LATEST AND LAST REVIEW

I've decided to stop posting book reviews here and to return to my focus on gardening and food (and some other things, no doubt, from time to time). That means I'll be setting up another blog for reading and writing, and I'll post the link when that's done. But in the meantime, one last book review which, since it's for a book about gardening, is appropriate for a blog that began with that focus.

Because I live and garden in the southern Arizona desert, I was delighted to receive a review copy of The Water-Saving Garden by award-winning garden writer, designer, and blogger Pam Penick.

It's easy to take water for granted; it's also very foolish. Like it or not, between over-population and climate change, water is not an infinite resource, not something to be taken for granted. Back in the 19th century, posters encouraged settlers to go West with the pie-in-the-sky claim that "rain follows the plow." It didn't then and it doesn't now, but that doesn't mean we can't have beautiful and productive gardens. As Penick shows us, what's required is careful planning, in how we prepare our gardens (soil, irrigation, and care in what we put where), what we select to plant (native and drought-tolerant or arid-adapted plants for the most part), and how we water and otherwise care for them. Water harvesting and irrigation are key to the last point.

Penick offers solid, workable advice in this extremely readable, beautifully illustrated, and highly informative book. I recommend it to any gardener, from beginner to the most experienced. I guarantee you'll find much practical and useful information in it, including ideas and advice that may surprise you - I already have!

Breakfast from the Garden

The garden is producing greens of various kinds like mad, including 3 kinds of kale: red, blue, and black (or Nero di Toscana). 

 This morning I picked a nice basketful for a recipe I'd seen on Serious Eats http://seriouseats.com for cheesy mashed beans with kale and an egg http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/11/cheesy-mashed-white-beans-with-kale-parmesan-fried-egg-recipe.html. I am a serious fan of putting poached or fried eggs on all sorts of things, so this immediately appealed. But I didn't want beans, and to be honest, I didn't even want to go to the trouble of looking up the recipe, so I decided to wing it. We're big fans of Korean food, and when I described it to Joe, he said it sounded like breakfast bibimbap, and that made him very happy. Anyway, I chopped off the kale stems - it's still so young and tender I didn't worry much about stripping out the midribs - and cut it into about 1/2" to 1" ribbons.

 Then, instead of beans, I cooked up a small pot of Quaker quick grits: 1/2 cup grits to 2 cups water and a pinch of salt. The recipes for grits and polenta always say to stir the grain into boiling water but I don't do that. I just put all the ingredients into the pan and bring it to the boil and, in the case of these quick grits, reduce the heat, cover it, and simmer 5 minutes, then turn it off but leave it on the burner.

 While that was going on I peeled and pressed a couple of big cloves of garlic and sautéed them for less than a minute in my trusty nonstick wok sprayed with pan spray and with a teaspoonful of olive oil for flavor. Don't let the garlic brown or it will turn bitter.

 Then I tossed in the kale, which was still damp from being washed before I cut it up, along with a couple of pinches of red chili flakes. It cooked quickly - 4 or 5 minutes, tops - because it's still so young. When it's older it may take a little longer and need a little added water, plus the lid to keep the steam in. That fairly good-sized pile of kale really reduced in size, so don't skimp on the kale. The original recipe called for 3 ounces of kale to serve 4 people.

 I took the kale out of the pan and kept it warm while I fried a couple of eggs, and then assembled the whole thing in bowls - I should have use colored bowls for the photos, I guess. It was a little bland because I'd forgotten about the Parmesan in the original recipe, but some salt and more pepper flakes and a sprinkle of Tajín, that wonderful combination of chile, salt, and dehydrated lime juice, took care of that. Next time, though, I may stir some grated cheese into the grits and grate some Parmesan over the top. Even without that, it was very tasty, and there will definitely be a next time!

 On an entirely different note, this year I followed the advice guaranteed to make Christmas cactus bloom at the right time, and guess what? It worked! At the beginning of October I moved my Christmas cactus into one of the darker corners of my north-facing study and cut waaaay back on watering it (as in every 3 weeks instead of every week). I brought it back out into the great room around the first of December, when it already had several buds on it. I took this picture today, December 16! There are many, many more buds, so I think it will put on a really good show until New Year's at least.

In the Bleak Midwinter . . . .

