A Friday-the-13th bowl of green goodness, just picked from the rained-on vegetable plot here at Chez Mosquito. In the bowl? Arugula buds and leaves (I sowed the second crop just ten days ago as the first thinks of bolting), fava bean tips, pea shoots, sheep sorrel (kidnapped in a snow flurry from the Catskills last year and flourishing here) and my own mugwort. Yes, I know - it seems odd to grow a 'weed,' but I like having my own supply.
The leaves will help to fill Vietnamese-style summer rolls for tomorrow's Inwood wild foods walk, along with foraged indigenous Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum americanum) leaves, burdock root, winter cress and garlic mustard flowers. The rest will be salad for tonight's supper (with mushroom pizza). The mugwort is about to be made into a fresh herb salt for hard boiled quails eggs, another walk snack. The other tidbits include rolled pokeweed tea sandwiches with miso-mayo and mahlab cookies.
Now...will it rain? We don't know. If I have to cancel the Frenchman and I will have a pretty fabulous picnic.
The last walk of spring, by the way, is on May 21st, at Fort Tryon. If you're good, I'll bring prosecco.
Happy weekend!
When you harvest arugula, do you cut the whole bunch off or just some of the leaves? I'm not sure which is the proper way to have it regenerate so I have just been cutting a few leaves off each plant.
ReplyDeleteExactly - just a leaf or two from each plant keeps them going for longer.
DeleteDo you cancel your wild foods walks if it rains? Portland is having its first rain in awhile, and we're glorying in it!
ReplyDeleteIf the rain is heavy and prolonged, yes - no fun walking wet. Rain here tends to deluge rather than drizzle.
DeleteWhat is the large cluster of green middle right with the rounded leaves?
ReplyDeleteFava beans, I think...
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