans in place, make an order, and enjoy the beauty of willow!

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…Bonnie

The inspiration for my kitchen garden, or potager, came from a Garden Design, Winter 2012 magazine article, Simplicity Rules, on well-known garden designer, Arne Maynard’s rustic and historic late medieval farm, Allt-y-bella. Located in Wales, much of the rustic gardens and garden structure remind me of Provence. I envisioned borrowing a lot of the main elements featured in the article and photos, creating the look of a rustic kitchen garden. Some of these elements that caught my interest were the wattle hazel fencing, arching fruit trees with a centered bench, raised beds for vegetables, obelisks for climbing vegetables, easy pathways around the raised beds, and select spots for larger perennial plants like rhubarb and artichokes.

Allt-y-bela Kitchen Garden Pathway, Arching Fruit Trees, and Bench, Garden Design 2012 — Allt-y-bela Kitchen Garden Pathway, Arching Fruit Trees, and Bench, *Garden Design* 2012

In 2015, I started creating a kitchen garden space to the north of our vineyard, with 4’ x 8’ raised bed kits. I looked high and low for hazel or willow wattle fencing for enclosing the kitchen garden similar to Allt-y-bella. I couldn’t find any source at the time. I needed about 75’ total. However, I happened to find a large amount of rolled willow fencing at Rogers Gardens at 50% off in an obscure sale corner. My intention for fencing the perimeter was to keep our chickens out of the kitchen garden as well as any random critters.

Up until 2020, my kitchen garden was good, and a work in progress. Over time, with sun exposure and high winter winds the willow fencing began to come apart and break down. This is common. I started looking for what I call wattle or willow fencing again.

Last month I found willow fence panels online at Master Garden Products. They offer a nice selection and sizes of willow fencing, panels, borders, obelisks, etc. They are out of the Seattle area, and will freight orders to you. I purchased 6’ L x 3’ H woven panels for my entire perimeter, and used the same anchoring rebar and metal stakes that were already in place. I am really pleased with the look, and the material overall. I also purchased three obelisks for climbing beans. The willow panels are stronger and sturdier than the rolled fencing, but will eventually break down over time.

Fine tuning the willow fence, I will put put larger rocks around the bottom of the fencing, to discourage critters from burrowing under the fence.

Starting an Outside Row of Perennial Artichokes

For more information and musing on how I create garden rooms from garden magazines, photos, and design ideas, please go to my previous post, The Making of a Garden Room.

French Fabulous! On Netflix, there is a new French subtitled drama series, Lupin. It is like a modern day “Houdini” Thriller series. Lots of twists and turns. Not only does it keep you on the edge, it is filmed mainly in beautiful Paris. Once you watch an episode or two, it draws you like a magnet. With two series completed, I see there is a third one coming.

Bon Appétit and Bon Weekend….Bonnie

Kitchen Garden, Styling, Musing, GardenBonnie Jo ManionJune 24, 2021Garden Design Magazine, Kitchen Garden Inspiration, Allt-y-bela, Arne Maynard, Master Garden Products, Willow Hurdle Fencing, Willow Obelisks, Provence, Bonnie Jo Manion, Domaine de Manion, French Country Living, Rogers GardensComment

Flowering Grapevines

Depending on weather, the end of May, the beginning of June, our vines flower on new grapevine shoots reaching towards the sky, and this starts the beginning genesis of grape clusters. Grapevines are self-pollinating, so each flower has the ability to turn into a single grape berry, and ultimately a very handsome cluster of grapes. It is not a showy flower, green in color, and often you have to look very close to see this process happening.

It is a vulnerable time in the vineyard, as strong winds, can harm these delicate flowering grapevines and affect your yield and quality of grapes for the rest of the growing year.

Happy Summer Grapevines Marching Towards Fall

The grapevine shoots are still chartreuse green in color, but soon will become a darker mature forest green as the canopy grows and spills over the structured wiring keeping them in place. The grapevine clusters look plentiful, and so there is hope for a nice grape cluster yield and harvest in the fall.