While that title will ring painfully true for many right now (even a couple of my friends in Portland, Oregon, who were so excited a few days ago about snow, are complaining about cabin fever), here in Tucson we've hardly had anything worth the name of winter. I actually miss it, though I can't complain about sitting outside right now, enjoying 74 degrees or so.

I've had this adenium obesum in my kitchen window for a couple of years, and every winter it drops leaves for a period of relative dormancy (and I try not to get too alarmed), but it's never bloomed before. There are still a couple of buds left to open to add to the already pretty showy cluster of blossoms - I am so excited!

But I'm even more excited about what I picked from the garden yesterday! We've had pepper plants survive for up to 5 years by protecting them from frosts, but never tomatoes or eggplants. (The larger peppers are Cubanelles, the smaller ones very hot jalapeños.) In fact, raising tomatoes here is problematic at best - some years I don't even try, and I almost didn't this year. The Big Boys and wonderful heirlooms that grow well elsewhere . . . well, I've never had any luck with them here, but cherry tomatoes . . . sometimes. Sometimes not. Everything on this platter was planted early last spring and the plants are still going strong. It's very strange and no doubt, like so much of the rest of the strange weather this year, related to global warming, so my gratitude for this beautiful harvest is necessarily tinged with unease. But I can't not appreciate the beauty and abundance.

 This is the blossom of the Golden Sweet Snow Pea, an heirloom variety from India. I purchased the seeds from Pinetree Garden Seeds, a small, family-owned seed company with very reasonable prices and packets sized right for small family gardens like ours, and a selection of seeds and other garden-related items one might not find elsewhere, like these gorgeous yellow snow peas! I picked a few this morning and there are lots more on the vines that aren't quite ready.

 A friend gave me a small plant of this strange and very prickly euphorbia whose last name I don't know. Hard to believe it's in the same family as poinsettia. Anyway, I have several larger pots of it now (just break off a piece and stick it in the soil) and they're all getting ready to bloom - just look at all the little pale green buds.

And the Meyer lemon, that's had a rather rough and unproductive year, is also bursting into bloom. I've been watching the buds and today found the first open blossom.

So the weather is crazy but lovely and I'm trying to just enjoy what we have and not think about the heat that's coming or the lack of rainfall here this "winter." I wish winter wasn't hitting so hard in other places, and if you're in one of those places, I hope things let up soon, and I wish you warmth, comfort, and good company.

Changing Times

Joe went back to work on Tuesday and I didn't; up till then it had just felt like our usual summer break rather than the R word. And I still don't feel retired, since my vision of that was days alone to pursue my creative and domestic projects. I'm not complaining, just acknowledging that, as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans," like when the wind blows down a tree and the only practical, reasonable thing to do is to cut and stack it for firewood (and a playground for cactus wrens).

A week ago yesterday my mother had what fortunately turned out to be a small stroke-type event, a TIA or transient ischemic attack, but unlike that tree, she got back up and is recovering well. She spent two days in the hospital and has been with us since then, though she'll be going home on Sunday. I'm so glad to be able to be here for her, and she's a wonderful, undemanding "guest." My problem is in my own head: I feel guilty about taking time for myself to write or paint or whatever, though she's perfectly able to entertain herself. In fact, she'll probably be relieved to be free of my anxious hovering.
       One thing we enjoy together is wildlife in the backyard. While I'm watering, she circles the patio with her walker, and we observe things like the Texas ranger blooming in response to recent rains (this picture is from yesterday and already the blossoms are fading and dropping),

the goldfinches at their new feeder full of nyjer seed,

and the doves vacuuming up whatever falls to the ground.

Nyjer seed is pretty expensive, but I finally broke down and bought a sock feeder to see if it would attract the goldfinches that have been absent since our sunflower crop failed this year - usually we have lots of sunflowers and thus lots of these beautiful birds. You can see that the sock feeder worked: here are two female lesser goldfinches and a house finch (top right) on it,

 and here are a female and a male, in his lovely black tuxedo.

