Outside, now

Evenings have moved outdoors, again, and if we are very lucky, Pirelli joins us. 

Beyond the terrace the horse chestnuts are in bloom, and all around us black locust* trees are dripping with scented white flowers. At flower sellers outside bodegas,  bucketsful of peonies have replaced cold-weather tulips.

Black locust is North American Robinia pseudoacacia. In New York it is a sturdy street tree, and very welcome to bees and foragers. 

Behind the cat and the man, the calamondin tree is loaded. Today, the little, aromatic and very sour fruit will be picked, halved, and laid in salt. 

Let's hear it for the ...

...boys. Both beloved.

____________________

Feral Goddess Dressing

A posy of garlic mustard. One of its common names in the UK is sauce alone. Which gives one ideas...

I was reminded of green goddess dressing by Winner, a local restaurant where we sometimes order a chicken dinner on nights when I have been preparing a multi-course picnic all day, for a plant walk the following day. Their rotisserie bird comes with a slew of sauce-choices, and their green goddess is one of the best. 

Adding invasive plants and handful of ramp leaves turns it feral: tingling and singing and vibrating with fresh green herbs.

You'll find my recipe here, for Gardenista: Feral Goddess Dressing - Rewilding a California Classic.

...or just pour it in a tall glass and drink it through a straw!

_________________

My Books

Quince

These things are bone-familiar, yet rare. The quinces ripe on the trees. The shadowed light of a kitchen where a thin cloth in the window softens the sun. An old wooden table. 

I grated one small quince and squeezed lemon juice across it. Salt, some chile/chili/chilli, and it was a quick sambal, ready for the lamb chops we cooked over coals under a shimmering southern sky. The sheep eat the bushes that grow in the veld we can see.

In this old house  where we are staying, with thick walls, low doors, and and high gables and layers of thatch, I wondered how many hands had prepared quinces, before me.

________________

Candelabras, at last

Sometimes, dreams come true. A small whisper of an idea stayed with me as I booked a ticket to Cape Town for April. Maybe, maybe...maybe the Brunsvigias would bloom while I was here. And if they did, I would see them. 

The ones in Nieuwoudtville. About four hours north of Cape Town, in the Northern Cape's Namakwa region. At the end of a dry summer, rain comes. Maybe. And about three weeks after that rain, these geophytes - Brunsvigia bosmaniae - emerge and bloom like vivid pink candelabras. There's no fine-tuning the planning. Bear all possibilities in mind, but it has to be serendipitous. 

Word came, phone calls were made (I never call anyone), and here we are. It has been ten years since we visited this high escarpment, and then it was for its brilliant spring display.

There is so much more, too. There is Brunsvigia flava, another, yellow species that blooms earlier. There are thousands - hundreds of thousands - of tiny green seedlings softening the sand in the grey veld. They have risen after these rains and will be mature by spring (August, September) and will bloom in those famous carpets of flowers. 

There are blue cranes in the fields, and bokmakieries ringing in the thorn trees. There are glittering stars at night.

________________

The ramps have risen!

The ramps on the tiny terrace have broken their long hibernation. They made flowers last year, in summer, long after their leaves had disappeared in the heat. Several seeds formed and matured and I dug them back in. I wonder if they will germinate?

It takes around, give-or-take, roughly, approximately, more or less, seven years for a ramp grown from seed to be able to make its own flowers, and seeds. 

Don't encourage vendors to sell mountains of ramps. Do ask them to sell ramp leaves only. They can be packaged just like delicate leaves like chicories and salad. And do soak some of the rooted plants overnight before planting them in pots or in the soil where they will get spring sunlight and summer shade. They are an Eastern US native, and appreciate cold winters. Compost, leaf litter, and slightly acidic soil help, too. But mine just grow in potting soil, with some of their woodland neighbors. 

