sprig to twig

Wendy, over at greenish thumb has always shared recipes so delicious sounding that they tend to lure one into trying out unusual (to me, anyway) ingredients from the garden. Now she has opened her site to all of us who like to experiment with our home-grown veggies. Her recipe for eggplant, alone, is worth the click. I’m sure following the links to other contributors will yield all manner of savory inspiration. Speaking of eggplant, I like to keep a small bowl of garlic infused olive oil on hand. Whenever R fires up the grill, a few slices of eggplant, fresh from the garden, brushed with this concoction and grilled about 2 minutes to a side makes for a simple, yet delicious, side dish. I never bother with any of that salting and draining that most eggplant recipes call for, but then the slight bitterness is an asset in my book.

Wendy’s challenge takes place each and every Saturday (I’m a day late, but she is a forgiving sort). All gardening cooks are invited to join in the fun…or just go there to lift recipes.

Whenever I get to a rendevous early, out comes the camera for a tour of the neighborhood. I like to meet people at my son Din’s coffee shop, Ristretto Roasters over on Williams St in North Portland. Not only is the coffee extra special, but I just might run into Din or Nancy and get caught up on their busy lives. Anyway, here are a few shots of the surrounding neighborhood.

Heading down a side street, this guy was the first thing to catch my eye. I knew this was going to be a fun walk.

Recently completed hardscapes in this garden, a half-block away from the gargoyle, were of a more serious nature. The impressive gates lead into a vegetable plot. In the foreground, curved beds are separated from pathways by cor-ten steel barriers.

Here, square metal boxes are set within the curved bed. The plantings are all brand new. It will be interesting to revisit this garden as it grows into its “bones”.

Turn a corner, and WOW…these people are not afraid of COLOR.

So of course there was an abundance of colorful plant material about. I hadn’t seen this Echinacea before, but now I will be on the lookout.

This has got to be what is meant by “vine covered cottage”…and around back, a vegetable garden.

Across the street was this understated, subtle paint job with a jungle in front.

Time to get back for my coffee fix. As so often happens on these expeditions, I was surprised at how far I had wandered. This whole block of parking strip was barkdust mulched with the occasional rock to break the monotony, but clustered near the corner was a mature clump of yuccas. The city might have something to say about that spilling over the curb, but I find it charming.

Back on Williams, intense efforts to bring the neighborhood back from the brink have resulted in lots of new construction.

New projects are going forward even in this down economy.

With gentrification come many things, but in this case the neighborhood has kept its sense of humor and identity.

…right down to the large corner lot devoted to a thriving community garden. And now for arguably the best cup of coffee in Portland. Hey! Other people swear by it…not just his mom.

Learning to live with, and even appreciate, the thuggish plants in the garden is sometimes merely a matter of shifting focus. Let me illustrate by telling you a little story about an unassuming, shy plant that surreptitiously overran the garden and then seduced the gardener.

Moving into a different house, most will agree, can be a daunting task. More so, if the house is a remodeling project in a borderline area (it would be a stretch to call it a “neighborhood”, surrounded as it was by warehouses and freeways). In my first act of gardening, I brought home a shovelful of common violets (Viola odorata) from my mom’s and slipped them into an unobtrusive spot by the front porch. Truth be known, all spots were pretty unobtrusive at the time, but that’s another story. My intent was fuzzy, just some knee-jerk reaction to a nesting instinct. My ignorance was vast. I had never heard of such a thing as an invasive plant. Over time, more and more of the rubble-strewn lot gave way to cultivation. At weeding time, I would find errant violets popping up in each and every bed, duly yanking them out and casting them aside with some annoyance. The violets had other ideas. In late February, I ventured into the waterlogged garden to admire the daffodils at close range. Confronted by a carpet of fragrant purple, punctuated here and there by the nodding yellow and white blossoms of the daffys, it became clear that the violets had it right after all.

Then I remembered a failed baking project from some years back. It was a birthday cake. It fell. There was no time to bake another, but this sorry-looking brown lump with the crater in the middle simply would not do. Filling the crater with lemon curd helped some, but embellishment of some kind was definitely in order. Off I went to the gourmet deli for some candied violets. Yikes! Semi-precious gems fall roughly into the same price range! I would have to make do with a few primroses dusted with sugar and some sprigs of ivy. The cake was lovely in the end.