 But put the sock feeder up against a good monsoon and the monsoon wins, especially when they come three days in a row. The birds kept coming, but the seed in the middle would have been sprouting or fermenting or something, so we visited Wild Birds Unlimited http://www.wbu.com/, and bought the pretty yellow feeder for about $20 - we talked about making one but I don't think we could have done it for any less - and now not only does less seed fall to the ground but what's in the feeder has some protection from the rain, not necessarily from real hard-pounding rain with tree-whipping wind, but all in all better than the sock. In fact, it just began to rain again as I wrote that last sentence!
     Another change the last couple of days is that finally - finally! - my pepper plants are actually producing something! Here's a jalapeño (can you see the face on it?),

and here's a Cubanelle, a variety I've never planted before but when I saw them at Home Depot I liked the name, so here we are -

this one (and more, I hope!) will get bigger and turn red. Heat- and spice-wise, it's apparently fairly mild; I've read they're sometimes used in place of poblanos.
    I received the seeds I ordered for the fall/winter garden but it's still too hot to plant them, so I must be patient. Any number of garden chores await some cooling weather, which we'll have a taste of next week, according to the most recent forecast, and I look forward to digging and planting and transplanting, mostly various herbs and cacti. Of course when it cools the tomatoes will start setting fruit again - this one must have had its hormones triggered in some recent brief cool interval.

Bigger than a dime and smaller than a nickel, I see it as a sign of hope and faith that summer will soon be giving way to what passes for fall here in the desert southwest. I even changed my hair color in anticipation of the changing season; it's very, very red and I haven't decided whether to call it merlot or chianti, but I know autumn leaves come in this color.

And Now It's Spring

The weather roller coaster continues--we're currently heading up and there may not be another precipitous drop like last week. Birds are everywhere. A verdin was at the hummingbird feeder this morning and stayed as long as it wanted. Hummingbirds will drive each other away from the feeder and swoop and dive in fierce noisy battles, although I have seen a male and female pair (Mr. and Mrs. Costa http://morning-glory-garden.blogspot.com/2013/02/to-everything-there-is-season.html) there, sipping together peacefully. Tiny as it is, the verdin is bigger than the hummers. Mr. Costa flew up and hovered behind it for a few seconds, was ignored, and flew away to feed on red sage blossoms until the verdin left.

 Last year a quail laid her eggs in a typically flimsy nest in a big pot by the house where some predator got some of them, and maybe the mother, or else she abandoned them. After a couple of weeks I gathered those that were left and and put them up in a safe place--left undisturbed long enough, they will dry up inside--and remembered them last week and got them down to make something pretty for the coffee table. The covered terrarium jar was $7.99 from Michael's, the Spanish moss for the "nest" came from there too. Normally, I'm not a fan of artificial flowers, but I think these work here. They're from a big spray (half price!) and I put what was left in a vase on the mantel.

 The beautiful crocheted doily was a surprise gift from my mom, who found it several years ago while browsing secondhand stores. I think it's perfect for welcoming spring.

       With all the cold weather, the winter garden--there's a picture of it with snow on here http://morning-glory-garden.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-still-winter.html--got a slow start, but it's making up for lost time. I'm not sure we can keep up with all the greens before they bolt. Here are new leaves coming out on a bok choy plant I cut a few days ago.

As usual at this time of year, there's lots of wildlife mating activity going on. The doves, especially, are shameless; our back fence is a veritable den of lust. This dove built her nest in the jasmine along the side of the garage. She's just above eye-level and doesn't appear to be bothered when we pass by several times a day.

 It seems like a good site. Every year we have a dove nest somewhere in the yard. Last year's chicks, hatched in a nest on the top of a ladder Joe left out on the other side of the garage, in the blazing sun, didn't fare well. But the year before another dove family,about 4 feet up on a branch of the pine tree by the labyrinth, hatched, thrived, and flew away in perfect textbook fashion.

It's Still Winter!

What a lovely, sunny weekend we had! On Sunday I thought to myself "I guess spring is here," and although spring inevitably turns into the kind of summer where you probably can fry eggs on the sidewalk, I was okay with that. Then yesterday (Wednesday) the rain came (along with a brief midday fall of big fluffy snowflakes that melted as they hit the ground) and the temperature plummeted, and this morning my back yard looked like this!

There are blossoms on the rosemary, but what you're seeing here is snow, and snow filling the bowl St. Francis holds, snow on the octopus agaves behind him, snow on many things in the yard but none on the ground or the patio. A friend who lives in Boston scoffed at my delight in our little bit of snow, saying "It doesn't count as snow if you don't have to shovel it!" And having grown up in Idaho, I have plenty of snow shoveling memories, but hey, don't rain on my mini-blizzard!

