Valentine's Day: The Language of Flowers

Today's guest blogger is Kiki Palmer, the owner of Heart's Ease Herb & Garden Center in New Harvest. She's a perky gal, always digging in the dirt, testing out new herbal blends and teas on her friends and customers, and she's our resident Master Gardener. ~Gail

Valentine's Day is a lovely holiday, even if you don't have a significant other in your life. I always give a tea party for my customers each year with cucumber sandwiches, tea cookies and herbal teas. They leave with little bags of favors, and I hope they feel a little lighter and happier because they came.

Flowers and herbs have a language that we can use to express our feelings to those we love. Everyone knows that red roses speak of love, but there are so many others.

Camellias are beautiful flowers. They have some of my favorite meanings:

Pink Camellia: Longing for You

Red Camellia: You're a Flame in My Heart

White Camellia: You're Adorable

The day a man brings me a red camellia is the day I settle down. A few more flowers with message I love are:

Primroses: I can't live without you

Forsythia: Anticipation
Daffodil: You're the Only One or The Sun is Always Shining When I'm with You

Remember, if you haven't met the love of your life, it's okay. Love the people that are in your life, and let them know how much you care about them today.

~Kiki

Snowy Day Baking in New Harvest

When it snows it drifts. It doesn't have the same ring as "when it rains, it pours" does it? We've had an unusually mild winter this year, and the old timers have been telling me we hadn't seen the last of the snow. Today we were hit with a fairly heavy blizzard, and a portion of the expressway closed. Our small town always takes these things in stride, but to be safe I sent everyone home early. I grabbed my laptop and headed home to finish some research I had started this morning.

I took a break later in the afternoon to bake a loaf of a beer bread from a recipe Dotty had shared with me yesterday. She bakes this at least once a month for lunch at the Full Moon Cafe.

Cheddar Garlic Beer Bread

Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
12 ounces room temperature beer
4 tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
1 tsp. garlic powder

Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cheese. Add the beer, and stir to form a soft dough. Do not use an electric mixer. Mix until just moistened. Spoon evenly into a 9x5 loaf pan that has been sprayed with pan spray or coated with butter. Mix the garlic into the melted butter and drizzle on top of the dough BEFORE baking. Place the loaf pan on a cookie sheet in the oven on the middle rack. Bake at 350 degree F. for 45 minutes. Test with a toothpick. If still undone, bake for ten more minutes. Serve warm.

Notes: My bread turned out crusty on the outside and soft on the inside. It was delicious, and worth putting up with the smoke from the oven. Why, you ask? I forgot the cookie sheet and the butter bubbled over into the bottom of the oven. Not a good thing, especially when it's a cold winter day and open windows make for a chilly house.

~Gail

Full Moon Cafe: A February Favorite

Gail asked me to stop by today and share a favorite recipe and the story behind it for Valentine's Day. I've been cooking for the cafe since I was 15 years old, and helping my daddy out in the kitchen. I learned the basics from him: fried chicken, meatloaf, roast beef and all the diner food folks came to expect from our cafe. I was always trying to convince him to let me try new dishes, but he'd say "Dotty, our customers don't need any new fangled food. They like our menu just the way it is. They count on it." Daddy was nothing if not steadfast and reliable.

One year I talked him into letting me make a special dessert for Valentine's Day. I was 16, and it was called "Orange Kiss Me Cake". I made up a sign for the window, and had baked it at home several times earlier in the month, which is how I had convinced Daddy to let me make it for the cafe. I remember that day clearly for so many reasons. The lunch crowd had bought out the first cake, and I had just put out the second cake. I looked up and saw a young man walk in the cafe. He was six foot tall with sandy brown hair, and looked like a young Steve McQueen. He sat down at a table near the door just as I headed his way. I asked what I could get him, and he said in a slow Southern drawl:

"Darlin', I have to try a piece of the Orange Kiss Me Cake."

He hit me with a smile that made my knees buckle. Turns out his name was Ben, and he'd just moved to New Harvest from Alabama. I've made him the Orange Kiss Me Cake for 49 years now, and every time he gives me that smile it still weakens my knees. He waited two years to propose to me, sitting at the same table he sat at that first day. Turns out my daddy had threatened to ruin his pretty smile if he didn't wait to ask me until I was 18. It's okay, he was worth the wait.