Many of my overwintered bulbs did not make it and turned to mush: lilies, alliums (the ornamental kind).  It's not the cold that bothers them, but a repeat freeze-thaw cycle, and wet feet. Ramps like wet feet, for a bit. And here they are.

Read all about how to grow ramps in this story. And what ramp habitat looks like in spot we visist every spring, in the Catskills.

_________________

Who said clouds were lonely?

A host. A host, I tell you! 

The daffodils have opened in Prospect Park.

Seeing red?

"But why make it pink?" asked my faraway friend Bevan, crossly, via WhatsApp, after I sent him a picture of this beet hummus. "And why the sumac?" he continued. 

"It is pretty," he conceded.

Bevan is a purist.

My answer, unsent, is:"Why the hell not?" Also, he's living with a crisis in Turkey, which can make anyone short-tempered.

The real reasons to make beet hummus include, but are not limited to: 

1. It IS pretty! We need beauty, and if we can eat it, and smile at its ephemeral pleasure, let's do that.

2. I am seeing red and I'd rather be creative about it than burst my heart. Speaking of hearts - the raw as well as cooked beets in this hummus are loaded with nitrates, which dilate blood vessels and potentially lower blood pressure and improve oxygen uptake (good for all of us, and especially athletes). Beets are heart healthy.

3. Combined with the high-fibre chickpeas in hummus, the extra fibre in the beets load this dip-spread with that essential aspect of nutrition that so many Americans lack. 

4. Antioxidants! Lots. Which means anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is has been accused of my bad health associations than I can name, here.

5. Flavor. Perhaps that's the only argument. The sweetly earthy flavor of beets is wonderful with the garlic-singing smoothness of the chickpeas.

6. Spring. Put this beet hummus on platter with petals and pretty leaves. 

7. It's quick. It's filling. It's beautiful. It's nutritious.

The recipe is up on Gardenista: A Petal Party Platter for Spring.

________________

Walk with Me

Forage walks for spring

New spring Plant Walks and Forage Picnics are ready. Find them and book your tickets via the link.

Pictured above? Bloodroot, and ephemeral native wildflower, doing battle with English ivy. Who are your rooting for (sorry...)?

___________________

Bud break

 

Cloudy days, but on Saturday we went for a long walk in the park (Prospect Park). A milestone walk, because, at five miles, door to door, it was the longest stroll for me since early December, when I began to take some serious foot pain seriously and had to simply stop. Walking. I don't know what injured the plantar fascia muscles, but it's been a steep and then very long and dauntingly gradual learning curve and recovery process. I mean, I had to join a gym! For cardio exercise that didn't involve weight-bearing. 

Blablabla. So this walk, albeit not at my usual pace, which is fast, was a test. It seemed to go A-OK. No pain the day after. It's mending.

Plus, there were pre-spring blossoms. Prunus x subhirtella always startles everyone by flowering in early winter, and then again in very early spring (which is less alarming). It's the first cherry blossom of the year, always. The fat, frilly Kanzan's are still about six weeks away.

Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) blossoms are about to erupt. In September their tart red fruits will be ripe.

Native spicebush  (Lindera benzoin) has fat round buds.

Hazel (species?) - the pollen-laden male catkins with the tiny red female flower above.

________________

Daffodil hour

The Frenchman's birthday daffodils ablaze in the early afternoon sunlight, now bright through the skylight as that medium-size star climbs higher and higher in the pre-spring sky.

These were the first daffodils I have seen sold locally, and that means we'll have them for the next couple of months. In parks and gardens, they are already in bud, but still tightly closed.

Choose your pepper wisely

 I didn't grow up with hot food. The spiciest it ever got was a single, intact chile (which would have been spelled chillie, in South Africa) in a curry—accompanied by strenuous warnings to the effect of, Watch out, there's a chillie in there somewhere! Perhaps a whole chillie in a bottle of sherry used for cooking. Surprisingly effective, actually. My mom added it to soups.