There was no freeze warning so we didn't cover the vegetable or herb gardens, but I think they'll probably be all right. The birdbaths were frozen (sparrow skating rinks, anyone?), our neighbors' solar panels were white, and so were the Tucson Mountains to the west of us, not just on top but all the way down as far as we could see. That just never happens!

     The prediction for the next several days is for high temperatures in the 50s and low 60s, then they'll probably climb back into the low 70s, something I could live with for a long time. Right now, I'm glad we have a fireplace to enjoy for a few more evenings. Later on we'll go back outside and light up the chiminea, which is currently taking a break.

Roots and Wings

While we're "waiting for the miracle" of rain, the additional plants we've put in the back yard, plus the "use what you've got" birdbaths and the hummingbird feeders, mean that for entertainment, often all we need to do for entertainment is stand at the kitchen window! I haven't been able to get a good picture of the hummingbirds that visit the feeders, but other birds like it as well, it seems.

 This female oriole's mate has visited as well, but I wasn't fast enough to get his picture. I'll keep trying. Now I keep the camera on the counter by the window!

A couple of these tiny finches - young goldfinches, maybe? - like to hang out there, and although hummingbirds will chase other hummers away, they'll feed right alongside these little guys.

 This large glazed plant saucer on a currently unused plant stand makes a fine birdbath. The lesser goldfinches (I wonder if that name hurts their feelings?) like it very much, as do all the other birds that hang out in our yard. In this heat it's good to provide water for the wildlife, so we have a few of these around the yard.

Lots of lizards this year, like this one perched on the rocks of one of the wonderful terraces Joe built on our hillside. The rocks of the terraces give them places to hide and the plants, like these new salvia Greggii, provide cooling shade.

Quite a lot of lizard love going on lately too. These two chase each other up and down this mesquite tree and crawl all over each other - I feel like such a voyeur watching them, but it's so much fun. That tree is a bit of a miracle itself: ten or eleven years ago, when it was much smaller, a windstorm pulled it up by the roots. We dug out the hole some more, put it back in place with a pole to prop it up and rocks around the base to hold it down, and it's been just fine (and is much bigger now). The same thing happened in a neighbor's front yard but they didn't try to save their tree - they just left it there and a few months later cut it up for firewood. Probably they didn't realize how simple it would have been. I read, probably 15 years or so ago, that every mature tree adds, on average, $10,000 to the value of a property, and even without that incentive, in the desert we need all the trees, all the shade we can get.
     So, having moved from birds to lizards to the roots of trees, we'll move to the roots I had in mind when I chose this title, parsnips.

Parsnips are among the less commonly grown and eaten vegetables in the U.S., at least it seems so to me. I only remember having them a couple of times growing up, and I liked them very much. They look like white carrots, and are indeed such close relatives that in Roman times they were called by the same name, pastinaca. Interestingly, in those days carrots were white and/or purple, not the orange we know. Today parsnips are much more expensive at the market than carrots, which may be one reason they don't get used much. They're also much sweeter than carrots, with a taste that's been described as rather like honey, butterscotch, or cardamom (I think nutmeg might belong in that list) - some folks might not like that in a vegetable, but we love them. In addition, they're rather slow growers and require good, fairly loose, deep soil. I've read of people growing them in long concrete drain pipes filled with potting soil to provide the depth they need. I didn't do that, but I did plant them in a half wine barrel, where they did well, though they never got as big as the ones in the market - or else I wasn't patient enough to wait that long. We didn't have a huge crop, just enough for three or four meals, the last of which was this soup, which began looking like this in the pot:

 and looked like this for lunch half an hour or so later (mostly unattended, very easy, very tasty).

Here's the recipe, from Recipes from the Night Kitchen by Sally Nirenberg, a wonderful cookbook of just soups (with a few chili and stew recipes). Don't be put off if the ingredients in the title sound strange - it's absolutely delicious.

