In the cold mountains north of us I picked some bare forsythia branches from a scrambled, tumbling hedge on the edge of the woods. The shrub is very invasive.
But it is very pretty when it opens a few days later on our Brooklyn windowsill.
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Field garlic, some dandelion rosettes, dandelion flowers (their petals destined for tartlets for a forage picnic); ground ivy (Glechoma hedera) in the tiny dish at the back - it is quite minty in flavor and is very beautiful in lawns; no idea why people spray it.
And early violets, henbit (Lamium amplexicaule), and chickweed. I'm working more with chickweeds this season: Their fresh flavor is like cornsilk.
The little blue vase of yellow flowers holds coltsfoot - Tussilago farfara, a sub-alpine perennial from Europe and Asia that is now quite at home on this continent, where it invades disturbed ground and roadsides.
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On a grey Easter Sunday we drove north to the Catskills. Since our last visit, in early March, trees had toppled into the rushing river, changing its profile.
And then we found the ramps (Allium tricoccum). I have collected these native wild leeks here for years but this time we walked further than usual. The slopes were greening as far as we could see.
Back home, a pot of lamb shoulder had been cooking in a very low oven, all day. Lamb with a spoon, my mom used to call it (I called it spam with a loon). It was fall-apart tender when we walked back into the apartment, eight hours after leaving.
In the neighborhood at the beginning of April an early cherry is in full bloom. Probably an 'Okame' or a variation on that hybridized theme.
The fatter, frillier, better-known 'Kanzan' (often referred to as 'Kwanzan') is still a couple of weeks from busting loose.
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