So where and how did I convert? This country. Living with a food-loving Mexican for four years may have had something to do with it. New York City, and it's plethora of Southeast Asian eateries. And simply being on the continent in proximity to so many forms of fresh and dried chiles had significant powers of persuasion.

I like heat, now. A lot. But there's heat and there's heat. For my recent experiments making shatta, a gently fermented and staple chile condiment eaten in Palestine (and other Eastern Mediterranean countries), I learned that long red cayenne peppers make a fantastic shatta—sweetly hot and mellow. But that compact Scotch bonnet peppers (I know, what was I thinking?) blew the house down.

I have been eating a dab of shatta almost daily, especially on lunchtime eggs. (The eggs above were for a picnic after a plant walk, and there were no complaints.)

And atop labne, with an egg and some crisp celery and mint? Delicious, and pretty darn healthy, too. 

My shatta recipe is up on Gardenista.

________________

Find me on Instagram

Snowdrops

The snowdrops always surprise me. There's a patch of them in the northern reaches of Prospect Park (furthest from our local, southern end) that always blooms weeks ahead of anything else. And this really was the winter for snow, and real cold, at last.

The trees are many weeks away from leafing out, but buds on their bare are beginning to swell. the leaf litter below is thick, and the snowdrops lift brown leaves as they rise.

Even though I am drawn to native plants (wherever I - and they - may be), it's hard to dislike these small tokens of botanical life. And their emergence always makes me wonder what is happening, right now, in that narrow valley in the Catskills, where a wild, clean stream is rushing from the mountains, and a sunny slope is beginning to think about thawing.

It's the last day of dark afternoons (although even those have been growing brighter). Daylight Savings Time will give us sudden, Sunday sunlight, right past 6pm.

_______________________

Shrubs with White Flowers

It's early March. No new leaves, yet, in Brooklyn, but the Asian witch hazels are in bloom and little past bloom. Snowdrops have been out for weeks, as usual. Crocuses have appeared. It's a good time to dream of gardening.

Viburnum, above, the scented snowballs belong to a V. carlesii cultivar. I make a fizzing cordial from them every mid-spring.

One of the sweetest garden fragrances I know belongs to daphne.

 And a fat rhododendron on our terrace in very early summer.

I made a list of 17 shrubs with white flowers for a Gardenista article, because who doesn't want their garden to gleam at night?

__________________

My Books

From here, there

The bare-branched, flat-roofed view from the terrace in February. It was warm enough to sit out for the first time this week. 

The bare trees will leaf out, and then bloom. The roof...will stay flat. Until it is actually flattened and until a new building rises and eats the view of the trees. I hope the trees make it, when that happens. They are old and imposing and very beautiful. 

From left to right: catalpa (lush white blossoms in early June), then a space. Then a horse chestnut (scented candelabras in May), and another catalpa—a many-branched green mansion where raccoons romp and shout in summer. A space. Then a Chinese scholar tree, whose fruit is besieged by birds, including monk parakeets from the nearby Green-Wood Cemetery colony, through winter. Hidden, out of frame to the right, are an oak and a hackberry.

I repotted some plants and rehomed some adopted shrubs and ramps, transferring them from white plastic buckets to terra cotta. The ramps had already sprouted, three inches below the soil's surface.

Tomorrow will be balmy, on the 1st of March. And then a deep freeze, again. Winter is still here, but things are happening.

_______________

How to Grow Ramps

Hot

It's not exactly pepper season. But it's so bloody cold that we need something very hot. Enter the world market, and cayenne and Thai chiles. Chillies. Chilis. 

The plan is to make shatta, a hot sauce from the Eastern Mediterranean. There is a recipe for it in Sami Tamimi's beautiful cookbook Falastin (a.k.a Palestine - there is no p-sound in Arabic), where the chopped peppers are fermented conservatively in the fridge. I'm throwing caution to the whipping, doom-laden winds and will ferment at room temperature, since very little happens in the cold. 

