Grapevine Perspective

There are so many ways to look at things in life. You can get so involved in the details

that you don't see the bigger picture.

Or you can look at the bigger picture and miss the details, or, for that matter, miss the whole picture.

It all depends on how you look at life and where your focus is.

Raindrops on Grapes

I'm not 100% certain that these are all in good focus. They look a bit 'soft' to me, but it could be just because one eye sees ok (not perfect, but ok) and the other sees only white smeared blurs. Sigh. Someday in heaven I will have perfect eyesight again!

Enjoy!

Grapes

I harvested all of these grapes from the kitchen window area yesterday and today. I've been enjoying them as just a snack for the past several days. Usually I have a mild allergic reaction to these grapes - they make the area around my mouth tingle after eating one or two. The very first year we lived here they didn't bother me, but since then they have. Until this year. Every year I always check it out to see if I can eat them because they are very tasty. Yea! Maybe because it's been so dry and they are a bit smaller than usual? Maybe that has something to do with it? I don't know.
So, I harvested the ones from the kitchen window, a whole bowl full. What to do with them? We eat very, very little jam and jelly - maybe a small jar ever other year?? So, I went looking on the internet to see what else you can do with grapes. I didn't want to try wine - I'm afraid I'd poison myself, and Mel, too. :-) But I found and interesting Italian recipe. I cleaned and washed a little more than a kilogram of grapes, made the dough and then made the dessert. Of course, I had to taste it, too! heh heh It's not bad. The pips, or seeds, are still in the grapes and they crunch rather nicely when chewed. I wasn't sure I'd like it that way, but that's what the recipe called for, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'll post the recipe at the end of this post. After making the dessert, I squished out the innards of the rest of the grapes into a mesh colander. I worked at it until I got most of the pulp and juice separated from the pips. Then I coarsely cut up all the skins, added them to the juice, added some sugar, but not a whole lot, and boiled it. This concoction is now cooling on the stove. I think I'll freeze it and then we can use it later for a thin syrup over ice cream or pancakes or something in the future. Or maybe just add some water and make a compote out of it. Whatever. I'm sure we'll use it somehow. It tastes pretty good. :-) And I still have all of these grapes to harvest and do something with! I'll give away most of them to people in the church. :-)

Tuscan Wine Grape Pie Recipe - Schiacciata con l'Uva
One of the nicest things about autumn in Tuscany is Schiacciata con l'Uva, an astonishingly rich, sinfully juicy wine grape pie whose country roots are clearly revealed by the dough and the crunchiness of the grape seeds. This is a fairly elegant, city version, in which the traditional lard and honey have been replaced by olive oil and sugar.

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:
1 egg
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
3 1/3 cups (400 g) flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
White wine or water sufficient to make a smooth, workable dough (about 1/3 cup)
1 k (2 1/4 pounds) wine grapes (either white or red), stripped from their stems, washed, and drained
** If You Cannot Find Wine Grapes, See Below Note **
1/2 teaspoon anise seeds (optional)
1/4 cup chopped walnut meats (optional)
1/2 teaspoon freshly chopped rosemary leaves (optional)

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 200 C (400 F)

Mix the egg, sugar, flour, olive oil, baking powder, and enough wine or water to obtain a fairly soft dough. Knead it till it's smooth, and roll it out to make a sheet large enough to line and cover the pan -- a bit thinner than a quarter of an inch thick (4-5 mm).

Grease a 9x14" cake pan (we use a metal roasting pan) and line the bottom of it with half the dough, making sure that it reaches about an inch up the sides of the pan. Fill the pan with about 3/4 of the drained grapes; gently squeeze some between your hands as you add them, and leave the rest whole.

Use the remaining dough to cover the grapes, sealing them in with care, then spread the rest of the grapes on top of the schiacciata. Dust the schiacciata with sugar and bake it in the oven for about an hour, or until the crust is browned. When it is done it will be about an inch and a half thick; the dough is primarily a container for the grape filling.

You can vary the recipe. Some cooks use considerably more sugar, and others put chopped walnuts within the schiacciata and sprinkle them over it. Still others sprinkle anise seeds or rosemary leaves over the schiacciata; whereas walnuts and rosemary are sometimes used together, anise seeds are used alone.

Schiacciata con l'uva goes wonderfully with a red wine.

Can't find wine grapes?
Concord grapes will work, and have relatively fewer seeds. Or, I think, you could use a mixture of other wild berry fruit, for example currants, blueberries and raspberries, perhaps with a few plumped raisins (zibibbo would be ideal) thrown in. Don't use table grapes, because they are too watery and lacking in both sweetness and concentration.

A Couple Of Observations
Do not expect the grapes to burst as they cook -- they will remain whole, and burst on your tongue when you bite into them.
As I noted in the introduction, wine grapes have seeds, and they add a distinctive crunchiness to the schiacciata. They may also confer slightly greenish vegetal accents (say, if the grapes are Cabernet) that I rather enjoy. The crunchiness is more pronounced if you also add a little anise seed, because they don't soften as they cook.

