Crisp and golden…

/ Sherry Galey / 20 Comments

Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple…
JK Rowling

apple orchard

Applesflare

And so it begins — my favorite time of year. Crisp, sunny, mellow weather. New shots of colour in our surrounding trees. The freshest of fruit and vegetables. And time to enjoy my favorite of all apples, the honey crisp.

I didn’t know about the honey crisp until a few years ago. I think I first found it in a grocery store. Always on the lookout for something new and different in the produce section, I tried it. And was an immediate convert. Then I found a nearby orchard that grows it. Hallelujah!

The honey crisp is the quintessential eating apple. It has an unbelievably crisp and juicy texture. Its flesh is cream coloured and coarse. It is so hard to describe the flavour, but trust me, if you love apples, there is nothing like it.

Sharing with Kim Klassen’s Friday Finds.

Kim Klassen dot Com

Of cukes and pickles…

/ Sherry Galey / 15 Comments

jar1500

“Cukes,” my grandfather, the master gardener, called them. And he loved his cukes. He also loved his pickles.

So when I saw the harvest of cucumbers that came in today from the garden, I knew I had to make pickles — my grandfather’s favourite — bread and butter pickles. He also liked icicle pickles and watermelon pickles, but that’s another story.

It helps that these pickles are quick and easy to make.  I had a sense of  his original recipe, but couldn’t remember the exact proportions, so I googled a few and then adapted my final recipe.

I didn’t process this batch since they get eaten up too fast around here. We just keep them in the fridge.

Here are a couple good recipes, should you have a bunch of cukes around your house also.

Smitten Kitchen

Serious Eats

bottles2-1500cukes1500

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

/ Sherry Galey / 9 Comments
Sailing

On Biscayne Bay, facing Key Biscayne

I have to admit, I can be a bit contrary. Just as the weather is turning and making us think about being “inside” more, I start thinking more about being outside. But being outside, inside a sailboat, that is. One of the places that makes me feel most at home in the world.

These scenes are from Biscayne Bay near Miami in Florida a few years ago. As we start talking about getting ready to go south, I decided to scan through these old images and the great memories came flooding back.

Lately, I’ve been spending time getting familiar with my new Topaz bundle, which contains more presets than I will ever know what to do with. I’m thinking about the simplicity of life on a sailboat and what it feels like to be inside a small vessel on big open water under big open sky.  The feeling of all the dramatic contrasts really lends itself to black and white.

I haven’t been all that pleased with my black and white conversions in the past, but I am pleased with Topaz. It provides so many great options and allows you you to tweak to your heart’s content, to get exactly the look you want.

Topaz also came to the rescue in dealing with the noise in the images, which were made with my previous camera, which was a lot more noisy than my new one. So I also ran Topaz Denoise, which is absolutely wonderful for getting rid of that pesky noise.

I’m really just scratching the surface with Topaz so if you have any favorites or tips for using it, I’d love to hear about them.

big cloud b and w

Taken from our sailboat facing Coconut Grove.

Friday Finds

/ Sherry Galey / 18 Comments

What did I find, discover, or uncover this week?

Well, buried beneath the soil in our garden lay a beautiful rainbow of heirloom carrots, which we dug up, admired, photographed and then ate for supper!

This was our first year experimenting with heirloom carrots. I ordered the seeds online and we planted them in late May. They grew quite slowly this summer — but they did grow — and I think they’re incredibly beautiful. They are also incredibly flavourful.

The varieties here are Chantenay, Atomic Red, Dragon and Amarillo.

Hybrid seeds are created by crossing two selected varieties, sometimes resulting in vigorous plants that yield more than heirlooms. Heirloom vegetables are old-time varieties, open-pollinated instead of hybrid, and saved and handed down through multiple generations of families.

One of the main advantages of heirloom vegetables is exceptional taste and, some would argue, higher nutritional value. A lot of the breeding programs for modern hybrids have sacrificed taste and nutrition.

The standard tomato is a good example. Instead of old-time juicy tangy tomatoes, it tastes like cardboard. It was bred to be picked green and gas-ripened because that’s what was needed for commercial growing and shipping.

I know I’ve eaten at restaurants that serve heirloom vegetables and fruit, and, upon tasting the rich, deep flavours, my reaction has been: “This is a carrot, tomato, melon or (fill in the blanks)….?” because the flavour is so much better than the standard grocery store fare.

These carrots have been a great find.

Sharing with Kim Klassen’s Friday Finds

Kim Klassen dot Com

Watching with glittering eyes…

/ Sherry Galey / 21 Comments

madison and apples

Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Roald Dahl

This is the way I want to see the world, as a child does, with glittering eyes and an unconditioned mind and an open heart. And this is the way I do see the world more now than ever before because of photography.

Today I am celebrating and paying tribute to the many online friends and photography buffs that I have connected with in Canada, the United States and many other countries through social media.

Thank you for sharing with me the magic you find in the world and the unique and exciting ways YOU see it — through your images and your words. I am regularly gobsmacked (good Irish expression there) by your particular vision and passion.

We use our eyes and our lenses and our artistic tools so differently, but what we share is profound — a gratitude and appreciation for the gifts that keep coming — even in the times that challenge us to our core. We support each other and encourage each other. And we keep coming back to what is truly important.

Indeed Rumi is right: “there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

 

Weekly photo challenge: The sea

/ Sherry Galey / 18 Comments

Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave until it gets to shore.

Rumi

bathtub

Last winter, when we were living on our sailboat, I became quite entranced with a section of the beach on Hutchinson Island, Florida called the Bathtub Reef. The contrast of the craggy coral reef and the smooth, long-exposure waves, really captivated me.

There’s a museum in this spot that is the last remaining House of Refuge along Florida’s Atlantic Coast. Called Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge, it was a life-saving station staffed by a “keeper,” who, with their families, led solitary lives in order to find, rescue, and minister to those who fell victim to Florida’s treacherous reefs and shoals. It was damaged in two recent hurricanes but has since been fully rebuilt and is well worth a visit today.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus

/ Sherry Galey / 6 Comments

focus challenge

I am by no means a speed demon when it comes to car travel — or boat travel, or any travel for that matter. (I’m more like the tortoise than the hare.)

But I am captivated by the intentional use of blur and focus in photography to suggest speed….I panned this car at night with a longish exposure and I kind of like the dramatic effect that resulted.