grace grits and gardening - ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Luci and Ian Family Garden

May 22, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

(I was provided free admission to the Luci and Ian Family Garden. No other compensation was received. All opinions are my own, but you knew that, right?.)

A few weeks ago I was invited to the grand opening of the Luci and Ian Family Garden, the only Central Texas native plant garden devoted to families and children. Located within the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Southwest Austin, the garden is interactive and educational, one of those places where kids soak up new things while playing.

Yep, they won’t realize they are learning about water conservation and patterns in nature.

I considered snagging a couple of neighbor kids for the trip to Austin, but took my husband instead. And really, we are both like big kids when it comes to exploring a garden. Having grown up in the 1970s, we were those kids who played outside all summer, rain or shine, mosquitoes or not. With only three television channels and no video games, we read books (printed on paper) and used our imaginations to escape into a virtual world.

I know. I sound old. But the Luci and Ian Family Garden provides nature play for today’s children who likely don’t spend as much time exploring and creating. And that’s a much needed thing.

Check out these ginormous bird nests.

Giant Bird Nests - Luci and Ian Family Garden, Austin

Wow!

Climb this impressive tower for a bird’s-eye view of the entire garden. (No worries—there’s a spiral staircase not visible in this picture.)

Rapunzel?

Binoculars are provided to make sure you don’t miss a leaf or critter.

One of the most popular places in the Family Garden is the grotto. Play a game of hide and seek behind the waterfall. Feel free to splash and cool off too, it’s allowed and expected.

Young guests have their own Little House—a special place for reading, crafting, and digging in the dirt. Other hands-on garden activities include a maze, dinosaur creek, hopscotch, wildlife blind, stumps and sticks for building and playing.

There’s an expansive lawn for kite flying. Remember lying on the grass naming the shape of clouds? You can do that in the garden too.

Be sure to put the Luci and Ian Family Garden on your summer list of places to visit. Not only will your children enjoy the activities and sites, you’ll remember what it was like to be a kid again.

Butterfly Class

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

P.S. If you live in the area, take a look at the Nature Nights Summer Schedule beginning June 12, 2014. Fossils. Snakes. Birds of Prey. Oh yeah…

How NOT to bake a Strawberry Cake.

May 19, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

We have many traditions in our family including Nana’s strawberry cake recipe. Since my birthday always happened during our Fourth of July trip to the lake, Momma (or Nana) baked a fresh strawberry cake at home to carry with us. (No one wanted to do real cooking at the lake.) Even after driving through the Ozarks, waiting in line at the ferry, and stopping in town for groceries, the cake was dreamy and luscious. We gorged on it all week.

This weekend, (daughter) Kelsey and I messed with tradition. For (son) Tate’s twenty-first birthday, we decided to tweak the recipe. Since we both love to cook, we thought it would be fun to try something new. We researched on-line recipes. Only a 4.5 star recipe would do.

Clearly, we weren’t right in our heads. Why mess with perfection? (Our excuses—I’d been cooped up too long in the house writing, and she’d just finished law school finals.)

The recipe we selected looked wonderful. It contained strawberry preserves and fresh strawberries and cake flour and vanilla bean paste. Plus there was buttermilk. Buttermilk means serious baking, y’all.

And oh my goodness, the batter. We licked the spatula and most of the bowl. Best batter ever. Light and fluffy.

We were feeling smug about our new and improved strawberry cake right up to the moment we tasted the finished product.

What a complete waste of calories. The cake was dense and flavorless, more like a bad grocery store bundt cake than fresh homemade cake-cake. The frosting was all wrong and not sweet enough.

It wasn’t Nana’s cake.

Not even close.

If Nana was watching (and of course she was), I’m sure she was thoroughly entertained by the whole birthday cake tasting debacle. The birthday boy pretended to like it. The rest of us gagged a few bites down. Kelsey had to cleanse her palate with a plain strawberry. (It did leave a strange aftertaste.) My sister’s boyfriend said it tasted like Nestle’s Quik strawberry drink from back in the day.

Even with a less than stellar cake, the day was a success because it was spent with family. We’ll be laughing about our cake experiment for a while…

Luckily we still have Nana’s 5-star recipe. And with my birthday only fifty-two days away, I know we’ll get the real thing soon enough at the lake. Momma will see to it.

Nana – baker of the best strawberry cake…

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

P.S. Today as I went back to review the recipe we used (trying to decide whether or not to call it out on my blog), I realized we chose a 2-star recipe! Not sure HOW that happened after reading so many 4 and 5 star recipes. Like I said, we weren’t in our right minds. This whole thing would have been avoided had we read the reviews. So be sure to never make the Country Living Fresh Strawberry Cake. It’s anything but.

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” ― Julia Child

Musical Pairing:

Carry on Wayward Son

Spiceman’s FM 1410

May 16, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

See this storefront covered in bars? Follow me inside and feast your eyes on Spiceman’s FM 1410, a wonderland of exotic produce, herbs, micro-greens, fungi, and yes, spices.

Proprietor Tom Spicer sells to all the hippest Dallas restaurants, and he’ll sell directly to you and me too.

Spiceman’s FM 1410 is located in East Dallas, next door to Urbano Cafe and behind Jimmy’s Food Store. His market is urban, his food seductive.

Depending upon what’s growing out back, his offerings may include Dragon tongue beans, Indian desert celery, fresh green coriander berries, fiddle heads, wild miners lettuce, black garlic and more.

And the ‘shrooms? A dime bag will change your dinner.

No matter what you buy, the Spiceman (as he’s known around town) will send you off with a few of his own favorite recipes. If you have time to spare (and you will), he’ll sit and gab. He’s a storyteller too.

One more thing—I highly suggest you LIKE his Facebook page. His posts are downright literary.