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07-19-2005, 03:24 PM
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#1
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Hi, I'm Ron from Van Nuys, CA
Hello, friends,
I live in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and love to cook, especially foods from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, Middle East and North Africa.
My wife, Vivian, and I have a small vegetable garden, and are currently growing tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, green beans, tomatillos, chard and a variety of herbs, including sorrel, basil, thyme, rosemary, za'atar and parsley.
We also grow Owari satsuma mandarins, cinnamon, navel oranges, blood oranges, pomegranates, Bearss limes, apricots, Fuyu persimmons and macadamias (from which the *** squirrels stole about 40 lbs of nuts last week!).
Some of you may know me from gastronomique@yahoogroups, as well.
I look forward to posting and learning lots in and from this group.
Ron
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07-19-2005, 03:26 PM
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#2
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Chef Extraordinaire
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Cleveland,Ohio USA
Posts: 16,263
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welcome to dc ron!
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07-19-2005, 03:28 PM
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#3
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Hospitality Queen
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southern California
Posts: 11,448
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Hello Ron!
Your garden sounds wonderful!!! Blood oranges, fuyus and macadamias at one house? Wow!!! Must be beautiful!
So glad you joined us.
I'm your semi-neighbor, over near Raging Waters :)
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07-19-2005, 03:29 PM
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#4
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Master Chef
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: North Texas
Posts: 9,510
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Welcome to DC, Ron!! You'll love it here!!
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07-19-2005, 03:52 PM
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#5
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Hello and thanks
for your warm welcome!
Ron 
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07-19-2005, 03:54 PM
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#6
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Chef Extraordinaire
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Mazatlan
Posts: 20,334
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Welcome to the family!
Hope you like it here as much as we all do.
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07-19-2005, 04:00 PM
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#7
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Chef Extraordinaire
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 19,725
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Do you and your wife care if I pitch a tent near your garden? I just want to look at it and I won't take near as many nuts as those squirrels (my husband planted over 300 crocus bulbs and 100 tulip bulbs and they dug every one of them up within 3 days - there were husks everywhere) 
Welcome to DC
__________________
kitchenelf
"Count yourself...you ain't so many" - quote from Buck's Daddy
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07-19-2005, 04:14 PM
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#8
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Master Chef
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: USA, Pennsylvania
Posts: 6,000
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Welcome, Ron! Glad you've found us! Maybe you can post pictures of your garden some time. It sounds wonderful!
__________________
-A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand
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07-19-2005, 08:07 PM
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#9
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Head Chef
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Colorado
Posts: 1,709
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Welcome, Ron! I've never known anyone who grew cinnamon 
__________________
Practice random acts of kindness.
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07-20-2005, 08:35 AM
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#10
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Master Chef
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Columbia, SouthCarolina
Posts: 9,368
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It's great to have you here Ron! 
__________________
"Treat everyone with politeness,even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are."
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07-20-2005, 10:16 AM
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#11
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Cinnamon
Quote:
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Originally Posted by callie
Welcome, Ron! I've never known anyone who grew cinnamon |
Hello, there. I have never known anyone, either, who grew cinnamon. This is not the Sri Lankan variety, but the Southern Chinese/Burmese variety, commonly called cassia.
The tree's botanical name is cassia cinnamomum. We bought it from a rare fruit nursery in Chula Vista, which advertised it as a good container plant.
Well, it loved our patio and proceeded to grow and grow.....
We thought, HMMMMMMMMM, since it won't grow large, we can put it in between the mandarin orange and the navel orange.
Well, I mean to tell ya, that "container plant" is now over 20 feet tall and growing like a weed.
This week, we will prune it, to shape it a bit (no garden books ever address its growth habit, not surprisingly). When we do, we will allow the larger branches to dry out and then attempt to strip the cinnamon bark off them.
I will be sure to let you all know how that little exercise turns out.
Ron
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07-20-2005, 01:41 PM
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#12
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Hospitality Queen
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southern California
Posts: 11,448
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Ron,
knowing how well your cassia does in this area makes me think I may need to head over to Armstrong's Nursery and see if they ever get any. Either that, or it's a road trip to Chula Vista!
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07-20-2005, 02:22 PM
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#13
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Source for Cassia
Hi, there,
I fear you will not find any cassia at Armstrong's, but you will likely find it at Pacific Tree Farms in Chula Vista, or at Exotica, which is also located in the south bay area...perhaps in the Leucadia/Carlsbad area. At any rate, last time I knew, PTF had a bunch of cassia.
Ron
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07-20-2005, 02:49 PM
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#14
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Thanks to everyone for such a warm welcome:) Ron
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07-20-2005, 10:54 PM
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#15
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Master Chef
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Sierra Valley, Northern California, USA
Posts: 5,580
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Welcome, Ron. I wish I had your garden and yard. Can I pitch my tent next to kitchenelf's? Can you smell the cinnamon on a hot day from your cassia tree?
__________________
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
26th president of US (1858 - 1919)
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07-20-2005, 11:09 PM
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#16
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Of course you may:)
Thanks for your kind note
One can really smell the cinnamon when cleaning up the dead leaves under the tree. Marvelous scent!
A fellow on rarefruit@yahoogroups.com has a large tree in Florida, and revels in the scent when he mows his lawn and mulches the dead leaves.
Ron, who must prune the cassia tree tomorrow. 
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07-20-2005, 11:21 PM
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#17
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Head Chef
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Colorado
Posts: 1,709
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ron, is there any way you could post a photo of that cassia tree? I'm intrigued...(can you post the smell, too??  )
__________________
Practice random acts of kindness.
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07-20-2005, 11:37 PM
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#18
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Chef Extraordinaire
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: My mountain
Posts: 21,937
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hey ron hay, ron, hey, ron, hay, ron, hey, ron, hay, ron... aww, the heck with it. welcome. (sorry, couldn't resist. a greeting to you is somewhat perpetual...)
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07-21-2005, 09:33 AM
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#19
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Assistant Cook
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 27
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Cassia tree photo
Hello, friends, give me a coupla weeks to clean up that area so as to not make it look like the jungle it has become:(
The tree needs to be pruned, and the mandarin needs to be pulled back from the walkway.
The rains this winter were so insistant and continual that the garden really got out of hands; and when the rains finally abated, we were off to visit friends in Europe for a couple of weeks, and then things really began to grow.
We've been playing "catch-up" ever since! In about 2-3 weesk the back yard should be "salonfaehig," as my German friends would say (my mother would have said, "presentable.")
So, hold on, and your wish will be granted.
Ron
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07-21-2005, 06:18 PM
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#20
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Senior Cook
Join Date: May 2005
Location: The bustling metropolis of Butler NJ
Posts: 276
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Welcome, Welcome, a thousand greetings!
__________________
Where you are is where you belong, it is where you are going that you can change
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