I thought you all might like to bake the Orange Kiss Me Cake for someone you love. I remember cutting the recipe out of a newspaper all those years ago, but it's not exact. I changed it slightly and frost it with whatever frosting or glaze catches my fancy each year.

Orange Kiss Me Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 large orange

1 cup milk

Using a grater, carefully zest the orange all around. Set aside. Sift together flour, soda and salt. Cream the shortening and sugar. Blend in the eggs one at a time. Add the orange zest. Add the milk, alternating with the dry ingredients, using an electric mixer. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for 30-35 minutes. Cool.

This cake can be frosted with a cream cheese or buttercream frosting.

May your Valentine's Day be full of love and laughter.

~Dotty

It's February: Let's Get Giddy

This is my first blog post as editor of The Harvest Moon Gazette. My name is Dorothy Gail, but everyone calls me Gail, since my grandmother's name is Dorothy and she used to be editor of the town newspaper just like I am now. She passed away last year, and left the gazette to me in her will. My grandmother was an amazing woman. She took over the newspaper from her father, who had learned the business from his father and grandfather. She was a generous and caring person and I miss her. She loved February, and made it her mission to "guide" at least one couple together each year around Valentine's Day. She'd always tell me she was "giddy with love" when one of her plans succeeded. I thought she had passed away without getting to match me up with the perfect guy, but little did I know her plans were already in place and waiting. I won't give away that story though since Brenda is writing it as the first book in the New Harvest series. It's making me weepy just thinking about how it all came about.

I think Grandma passed on more to me than the gazette because lately I've had this urge to bring a little love to someone in town. Pete runs the general store in town, and I've been noticing more and more how brooding and serious he's become. The man is only 30 and he acts like he's given up on love. He reminds me of Joshua Jackson from Fringe:


The man needs someone to lighten him up and bring a little giddiness into his life. I think I'll stop by The Full Moon Cafe and talk to Dotty. She was Grandma's best friend, and partner in crime when it came to love matches. I may need her help.

Don't worry, I won't spend all my time on this plan. I do have a newspaper to run, after all. I've scheduled a few guest bloggers this month to share recipes and tips to make your February a special month as well.

Thanks for reading along,
Gail

Is Winter for the Birds?

Well, it may not be for all birds, but we have some chipper little fellows that stay here all winter, and always bring a smile to my face.








I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. ~Henry David Thoreau

A New Beginning...

I've been writing nonfiction for over 25 years now, starting with an internship on a small town newspaper. That job is the one I remember with fond memories because of how much the couple that ran the newspaper loved their town. It was a family run business by two people who volunteered in the community and were truly proud of the citizens of their town. It was a wonderful experience for me at the time, and I fell in love with that type of newspaper. Unfortunately I later learned not all newspapers were so trustworthy, and many weren't owned by those who lived in the town. It was a harsh lesson to learn. I gradually left the newspaper business and worked in customer service for a long time. After my children were born I delved into this "new" world of the Internet, and fell in love again. I owned OldFashionedLiving.com for ten years, and I still work for them freelance on their blog: http://oldtips.blogspot.com/.

I started writing fiction in 2009, mostly trying to find my "voice", which isn't an easy thing to do. Finally I realized the answer was staring me in the face. I decided I could combine my love of small towns, community newspapers, cooking, gardening, books and rural living into a website and later a series of cozy mystery books. The best part? I could blog and write for the website at the same time I was working on the books. No more stretching myself too thin working on too many projects at the same time.

Many of you might know me as Moonsanity from my Twitter account where my avatar is a smiling moon. I've used that name on message boards and social networks since 2009. The name came about because of my feelings the first time I looked out at the full moon from my bedroom window in the house we bought in rural Michigan. After years of living in the city, it was an amazing sight, and made me feel like I'd finally come home.

The Harvest Moon Gazette will be the name of the small town newspaper, located in the fictional town of New Harvest. It's a little bit newspaper and a bit of a country almanac, sharing tips on gardening, cooking, do-it-yourself projects, old time lore, book reviews and whatever else a community needs advice on. I think you'll love the quirky citizen's of New Harvest. It's a place that people have called home since the early 1900's, and it's citizens tend to stick around for life, though some leave and come back when they are ready to settle down.

This blog is launching before the website, which I'm working on now. I'll mostly be sharing winter tidbits and photos until things get running, but I think you'll enjoy them. You'll also notice that I'm adding articles from my other blogs which will include author interviews, book reviews and recipes.

Thank you so much for your support during my new venture:)
~Brenda