Stay tuned.

________________

Signs and wonders

Invasive, delicious, and it perseveres, nay, thrives!...in winter. Field garlic. Allium vineale. Right now relishing the snow.

Tonight it will add welcome green pungency to a chicken pot pie.

__________________

 Book a Winter Walk and Picnic

Durian Ice Cream: First, Catch Your Hedgehog

I found my hedgehog frozen, shivering in the vast produce section of Fei Long Market, on 8th Avenue in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood. Tiny crystals of frost nestled between the prickles. It joined my bag of bitter melons and mustard hearts and stem lettuce. 

At home, I banished the durian to the cold terrace overnight, in case its infamous smell evicted us in the wee hours. And the next day I let it thaw at room temperature. 

By this time I could smell it. To me, it's not offensive at all. It's more scent than smell - strong, but in a tropically assertive and suggestively layered way. Like truffles. But not. The Frenchman disagrees completely: It smells like trash, he offered, when I held it under his long French nose. Well, I said, I'm about about to make some trash ice cream. 

He backed away.

In Manhattan's Chinatown I've bought durian by the wedge from a sidewalk fruit vendor, who also provided a spoon to attack its custardy innards. The whole, heavy fruit, sealed in serious prickles, looks intimidating. But as mine thawed it split helpfully at the tip. Steadying the durian with an oven-mitt-clad left hand I wiggled a sharp paring knife into that crack and followed it, slicing towards the stem. The leathery skin gave way surprisingly easily. 

The knife repeated that pattern, tip to stem, until the durian fell into five parts, each with double rows of segmented, custard-soft pulp, each segment hiding an enormous seed. 

I ate a couple of segments, the flavor very strong and very rich. Also very more-ish. But my mission was ice cream, to see if I could recreate the best ice cream I can remember eating, from the tiniest Thai restaurant, now very much a memory, on 4th Street (or was it 8th...) in the East Village. That place taught me a lot about food.

The seeds are very easy to remove - each is about two inches long. Once pulped, I puréed this natural custard in the food processor. At the last minute, tasting it - so rich - I decided to add some slices of yuzu from my huge jar of yuzu syrup. This super-aromatic citrus's uplifting and uncomplicated high notes were exactly what the heavier, sexier durian needed. 

Instant pudding, prior to freezing: durian and yuzu.

I had frozen the bowl of the ice cream maker overnight. Instead of cream, I added half-and-half, one cupful to the two cups of pulp. No sugar. In 20 minutes, it was close to frozen. 

And there you have it. Durian ice cream (with yuzu zest atop). It was very, very good. 

A pint went to Burmese and Hungarian friends in Prospect Heights, on the other side of the park. A pint went into me. The Frenchman wanted nothing to do with it.

_______________________

True North

(Photo note: I shot these through double-glazed windows and a bugscreen. The flicker would like you to know that he's sharper than he appears.)

We have had several noteworthy bird visitors on the terrace. A red-tailed hawk that eviscerated its pigeon prey in a window box (while Nkwe Pirelli, our cat, stood on his long hind legs and beat his white-tipped feet against the glass door). A kestrel, shopping for sparrows. A Cooper's hawk, more interested in doves. During migration there are occasional, tiny songbirds. Our regular winter guests include red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, juncos, white-throated sparrows. The doves. 

And now, a northern flicker. I think he's David Lynch.

I mean, not really. But maybe. He flies in from the north, too. True north, not the off-set north of the city's grid.

I love these birds. They are usually so very shy. And I have never seen one in winter. They congregate in autumn and we see flocks of them peering at us from behind the headstones at nearby Historic Green-Wood Cemetery. You just glance at them and they're off, their white rumps bee-lining for the trees.

So watching this northern flicker return every morning for the last week is a kind of feathered gift. He decimates the suet, pieces flying. Later, the small birds come and clean it up.