The yen for candied violets resurfaced with vigor when I saw before me the raw materials in ridiculous abundance. After some trial and error, here is the process I devised. Pick about 2 cups of violets with stems attached. Fill a large bowl with cold water. Dump in the violets and swish them around to eliminate mud and/or critters, then pat them dry with paper towels. Whisk two egg whites in a bowl until barely frothy. Mound granulated sugar in a pie pan. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment or wax paper. Have handy a teaspoon, a pair of scissors and a damp sponge. Hold a violet by its stem, swish it around in the egg white, tap it against the side of the bowl to remove excess, then lay it in the sugar and use the spoon to fill all of the little crevices. Shake off extra sugar, lay the sugarcoated violet onto the parchment and use the scissors to cut off the stem. The sugar will puddle a little, so the best effect will be achieved if you place the flower face up. The damp sponge comes in handy to wipe sticky fingers and scissors from time to time. My two cups of violets filled a large baking sheet with no two violets touching. Drying time, I found, is critical. In a few hours they are dry enough to use for decorating, but for storage, a few days is more like it. My first batch seemed perfectly dry the next day, so I put them in little jars on a shelf, where I could admire them. Oops! They congealed into a solid ball. It was possible to pry them apart, but not without causing considerable damage (broken bits make a lovely flavoring for homemade ice cream, scones or biscotti). I used superfine sugar for the second batch. The color comes through a little better and they are more delicate, but drying time is even longer.

In the end, what is there to show for the considerable effort? The deep purple of the flower is filtered through the sugary, translucent crust to become a pale, shimmering lilac with just a glimpse of the orange eye showing through. The taste is hauntingly unexpected and elusive: as if your senses got all mixed up and you are suddenly tasting with your olfactory glands.

This is no quickie project. My love discovered me amidst the violets and proclaimed me certifiably insane. Unable to argue with such an astute assessment of my mental state, I simply turned the music up a notch and continued dipping and snipping and dreaming of extraordinary concoctions to come.

The larder is nearly full. Those pickles in the upper left corner of the shot are from a friend. A few jars of lemon marmalade are from back when Meyer lemons were in the markets. Everything else came from our yard, or surrounding wild areas (the blackberry jam and syrup). The syrup was meant to be jam, but it never really jelled. The next batch, I added some apples (high in pectin) and it not only jelled too much, but the apples diluted that wonderful wild blackberry flavor. I hate to use packaged pectin because of all the sugar required, so I’ve been reading around. Irma R. in Joy of Cooking says that cooking time makes all the difference, so more experiments with our endless supply of blackberries next year. In the meantime we will endure runny syrup oozing through the holes in our toast and dripping down our chins. For the record: my blackberry pies turned out perfect.

The cutting table became a workshop for a day, as apple/pear sauce with ginger and various preserves got dressed up for the holidays. Forgive me if stating the obvious insults your intelligence, but some of the little tricks took me several seasons to figure out, so I’ll pass them on, just in case. That overturned clay flower pot has a ball of twine inside, with one end coming out through the hole. Makes it oh so easy to pull off the desired length without chasing the ball around the room. If you don’t sew, you may not have scraps of cloth laying around. Most quilting shops or fabric stores have bins of roll ends for sale. I like using a different fabric/twine/label combination for each flavor. When positioning the circle of cloth over the top of the jar, it is difficult to get it centered and gathered evenly, unless you start with a rubber band, make those adjustments, then tie off with decorative twine of choice. I use raffia, garden twine, rikrak, kitchen twine or whatever, and often tie in a dried pod or some other tidbit from the garden along with an identifying tag. It is surprising how many possibilities for tags present themselves in an office supply store…or even that section of a one-stop shopping center.