PARSNIP SOUP WITH SOUR CREAM AND MUSTARD
1 T. butter
1 Spanish (brown) onion, coarsely chopped
1 pound parsnips, peeled and sliced (I didn't peel, just scrubbed well with the vegetable brush)
5 cups chicken stock
1/2 - 3/4 tsp. Dijon mustard (be bold, use the 3/4)
1/2 cup sour cream (I used nonfat and it was just fine)
Sour cream or plain yogurt for garnish (optional)

Melt butter over medium heat in a heavy bottomed soup pot or large saucepan. Add onion and cook, covered, until golden, about 10 minutes (turn heat down if it seems to be browning too quickly).
    Add parsnips, chicken stock, and mustard and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook until parsnips are very soft, about 20-25 minutes.
    Remove solids with a slotted spoon and place in a food processor or blender (add some liquid if using a blender, and be sure to take out the clear center thing from the lid and hold a folded towel over it, to avoid explosions). Process until very smooth, gradually adding the sour cream and more broth. Pour it all back into the pan to stir in whatever broth remains there.
    Garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt, if you like. As you can see, I forgot that part and didn't miss it at all.
Yield: 7 cups

Now how easy is that? I may not grow parsnips again, but I will definitely buy them, and I definitely will make this soup again!

Elvis Has Left the Building

Okay, not exactly, but the remaining dove hatchling has left the nest, well and healthy and within the 11 to however many days the Sibley Guide to Birds said is normal.
      There are, however, now 16 quail eggs in the fern in the front entryway and no sign of either of the parents, also not unusual according to Sibley. Given the time that's elapsed since the last eggs were laid (nearly a week) and the parents' absence since then, I think it's safe to say they've abandoned the nest, either by choice or by mischance. Though you'd never know it by looking around the neighborhood, quail don't have a very high survival rate. I've written about that before, in a poem called "Borrowed Days," from which these stanzas are excerpted:

Here in the desert, in these borrowed days before the heat,

we plant and hope for a brief flowering.

Here our flowers are red, yellow, orange, the hot colors. 

Here birds nest and mate frantically.

Some of their young, got in these borrowed days,

may even survive the summer. 

It does not pay to watch too closely, to count the tiny quail,

to watch their numbers shrink as the heat grows.

It shrivels the heart and urges us to tears.

We cannot spare the water.

But the summer, hot as it is, provides beauty, as in the crops we grow during this time. The greens are gone now, except the chard, which is more resilient than it looks. We'll have to buy our lettuces - I pulled out the last plants the other day. The aphids of April arrived right on schedule to take over the kale, and the beets, parsnips, and rutabagas are crowding the refrigerator, soon to be joined by the last of the carrots.

     This morning, very early, before work, in one raised bed I planted Armenian cucumbers, which tolerate our temperatures, and two kinds of melons - Kazakh, which I've neither grown nor tasted, and the Spanish Piel de Sapo, which I grew successfully a few years ago. They're delicious, and apparently if you say "melon" in Spain, that's what people assume you mean. In the other I planted my two favorite winter squashes, the Italian Marina di Chioggia, big, blue-green, and warty, and the French Muscat de Provence, which looks like Cinderella's pumpkin (but should not be confused with the Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkin, which is brighter-colored on the outside and according to some sources less tasty, though I don't actually know about that, having never seen or tasted one). 

 

Tomorrow I'll plant grey zucchini, which are sold here in the markets as Mexican zucchini; I think they have more and better flavor than the regular dark green ones.

Then we'll plant tepary beans along the trellises in the west garden. I've written about those amazing beans before http://morning-glory-garden.blogspot.com/2009/11/gardens-yesterday-and-today.html. Even though many people flee northward at this time of year, I'm looking forward to it. I'll just have to make sure to get up early to do whatever needs doing outdoors in the cool of the morning!

Fresh Off the Vine

I used to plant snow peas in the winter garden until one year I decided to try the sugar snap peas everyone was talking about. Now each year I'm faced with the dilemma of which kind will get garden space. Because we don't have unlimited acreage (or any acreage at all), I like tall vines that make use of the wonderful trellises Joe built a few years ago.

     You can see how the trellises are attached to the concrete wall at the top with brackets. Joe's a wonderful, careful craftsman (I'm so lucky!); the trellises are extremely sturdy, more than 6 feet tall (but not so tall I can't reach what grows on them), with vertical posts every two feet and chicken wire between the posts for the vines to climb on.
     It's much easier to pick peas (or anything else) when they grow this way than with bush varieties, and I think (though I have no statistical evidence to confirm it) that the tall vines yield more per square foot, and all varieties of peas freeze well, so abundance is welcome.
     Oddly enough (at least it seems odd to me), the seed catalogues were full of the bush varieties of both snow peas and sugar snap peas, but the Oregon Sugar Snaps were the only tall ones I could find in the catalogue I'd decided to order from; ergo, the decision was taken out of my hands. I thought they were a bit slow getting started, but now they've hit their stride, they're very productive and delicious. Few things are tastier than a crunchy, sweet sugar snap pea just plucked from the vine.
     Perhaps I've said this before, but if so, I'll say it again. Picking peas of any variety is not a task to be rushed, because if you rush, you'll miss many of the pods and all of the pleasure. It's important to slow down, relax your gaze, get into a sort of meditative, Zen state in which the peas can reveal themselves to you. There may be some sort of general metaphor for life there.