They're funny birds. Curious, careful. And in real life, when not hanging from suet feeders, they feed not in the trees, but on the ground, hunting ants and other insects. 

Bird flu: So far, the wild birds it affects seem to be water birds and raptors. Songbirds seem less prone to the illness, but data might also be lacking. When the suet block is eaten I take down the feeder, scrub it and give it a 5-minute Chlorox bath, rinse well, and out it back up. I also disinfect the birdbath weekly. It's not perfect, but better than nothing.

__________________

 ACLU

Then, and now

Seeing red. Well, deep orange? Amber? A rufous hue? This is the perfect stage, not in a renewed presidency, not in the world, but in the short, truncated life of a tulip. Full blown. 

Supper began with snacks of olives that I salt-cured, given to me by the friend who came over last night to eat them. She grew them, just a few blocks west of us. Then, a couple of salads, drenched in a bright dressing of Thai lime juice (from the happier of our two trees) with fish sauce and some sugar: crisp endive, thin rounds of watermelon radish, a shaved heart of mustard, and tiny, vinegar-soused cucumbers. And another of peeled and naked pomelo sections, topped with fried shallots. After that, the duck legs, simmered forever in shoyu with many bay leaves (our tree, yay), on a starchy foundation of lacy lotus roots. With a side plate of chilled spinach stems, with shoyu and ginger and crisp sesame seeds. Followed by durian ice cream, just-churned, and cherimoya granita. 

Life in the big, evil city, where dozens of cultures collide daily and (mostly) get along.

Cherimoyas (custard apples) are in season for another couple of months, in California. I highly recommend treating yourself to a box, if you live within shipping reach of Rincon Tropics (a small business with a real, live human owner) whose fruit is wonderful and whose shredded paper packaging makes unpacking it a treasure hunt.

My granita recipe is at Gardenista.

That's all I've got. But we're all going to have to do better than gape, as each new violence unfolds. It is beyond anyone's experience, but catch up we must. If you don't already belong to the American Civil Liberties Union, there has never been a more insistent need to join. 

___________________

ACLU

Guavas

Buy some little guavas (from Mexico. Before those tariffs change their price). 

It's OK if they are still rather green and hard. Release them into a bowl and leave them on a counter. In a few days, as they turn pale yellow, you will come home from the grey outdoors and you will be greeted by that very specific, very not-winter guava aroma. Like a Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand (or South Africa's Overberg), or very fruity and somehow appealing cat pee. But it's actually just guava, and wonderful. (Our cat is smell-free, he begs me to explain. I would explain right back at him that it is because we scoop his litter immediately, like the cat-servants we are...)

How you eat them is up to you. But I do have some ideas...

Here in Brooklyn these small guavas can be found at most corner grocers, fruit stands, and supermarkets. Right now they are clam-shelling at about $3.99 to $4.99 for around eight fruit per clamshell. Yes, I would like the plastic to be converted, toot sweet, into biodegradable packaging. It is possible.

_________________

Citrus Candy, But Real

A sweet flood of tiny-tiny Kishu mandarins arrived at our door some weeks ago, a gift from a citrus grower. I had been making all things citrus - candied pomelo peel, fermented yuzu syrup - but this windfall led to an interesting discovery: they can be dried, whole! I made a first, tentative batch, and then, when I had eaten that entire dried batch in one sitting, I made some more, taking notes.

After peeling, I placed them in the lowest of ovens, on a parchment covered baking sheet. I wasn't sure at what point they would seem "done," but learned that there is a cusp of perfection, achieved just before their sugars begin to darken and turn them a little bitter.

It is not easy to convey their flavor: Mandarin, yes, but deeply intensified. Later, I played with other seedless, easy-peel citrus fruit, and now find it hard to choose which I like better. the whole fruit, or the segments, which become chip-like and crisp.

You decide. My method is now up on Gardenista: Dried, Naked Citrus. I believe it will make you very happy.

_________________