To Be The Land of Milk and Honey - Beginning Beekeeping

The newest additions on the farm - Honey BeesMonths and months ago, in the middle of winter in a 3rd floor walk-up in Brooklyn, I made one of my first calls to a real Tennessean. His name was Ed Johnson, or Ed, The Honey Man. About an hour later I hung up the phone with a huge grin on my face. In addition to putting me at ease with the idea of taking on bees with no previous experience, in his disarming drawl he had regaled me with a story about his old girlfriend, who shares my name, and various tidbits of useful local information. It was one of those calls that made my week. 

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Dark Chocolate Chèvre Truffles with Red Chile and Honey

I've been meaning to share this one for awhile now. They're so tasty and very easy to make. I put these together for the first time for a little Valentine's day treat for Scrapple this past Feb. while I was interning in the caves at Murray's. At the time, their cave master was doing a collaboration with Mast Brothers Chocolate, an amazing independent chocolatier in Brooklyn (they bring their beans in on a sail boat to conserve energy!) for a special Valentine's day cheese and I was inspired to do some experimenting of my own! 

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And He Shall Be A House Cat

After our disappointing foray into owning a cat we decided to get another one. We were determined to have a barn cat. In fact, I’d still like to have a barn cat. It just won’t be Levon. Levon shall be a house cat. And he shall be a family cat. And he shall be a Levon. A hysterical indoor cat.

A few days after burying BG under a big maple tree and planting some wildflowers around her area we decided to give cats another shot. Sweetbreads found a great looking male cat, very healthy, neutered, loves to climb, and fully clawed. We thought he could stick up for himself, get away if necessary and generally make it as a barn cat.

So we put him in a dog crate in the barn to get him acclimated to his new home, the barn. The dogs, goats and chickens were all around and they all took turns getting familiar with their feline friend. Sophie came and sniffed him, the big girls came and sniffed him, the goats got a little too close and realized they don’t really need to be curious about cats. And that was pretty much it. We let them live together for almost a week just to be sure they all knew that Levon was our cat and he was ok. Don’t eat Levon.

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