Sept. 17, Monday — New moon. Good fishing days Sept. 17 to Oct. 2, when the moon is between new and full.
Sept. 18, Tuesday — Rosh Hashanah. Moon on equator. Actress Greta Garbo born on this day, 1905. (Died 1990.)
Sept. 19, Wednesday — Ember Day — the weather today foretells the weather for October.
Sept. 20, Thursday — Jelly Roll Morton born, 1885. A south wind tomorrow means a warm autumn.
Sept. 21, Friday — Ember Day today tells the weather for November. The name "Minute Men" originated at Worcester, Mass., courthouse, 1774.
Sept. 22, Saturday — Autumnal Equinox. Ember Day prognosticates weather for December.
Sept. 23, Sunday — Neptune discovered, 1846. Lewis and Clark arrived home from their journey, 1806.
Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac: I want to buy goat cheese from a local market, but I'm curious about how long will it keep. — F.W., Norfolk, Va.
Answer: Goat cheeses, properly wrapped and refrigerated, should last for weeks, if not a couple of months. Like some cow's milk cheeses, many goat cheeses are meant to be aged, so you can't go wrong. The good news is that if goat cheese does happen to go bad, it's obvious.
A strong or sour smell or any bitter or unpleasant taste is a giveaway that the cheese is past its prime. If the cheese is kept in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and protected from the air, however, this is unlikely to happen unless the cheese has remained in your refrigerator for some months. Normal aging may produce a slightly stronger flavor, but not the bitterness that would tip you off to a cheese gone sour.
Goat cheeses, which are naturally lower in calories than cow's milk cheeses, are becoming more popular. Many small farmers and rural dwellers are beginning to keep milk goats for fun or profit. Many a 4-H student has discovered the unequaled charms of goat keeping.
Gourmet cooks also take a shine to goats, for a different reason. The goat cheeses are light in taste because of the lower fat content, so many cooks prefer them for sauces and desserts.
Even the pizza parlors are discovering goat cheeses, which, with basil and olives, make a festive Mediterranean-style pizza. In dips, pasta or green salads, gratins and cheesecakes, goat cheeses offer a lighter fare for today's palates.
Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac: I have a sideboard that was given to me by my aunt, who insisted it was made of cucumber wood. Is there such a thing? — V.Y., Anniston, Ala.
Answer: Not only is there cucumber wood, there are also wood varieties called tulip or tulip poplar, whitewood, popple, white poplar, yellow poplar and just plain poplar. The confusing thing is that they are all essentially the same thing — poplar.
To take the confusion one step further, there is also a tulipwood, which is distinct from tulip wood and tulip poplar. Tulipwood is similar to Brazilian rosewood and also comes from South America. Unlike the American tulip wood, its Brazilian cousin tulipwood is pinkish or tan with dark streaks.
Your cucumber sideboard comes from a kind of poplar that is related to the magnolia tree, probably Liriodendron tulipifera. Because the wood is medium hard, glues nicely and takes a stain well, cucumber wood or poplar was often chosen for furniture projects in which the finished product was meant to look like maple, cherry or mahogany.
Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac: I was surprised to see parsnips at the farmer's market last week. Is spring the best time to pick them? — F.E., Machias, Me.
Answer: Autumn and spring are both harvest times for the lowly parsnip, a biennial herb that is a member of the carrot family. Parsnips are often shunned by the unknowing, but they're prized by those who have tried them in a good lamb stew.
The sweetest parsnips, it's true, have gone through one hard frost, but perhaps by now you've had one in your part of Maine. If not, wait a bit longer. Many farmers overwinter their parsnips in the garden for spring harvest.
Some cooks say it's best to keep them in moist sand in the root cellar so that their middles won't turn woody. It may be, as the old-timers say, "Kind words butter no parsnips," but buttery parsnips will bring many a kind word to your table.
Likewise, "Plain cooking cannot be entrusted to plain cooks," but the parsnip will never be called a plain Jane at even the most posh tables. Wait for that hard frost — then don't miss them!
Send your questions to: Ask the Almanac, The Old Farmer's Almanac, Main St., Dublin, NH 03444
Web site: www.almanac.com)
