“Heaven can wait…” while we enjoy the inimitable crunch of June: French breakfast radishes!
French breakfast radishes: Heaven can wait! (Photo: Geo Davis)
Remember when I asked if you were ready for radish time? Well, it’s upon us. Lots. Of. Radishes. French breakfast radishes, my favorite, to be precise. That slightly spicy, slightly sweet crunch is sooo satisfying. For breakfast. For lunch. For dinner. For snacks all day long.
French Breakfast Radishes
For the uninitiated, I’m a bit of a garden geek. And radishes, in all their punchy, hyper saturated color, flavor, and ASMR glory are one of my early season favorites.
The French Breakfast Radish (Raphanus sativus) is red-skinned root vegetable… with a white splash at the root end… [that] is distinguished by its oblong shape… [and mild flavor] if harvested and eaten early. Widely considered a spring radish, the French Breakfast Radish is ideally grown and harvested when temperatures are still cool. Hotter temperatures increase the “spiciness” (peppery bitterness common to most radishes) and often result in a pithy interior.
So the increasingly hot weather (and the week of rain in the forecast) threaten to abbreviate prime time for radishes. So, we’re enjoying them without restraint!
And not just the tasty red and white roots. We added radish greens to the succulent homegrown spinach we wok-sautéed with garlic and olive oil last night. Sublime.
As with standard radish varieties, the “radish greens” of the French Breakfast Radish can also be eaten. Washed and tossed into a saucepan of olive oil (or avocado oil), garlic, and onion, this wilted green is a delicious accompaniment to just about any meal!
It’s a little premature to start celebrating the soon-to-be-completed hardwood flooring in the icehouse. With only the first two rows installed (and a third in the works), a superstitious soul might delay an update in the interest of humility (or outwitting fate). But it’s been so many months in the planning and preparation that I’ve decided to offer you a flooring sneak peek. After all, it looks too spectacular to keep it a secret!
Flooring Sneak Peek (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Do you remember my post about acclimating the ash and elm flooring in the icehouse loft? Well, with plenty of time for the homegrown flooring to acclimate and a rapidly diminishing timeline, Peter guided the transition to flooring as Eric put the finishing touches on the garapa paneling in the bathroom. (Glorious garapa bathroom update tomorrow.)
In the photograph above, you can see the dramatic intersection of new flooring with the bookmatched threshold (beneath the columns.) The flooring courses will be perfectly aligned in the vestibule and in the main room ensuring continuity with a dramatic interstitial transition at the ash “heart” abstraction formed from the mirrored grain (concealed with rosin paper in this photograph) of the bookmatched planks.
Variable Width Flooring (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
We opted for variable width flooring, and we’re intermingling ash and elm. All of this lumber was harvested, milled, seasoned, dimensioned, and finished on-site. In fact, some of this wood was felled almost 15 years ago, so this has been a slooow evolving rehab! So slow, in fact, that until about a year ago, we’d begrudgingly come to accept that the icehouse rehab might never happen. So, finally witnessing progress, even a few boards, is momentous and deeply rewarding.
I will follow up soonish with a more detailed look at how we’re joining the floorboards and a few other details that will make more sense once we’re a little bit deeper into this project. But, suffice to say, we haven’t taken the easy (or quick) way out! But I’m confident that the rewards are around the corner.
For the last couple of weeks my future study/studio/office in the icehouse has been serving as a lumber loft. Remember my excitement when we completed installation of the beech flooring (surplus materials remaining from reflooring Rosslyn’s living room, parlor, kitchen, and entrance hallway) a couple months ago? And my anticipation when Tony was about to start sanding and sealing the beech?
Well, “soon” slipped into later. Tony sanded and sealed and sanded and sealed… Gradually he built up a luxurious luster that I should have showcased long ago. But the orphaned dispatch was preempted by another and then another. Time whistled past. And I’m still intending to revisit that process and the comely consequences. Soon!
Acclimating Ash & Elm Flooring in the Lumber Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And part and parcel of my current confessions is owning up to yet another inadvertent omission. There’s a drafted-but-delayed dispatch I initiated last autumn, updated intermittently this winter, but that today still remains unfinished and unpublished. Temporarily titled, “Homegrown Lumber: From Stump to Floor”, I am backstory-ing the ash and elm timber-turned-flooring that will soon ground Rosslyn icehouse’s first floor. Literally years in the works, this homegrown flooring is has been one of the guiding elements in the icehouse rehabilitation.
So the chronicle will be told. Not now. But as soon as I can tell the story succinctly and comprehensively. Hope it’ll be worth the wait. Until then, today’s sneak peek inside of the icehouse is a look at the lumber loft.
Acclimating Ash & Elm Flooring in the Lumber Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Lumber Loft, Haiku
Desk and bookshelves soon; now stickered stacks of homegrown floorboards, splines, drying.
The congruity between the patience and painstaking toil invested in these former-trees-future-floorboards and the poems and prose I cultivate from seed to harvest intrigues me. Especially so given my writing loft temporarily serving as a lumber loft…
Flooring and Splines Acclimating (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Acclimating Ash & Elm Flooring
I will forestall the tempting tale of how these character rich floorboards have come so close to installation within felling distance of the coordinates which marked their birth, their maturation, and their yield. I will postpone the how and why this timber is hyperlocal, having never once been transported off-property. And instead I will touch briefly on the merits of the lumber loft for acclimating the homegrown, milled, and seasoned ash and elm that will soon and forever grace the icehouse’s first floor.
Closeup of Splines Acclimating in Lumber Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In the photograph above bundles of splines milled from the same ash and elm as the flooring rest atop the boards they will conjoin. In the previous images (perhaps the first eat of all) you can discern the grooves cut into the floorboards’ edges that will receive the splines. Mimicking the function of tongue-and-groove, our splined floorboard joinery will ensure stability while accommodating the inevitable movement arriving from changes in humidity and temperature. If our installation is successful, this hardwood floor will last at least as long as the already impressive tenure of this historic building. And to ensure a successful installation it’s vital to properly acclimate the material before it is fastened into place.
The icehouse’s loft — elevated and open to the interior of the building — provide ideal conditions for acclimating: warmth and air circulation. Stickering the wood (stacking the lumber with identically dimensioned perpendicular spacers between each course) ensures consistent airflow and temperature. Why is this important? Although the rough cut lumber was seasoned (dried) and stored in the carriage barn for over a decade prior to finish milling it into flooring, fluctuations in humidity and temperature shrink and expand the wood. They can even twist, bow, and warp the lumber. So acclimating the material in the space where it will subsequently be installed enables us to improve the likelihood of a stable and aesthetically pleasing floor.
In short? The lumber loft has proven to itself to be invaluable for quality control!