I’m not too crazy about spending a beautiful day (like when the cherries demand attention) indoors cooking, but now that the rains are here, and Richard is glued to the Duck (University of Oregon) games on Saturdays…what could be better than good music on the stereo (R always makes sure there are speakers in the kitchen, sly devil that he is) and a pot of applesauce burbling away on the stove, scenting the house with its cinnamon-y goodness. Whenever I hear whooping and hollering from the TV room I can get there in time to watch the replay.

Yes, it’s a color (and one of my favorites), but also the French word for eggplant.

I find them so beautiful that they are in the entry berm along with the perennials and shrubs. This one is called ‘Dancer’. The blossoms are pale lavender and about 2″ across. The fruit has a pearlescent sheen, and peeks out from amidst the dense foliage in a rather coy manner. When the time comes to harvest the first of them, I think I will try making ratatouille…Julia’s recipe, of course. We have already indulged in a moussaka, using the recipe in Joy of Cooking. It was complicated, but worth it…and with just two of us, it provided three meals. I figure that about equals out to kitchen time for simpler fare, and it’s recreational anyway, no?

I don’t know if the new varieties are improved, but we don’t bother with all the salting and draining before throwing sliced eggplant on the grill, brushed with a little garlic oil. No hint of bitterness, and easy as can be. Another easy approach is to dredge the slices in seasoned flour, dip in beaten eggs, coat in panko crumbs and saute in oil (same treatment works for zucchini).

Bon Apetit!

We went to see Julie and Julia Thursday night with friends. This foursome rarely agrees on the movies we see, but it was unanimous thumbs up for this one. In one scene, Julia and friends sat around a table singing the praises of roasted cucumbers. I never heard of such a thing. Next day, out came both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Sure enough: there was the recipe. Mine turned out overly salty and overcooked, but worth another try with some adjustments. The cucumber flavor and slight crunch came through even my feeble effort. If my fine-tuning turns up a winner, I will post the recipe here. I dare you to come away from that film without a rage to cook…or at least to eat.

I wish the veggies would pace themselves better.

This was this morning’s harvest. Every day is the same. I must say, though, having a lot of something brings out the cook’s creativity. So far, my favorite use for the cucumbers is a creamy salad using plain yogurt, a splash of vinegar (I like rice, champagne or sherry) and a chopped herb. The tarragon is as rampant as the cukes, so that is usually my herb of choice, but for the sake of variety cilantro or parsley have worked well. The skins on the green cukes are not at all bitter, so it can be fun to score them lengthwise all around the circumference, then slice them thinly crosswise. They look almost like flowers this way. Add some sweet onion (Walla Walla or Vidalia) cut into good sized chunks, toss the whole thing together and you are good to go. Easy. Refreshing. Downright sublime. You didn’t really think I was complaining about too many cucumbers, did you?

I’m crazy about the lemon cucumbers. In years past, they have followed the first rule of show business, always leaving us wanting more. Ha! Let me tell you about the cucumber martini. Muddle a bit of cucumber and mint with a splash of simple syrup, add gin and crushed ice and garnish with cucumber slices and mint sprigs. On a really hot day, the addition of seltzer ups the refreshment factor, and you can sip away without getting totally loopy right away.

Thin slices of Cucumber and lemon in a pitcher of plain old tap water is a staple in our fridg these days. After a morning of digging, it gives me the will to go on.

About that idea of wanting more…I do hope they hang around long enough to overlap with the tomato crop. Gazpacho, anyone?

You may recall, a few posts ago I wrote about the cherry trees in blossom and filled with bees. All of their busy work led to this:

These trees are groaning under the weight of a cherry harvest the likes of which we have never seen. The first couple of years, the robins got every cherry long before ripening could take place. They would bite them off, then attack them on the ground. It was in the third year that we first saw a ripe cherry, and then we almost missed it by waiting for that deep red of a Bing. Duh. We live on Rainier Ave. It might have occurred to us that the ancient cherry trees were remnants of a long ago orchard of Rainiers, but no…it took a friend plucking one from a branch and declaring it delicious for the truth of the situation to dawn. Spring weather here is sketchy, so this is the first year that a stretch of fine weather has coincided with bloom time, allowing the bees to do what it is that they do. The robins couldn’t keep up, and now neither can we. Several branches have broken as a result of the uncommon burden. Everyone showing up here for whatever reason departs bearing a big bowl of cherries. And still they keep coming. Next stop: Sisters of the Road cafe to share the wealth.