Peas are not like tomatoes, for example, contrasting with the foliage and shouting "Pick me! Pick me!" No, pea pods are the same color as the leaves and vines, and depending on the angle at which they're hanging, it's easy to mistake one for the other. So I move slowly down the row, scanning from top to bottom, bottom to top, and when I've reached the end of the row, I turn around and do the same thing going back the other way, because invariably I find more on the return trip, pods I couldn't see because they were hidden among the leaves, or because the light comes at them differently from the other direction. Joe built the trellises just far enough from the wall that I can get behind them, but I guide the vines to grow on the other side, so there usually aren't too many back there.

     Another nice thing about sugar snap peas as opposed to snow peas is that if you miss a day or two of picking, they'll still be edible - you can't let snow peas get too large or the actual peas get too big - they get tough and the pods get stringy. Here's my crop from yesterday:

Together with what was in the refrigerator from an earlier picking, I was able to freeze enough for three dinners some time in the future, in the searing heat of summer, perhaps, when these cool and beautiful spring days will seem like a long-ago dream, and still have enough for dinner last night.  Here's what we had , a simple stir-fry of sugar snap peas, crimini mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion, pak choi (some of the last from the garden, since it's beginning to bolt), and tofu.

     Some years ago on Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor told the story of how Mrs. Ingqvist took cooking classes and learned a whole lot of ways to cook tofu, but when she told her husband that eating tofu could add ten years to his life, he said he didn't think those would be years he'd enjoy. Joe and I actually like tofu, but I think my mom agrees with Pastor Ingqvist, and since she's doing very well at almost 89 years old, I really can't use the longevity argument on her. I just don't cook tofu when she's coming to dinner.
     No doubt I'll write more about tofu some time in the future. This stir-fry would be equally good with shrimp or chicken, beef or pork, though those protein sources might dominate and in this case I wanted the focus to be on the vegetables.
     I don't really use a recipe for such a basic stir-fry, since my ingredients are usually whatever's on hand in the refrigerator, but here's the basic procedure:
 First, do any slicing or chopping or measuring before you turn on the stove, including cooking the rice. I heat up the pan-sprayed wok with a couple of teaspoons of oil in it (if you use a nonstick wok, as I do, be sure never to heat it without some kind of fat - even if it's just pan spray - or liquid in it, since heating them dry can release toxic chemicals) and toss in your protein (in this case, for two people, just under 1/2 pound of pressed, cubed tofu) and stir-fry till it browns a little (if you're using shrimp, cook them till they're not quite done, take them out, then add them in at the end again to finish cooking - overcooked, rubbery shrimp is not pleasant), then add seasonings - I use a combination of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar or sherry, a spoonful of sugar, grated fresh ginger, and minced garlic. Then put in the vegetables in batches, the longer cooking ones first, and the tender greens, if you're using them, at the end (the delicate pak choi last night needed only 1 minute or so to wilt deliciously). I usually add some (half a cup or so) liquid and put on the tight-fitting lid after adding the veggies so there's an element of steaming as well as frying. Then serve it all over rice.

 One final note about mushrooms:
never store them in the plastic produce bag in which you bring them home from the store. I put mine in the refrigerator in a little basket lined with a paper towel, so they can breathe and not get slimy if I forget and don't use them right away.  My mom does the same thing but uses a bowl with a paper towel. Don't cover them unless it's with more paper towel. (Actually, a cloth napkin would work as well as the paper towel and be more eco-conscious, and I'm sure I have a stained one that I can put to that use.) They may dry up and shrink a little, but they're usually still good if you're going to put them in a dish where they cook in some liquid that will reconstitute them. That was the case with the criminis I used last night; they'd shrunk to about 3/5 their original size and gotten a bit leathery, but they drank up the seasoned liquid and steam and were a flavorful addition to our dinner.