Trustees News and My Favorite Portuguese Food

I led the library's tree walk yestereday. When originally designed, the walk would have gone from the Italian Garden through Queset to Oakes Ames Hall and the Rockery. Then the Trustees of Reservations opened the Governor Ames Estate and everything changed. The estate is the 107th Trustees property and the area around the mansion is essentially an arboretum. Giant specimen trees dot the large lawn including Sweet Gum, Beech, Larch, Balsam Fir, and Ginko (that doesn't exhaust the list!). The wilder rear section of this 36 acre property is also spectacular by the way.

Much to my surprise Dennis Camp, the regional supervisor for the Trustees, came over from his headquarters in Canton to take the tour! No pressure there since he clearly knows more about trees than I'll ever hope to, but Dennis was sooo helpful-pointing out a Balsam Fir the size of a large Christmas tree that was actually a branch of a much larger tree that had toppled long ago, and identifying two small trees that had eluded my field guides. He then surprised everyone with a tour of the mansion and carriage house.

Speaking to the tour group, Mr. Camp urged everyone to visit often and to send in ideas for programming to the Trustees website. They are looking for a niche in the programs already provided by the Children's Museum and the NRT. The historic Carriage House will definitely be maintained, and Dennis noted that the Trustees are looking for a use for the 1950s mansion and urged us to come up with ideas as the Trustees plan for the future.

Yesterday, the Globe published a story about the new Trustees President which you can read here. The man on the far right is Dennis Camp. The Bird Estate in Walpole is one of the properties he is in charge of-he urged us all to check it out due to its similarity to the Ames property. By the way, you can subscribe to the Trustees e-newsletter at their website. As I have noted before, the website also gives detailed information about the Trustees properties. Here's a link to a really good article on controlling invasive species that I'll be blogging about tomorrow.

I won't be visiting the Bird Estate until next week since this weekend is all about food. On Saturday, I'm "opening the market," part of my job as Agricultural Commission Chair. Just want to remind everyone that the Farmer's Market isn't only about vegetables. You can actually eat a full meal on the grounds from Simpson Spring beverages to delicious cheeseburgers or slices of sourdough pizza. Dessert could be fresh berries or cookies, pastries and cakes. Samples of wine are also available.

Sunday I'll be joining the library's Foodie Group on a pilgrimage to Wegman's. I'm sure you'll be getting a report on that.

I've been listening to a wonderful audio book called The Thousand Autumns of Jacab de Zoet, a story of Nagasaki in the days of the Dutch trading concession there around 1800. At that time Japan was officially closed off from the European world except for this one trading post. This decision had been made 200 years before due to the activity of Christian missionaries brought in by the Portuguese and Spanish. Most of the story is fictional, but some events are historical. In researching the history I discovered that the Portuguese brought a popular dish called peixinho-da-horta to Japan. The dish is still popular to this day and is known by another Portuguese derived name: tempura. Yup, the wonderful batter dipped veggies and fish we are all familiar with at Japanese restaurants traveled 360 degrees around the world to get to a restaurant near you!