Gardening inspires some dynamite combinations. My most shocking revelation came when I picked some raspberries and then cut some oregano into the same basket. Some fragments of oregano clung to the raspberries. Wow! My tastebuds sat up and took notice. Try it sometime, with maybe a splash of heavy cream.

Experimentation was ratcheted up after that experience. How about pears with lavender?

Too much sugar gets in the way of the subtle flavor of pears, in my opinion. Regular pectin can require as much as seven cups of sugar to produce a mere five pints of jam. The pectin pictured above, Pomona’s Universal Pectin, puts us in the driver’s seat. It may not be easy to find. I bought mine at New Seasons, but my guess is that any natural-food-oriented market would have it. To four and a half cups of crushed pears, I added three teaspoons of lavender, one cup of sugar, the juice and zest of one lime and followed the product’s directions from there. This is dangerous stuff. I usually avoid eating bread, but toast with this jam has become a new morning ritual.

This is one of the few remaining products in the world with no web address on the packaging. Here’s the snail mail address:

Pomona’s Universal Pectin
PO Box 1083
Greenfield MA 01302

Many years ago I had a studio in a place called Hillside Center. It was a loose coalition of artists who paid small amounts of rent to inhabit a cluster of shabbily elegant buildings that had once housed a private school for girls. It was perched in a lovely setting, surrounded by trees and upscale neighbors who seemed threatened by what they perceived as an entirely too freewheeling style of life. In truth, my fellow Hillsiders were some of the most dedicated, serious and responsible people I have known, all appearances to the contrary. In a studio near mine toiled a woman whose art had been derived from careful study of ancient techniques lost to us over time. Through her research, she was able to reconstruct formulas and processes to create works of great beauty. Her historical bent extended to all facets of life. In the spring, she would serve a punch she called May Wine. It had a festive air about it, summoning up visions of maidens dancing about Maypoles in gossamer gowns. The celebratory mood was created with humble ingredients (jug wine was the norm among us in those days). I was never much of a fan of Rhine wine, perhaps because the jug variety was my only exposure, but with the added fillip of sprigs of sweet woodruff floating in a lovely bowl with ice, it became something easy to pass off as ambrosia.

These are memories sparked by spotting the Galium odoratum (sweet woodruff) springing to life when I was tramping around the yard the other day. The carpet of square stems punctuated by whorls of shapely, medium-green leaves is just beginning to produce clusters of diminutive white star-shaped flowers. This is the very best time, because just a few of the flowers have opened, with those to come still looking like white and greenish beads.

Having duly admired the sparkling effect in a shady spot, I logged on to see if I could recreate the spring elixer of those halcyon days. What I found were a number of recipes, all different, with the only common ingredient being the woodruff. What a relief! I was off the hook. No need to feel some historical imperative to use cloyingly sweet Rhine wine. I could invent my own version with impunity. My gardening books described woodruff’s taste as haylike. I would venture to call it grassy, but extremely subtle. The flavor is not the main asset here, but rather the sprightly decorative touch it adds to the punch bowl. A white zinfandel, chosen primarily for its pale blush of color, provides just the right degree of sweetness. The ice cubes could be plain, but why? I chose to make them by puddling a small amount of water in the ice tray with a borage blossom in each compartment. Freeze that thoroughly, then top off with water and freeze again. If you fail to completely freeze the first step, the flower will float to the top and stick out of the cube. I tried making them with tea, but it made for cloudy cubes, obscuring the blossoms. My answer was to make a few plain cubes with tea. Almost any tea that is very pale when brewed works aesthetically. Chamomile introduces another interesting flavor. I like to brew the tea with some borage and woodruff in the pot. After making the ice cubes, I combine the remaining tea with a bottle of white zinfandel in a jar in the fridge. By the next day, it is ready to be strained off over the pretty ice cubes in a bowl, for a party of several; or a glass, for a party of one. Toss in a few sprigs of your floral garnish and prepare to feel like the monarch of May.