Catch it while you can

 

Spring. It's all happening so fast. Very soon, these Virginia bluebells will vanish from the late April woodlands and shady gardens (plant them where you have spring sunshine under tall deciduous trees that create summer shade). Kanzan cherries are about to shed their petals, crabapples have opened, dogwoods are starting. New York is in full bloom.

All that young garlic behind the bluebells on the counter has already been pickled, and the green apricots hiding to the right are now part syrup, part suppertime ingredient (last night they were cooked slowly with lamb, mugwort, pickled magnolia flowers and wedges of potato). The green apricot syrup is just sugar with an equal weight of apricots - their juices are drawn out slowly by the sugar and then ferment. A spoonful is wonderful stirred into a tall glass of cold sparkling water. Or added to the gin and tonic I sit and sip at six with the Frenchman. 

Or into this yuzu and lemon juice delight, beside my mayoral pick.

It's a year and two months and we have lived on top of one another for the length of a pandemic. And we're still okay. And still look forward to that evening ritual where we sit together and talk about what went on inside our heads all day, and watch birds, and plan outings. As of today we are both double-shot by Moderna. I was very sick after my second dose, he's fine. But being vaccinated against this beast that I never saw coming, and that I vastly underestimated a year ago, seems like a miracle. 

Inbetween, there have been walks, with and without forage picnics (Japanese knotweed and fava bean tartlets, above, on mugwort pastry).

And small but intensely precious escapes to a special spot in the Catskills. 

And there have been dandelions, I don't think I've ever seen as many dandelions. Leave them in your lawn - they are gorgeous. And course you can eat them, nose to tail. I've been including the petals in quiche fillings. Quiche is back. I've decided.

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My NYBG Class, 27 May 2021

Context

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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An early, edible spring

Early spring on the stone table. 

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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Edible Spring Plants: NYBG class, 27 May

The harbingers of spring

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.

Within minutes the sun came out and the temperature on this warm side of the valley rose from four-layers-plus-woollen-hat-and-gloves to T-shirt. It was wonderful.

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.

I collected enough leaves to make a large bunch wide enough to fill my backpack. But often I just stood, and stared, smiling at this robust population of the delicious spring edible, so vulnerable to commercial exploitation.  In some places it is wildly abundant. In others it has been razed. 

They are not that hard to cultivate (spring sun, summer shade, humus-rich soil, plenty of moisture). 

The river far below ran fast, while up on the damp slope the ramps were growing almost audibly. In amongst them ephemeral wildflowers like wake-robin and toothwort were beginning to emerge. There were some early insects. And birds catching them. The fragile edge of spring.

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.

And I added some ramp leaves to melt for a final half hour's fragrance. Their wild onion scent made the Frenchman hum happily.

The next ramp meal was a grilled cheese sandwich, on sourdough I baked late last week. Grated cheddar, mustard, ramp leaves. Cooked in sizzling butter.

A feast. And necessary fuel for all the ramp preservation to follow.  Ramp leaf oil, ramp leaf salt.

Much more ramp stuff in that chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast. 

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Street spring

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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New class: May 27th, NYBG: Spring's Edible Plants