For More Related Posts on Our Vineyard:

Domaine de Manion Vineyard

Bon Appétit and Bon Weekend…..Bonnie

Vineyard to VintageBonnie Jo ManionJune 3, 2021Backyard Vineyard, syrah grapes, grapevines flowering, domaine de manion, Bonnie Jo Manion, French Country LivingComment

Jubilant for Cherries

Our Gite Patio Overlooking Sablet, Provence

Back in 2007, my husband and I rented a gite outside of the medieval village of Sablet in Provence, France. A gite is a small furnished vacation house in France, usually in a rural setting. I rented it online, and was drawn to the spectacular setting nestled amongst the grapevines with the stunning lower Rhône Valley before our eyes.

Once a bachelor farmer son’s small stone home upstairs, and where livestock often were conveniently sheltered on the ground floor below, this beautiful little property had been lovingly restored and transformed into a very comfortable gite. I will never forget walking into the stone home and kitchen for the first time, finding a waiting bottle of Rhône wine on the wooden kitchen table, a huge bowl of fresh ripe cherries, and a note to enjoy our stay. I was in heaven.

Since we usually travel to France in the spring, I now always associate Provence in the spring with the fabulous seasonal cherries. So sweet and delicious, perfect fresh or in a light dessert.

Cherries at Apt, Provence, Saturday Market

Experiencing fresh cherries in Provence, I wanted to grow spring cherries in our orchard, but cherries typically need a cool climate, abundant chill hours, not normally trees for Southern California. A few years ago, I found cherry trees suitable for Southern California at Green Thumb Nursery in San Marcos, a retailer for Dave Wilson Nursery.

I bought a Minnie Royal and a Royal Lee, two great Southern California cherry trees necessary to pollenize each other. For some reason, I kept losing the Royal Lee tree, twice in fact, and then once with the Minnie Royal tree. Graciously, Green Thumb Nursery replaced each tree for me. I was beginning to doubt it was possible to grow cherry trees in Southern California.

With persistence, both trees are doing really well now. Last year was my first crop, and now this year, an even bigger cherry crop. I eat them off the tree when gardening. I don’t think they will see my kitchen for a couple of years.

Garden Design Tip: I always enjoy spring nasturtium that reseed and self-sow in my orchard which adds a little color and interest. This year I planted multi-color sweet peas at the base of many of my orchard trees, providing a few small stakes close to the trunk of each tree. The sweet peas responded well, climbing up the stakes, some onto the trees, and sprawling around the base of each tree with pretty color. I was pleased, and will continue to do it next year. You can also plant a climbing rose at the base of your fruit tree, and the rose will use the tree as support as it grows. These ideas are simple, add interest, and dress up an orchard or focal fruit tree.

Royal Lee Cherry Tree on the Left, Minnie Royal Cherry Tree on the Right

Do you have a success story with a fruit tree, or your backyard orchard? Please share!

Bon Appétit and Bon Holiday Weekend….Bonnie

Ode to Alice Waters

Meeting Alice Waters at Chino Farms, December 2013

Alice Waters has a new book coming out in June 2021, We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto, which you can pre-order now at Amazon. This year, her iconic restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, celebrates its 50th Anniversary. So hard to believe. If you missed the recent New York Times article, Alice Waters Says People Who Call Her Elitist Just Don’t Get It, it is juicy reading.

I am just one person among millions, who have been greatly influenced by Alice Waters in so many ways. She is a national treasure. She is not afraid to speak her mind about eating, food, and food production. She has been honored over and over again, and people from royalty to presidents listen. Alice Waters is a great example, like Lulu Peyraud, of how one person can change the world, with authenticity and passion.

When I speak to groups, and in my writing, her underlying voice is resonating the now familiar philosophy of growing your own food, cooking fresh and simple, eating locally, eating seasonally, celebrating your food with all of your senses, teaching children through gardening, sustainability, supporting artisan farmers, slow food versus fast food, and more.

In 2018, I helped one of my garden clubs bring Alice Waters to San Diego to speak at the beautiful ballroom, Prado at Balboa Park. It was a sold out event. Everyone’s ticket included a beautifully prepared luncheon, a copy of her then latest book, Coming To My Senses, and a meaningful contribution to Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard Project. Besides her ability to speak gracefully to over 300 attendees about food, her philosophy, her long time friendship with Chino Farms, our food culture, and her beloved schoolyard project, she also had time to meet and “thank” the chef who prepared our luncheon, the event committee, and my dear friend and team, who made the beautiful edible centerpieces.

VIP Table at Alice Waters’ February 2018 Event, Prado at Balboa Park

Thank you Alice for your courage, vision, and tenacity! If you have a favorite Alice Waters story or recipe, please share!