Bottom Line: Even with the substitution of oil for lard and sugar for honey (nods to city dwellers), this remains true Tuscan peasant food, and as such a bit rustic. But very nice.

To My Father's Glory

March 22, 2006

It is not quite springtime here in Kherson. Almost, but not quite. We had two days of sunshine and I rejoiced. How I love the sunlight!

I started the day out with a load of laundry. One load of laundry can take all day if the water pressure is low. I had started a load the night before but the water went off before it was finished. So, first thing this morning (after making coffee of course!) I started the machine again and it was finished in less than 20 minutes. I emptied it out into my big purple laundry tub and sorted it into clothes to be hung up inside on the drying rack and clothes I hang outside on the balcony. Usually I try to hang out all of Mel’s jeans because they are so long and heavy when wet. I took a couple of items out, pinned them to the wire above my head and then thought to myself, why don’t you trim the grapevine today?

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in Colorado. There are not a lot of vineyards in Colorado. I’m sure people must have grapevines somewhere in Colorado, but to my knowledge, I had never seen one until I went to California the first time. And there – oh my! Thousands upon thousands of grapevines in vineyard after vineyard. Grapes for eating and grapes for wine, grapes for juice and grapes for raisins. I’ve been to California now several times and at different times of the year, so I had mind knowledge that grapevines need to be pruned.

Actually, my first schooling in grapevines came from the Bible. Jesus calls Himself the True Vine in John 15, “I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener.” And as I was growing up, going to Sunday School and church, I learned that grapevines must be pruned to bear fruit.

Our grapevine was planted in front of our building many years ago by the owners of the flat we live in. For several years it grew up along a strong wire that was attached to our balcony. Now it reaches all the way to the floor above us. I had looked the grapevine over a few days ago, while it was still rainy and gray, and had decided that the first nice day we had I needed to get out Mel’s hacksaw and cut away. This was a very brave thing for me to do. I have had many wonderful houseplants over the years and seldom do I spend several hours cutting all their branches and stems off, down to the bare stalk. On the typical houseplant, that would spell its doom and death. But grapevines are different – so I’ve read and so I’ve been told. They need this severe pruning in order to produce fruit. “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

I dug around in the box Mel keeps his tools in and found his little hacksaw. I was somewhat skeptical when I first looked at it. I think it’s a Russian or Ukrainian hacksaw because I never saw one quite that small in the States. The two prongs that hold the blade are only about 5 inches apart. The blade seemed about “normal size” to me, which means that half of it, or maybe a little more, was sticking out the end and was not attached to anything. It just wobbled. How typical, I thought.

I stepped out onto the balcony and looked at the vine. Where do I start? If I just start hacking away, I could accidentally cut off one of the branches I want to keep. I decided that in this case it was better to start at the end and work my way backwards. I looked over at the office window and found the end of a branch I wanted to remove, followed it back to where it joined with one of the larger branches, then followed that larger branch back to the vine. Then, reaching through the bars, one hand on the branch and the other wielding the saw, I found a good place and started sawing.

The saw worked wonderfully! I pulled the cut-off branch back inside the bars and dropped it on the floor. I did not want to drop them to the ground below because so many people walk past all day long. Soon the balcony floor was covered with branches. I got down on my knees and reached out as far as I could below me and started cutting one of the branches there, up against the vine. Our neighbor below us does not like her balcony covered in the summer with grape leaves (and later grapes) and has asked us to please keep the vine up and away from her balcony. As I was sawing away I realized that my reach was not long enough to just use the little part of the hacksaw. So, I started sawing with the wobbly end – and if I sawed slowly it worked! The saw is rather bent and misshapen now on the end, but I think Mel will forgive me.

There are still several branches that are too high for me to reach. Mel will have to cut them off when he returns from Spain. And maybe we will buy a ladder – then I can finish painting the bars all the way to the bottom of the balcony above us as well. But for now, the parts that I can reach are “clean.”

Soon new growth will break through the branches that I left, sending out long, green, supple shoots that will reach for the sky. Long tendrils, thin but very strong, will appear at intervals along the new growth, wrapping themselves around anything within their reach – bars, other branches, the clothesline, (and me – if I stood out there long enough) – holding the branch in place, giving it security to continue it’s mission. And before we know it, we will see tiny green grapes begin to grow on those new branches. “Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

Now I have a balcony floor covered in grapevine branches. I’m not sure what to do with them. I don’t think I should put them in the garbage – the garbage container is always full and overflowing on to the ground around and grapevine branches would just contribute to the problem. I may take them out and toss them up against a wall where other people have burned things before. I don’t want to burn them myself, but I’m sure someone will do it. “Apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to by my disciples.” (Emphasis mine. From the New International Version of the Holy Bible, John 15:1-8)

Photos: Early summer on the vine and Almost ready for harvest