Mugwort in the kitchen

Chances are, you are surrounded by mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), a sage-fragrant and palatable herb which is rarely used in most kitchens. But Korean cooks know all about it (they call it ssuk) and I have come across Korean ladies gathering it in the city. My friend Clare - who lived in Korea - has seen it being sold on the street in Brooklyn, because no market stocks it.

Medicinally mugwort (a common name that encompasses other members of the Artemisia genus, so there may be some overlap) is used traditionally to treat a host of ills, from depression to intestinal parasites to menstrual irregularities. Bear in mind that medicinal applications usually use a large and concentrated amount of any herb (and in this case the root, too - always a part of a plant to avoid, if uncertain); culinary quantities are far less potent. But to err on the side of of excessive caution I would steer clear if you are pregnant, wish to be, or are nursing. And people familiar with acupuncture may recognize mugwort as the source of smudgesticks.

I have heard and read claims that mugwort is the source of wild dreams. My dreams are pretty vivid, anyway. Mugwort has had no effect on them. Maybe I don't eat enough. Otherwise it is one of the hand-me-down and unsubstantiated myths that muddies modern foraging waters.

But here is what I have been doing with it recently, as it reaches almost to waist height in the late New York springtime.

Roasting heads of garlic on a bed of mugwort leaves: salt, pepper, some good olive oil, 50 - 60 minutes at 400'F. The garlic turns beautifully soft, the mugwort so crispy you eat it with your fingers, as chips.

And marinating a rack of lamb with chopped mugwort, a grated onion and a bath of Japanese knotweed-black locust flower pickling vinegar, yielded a delicious (if fire-blackened) result.

More pan-roasting - this time with guavas, in season now from subtropical climes. The idea come from Babylonstoren, which serves their farm-grown guavas as an appetizer with thyme and citrus salt.

There is always mugwort salt in my tiny pantry, now,  and I have a jarful of the leaves in vodka, waiting to be turned into a Northeastern vermouth

We are SURE to encounter mugwort next Saturday on Staten Island's wild foods walk, where it is a super-invader, and threatens less aggressive local plants. If you'd like to join us, details are in the link below.

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Hell hath no fury...

I like the squirrel. Goodlooking fur, fluffy tail and the stricken little clasped paw. And the squirrel annoys me, of course. Hogs the birdseed and digs in the planters.

"The" squirrel - I don't actually know how many there are. A few weeks ago one squirrel - which was certifiable, it must be admitted, it showed no fear at all - was either 1. Drowned in the East River or 2. Released in a Bronx Park, depending on which version of the story you believe.

Our landlord trapped him, after s/he (the squirrel) apparently: 1. Chewed a hole in the roof  2. Chewed a hole through a metal plate inserted to deter it from chewing holes in the roof 3. Was ousted from the ceiling where it had taken up residence by an exterminator who sprayed something "non toxic" into the hole 3. Was thumped on the head late at night after it descended to street level by a passing drunk guy, in front of a small audience  4. Escaped again to the roof, despite what must have been a significant concussion.

Where s/he was caught the next day in a humane trap.

Maybe s/he fired the shot that reverberated on the street at 1.20am last night.  I mean s/he was angry enough, surely? Payback.

It was a robbery, close to home. No one was hurt, and the police arrived very, very fast and stayed till 4am.

So if you see a squirrel in a grey hoodie, s/he could be the one. S/he remains at large. Free. Drowned and risen.

Bent on revenge.

                                                        _______________________________

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                      (no squirrels will be harmed)

Terrace garden - rainwashed in Harlem

It has been raining. It has been cool. After the summerish humidity that came before, it has been wonderful. Forests and parks and gardens and waste ground are sucking up the moisture with cup-draining sounds. It was dry for a long time.

The white spidery stuff around the skylight  - I must tuck it in or store it. It was to deter the kitty from squeezing under the deck. One day there might be another kitty - not yet; do not send kitten pictures - so we will keep it, in case, but it spoils a picture.

Everything has grown. Stray fennel seedlings are offering feathery, free height and will be interesting, later in the year. A catnip seedling germinated, self-sown months before we knew that lovely cat was to die. Verbena bonariensis has given me a dozen free offspring, but  I'll snip this year's flowers before they set seed.

There are Nicotiana from last year, too - summer will reveal whether they are respectable green langsdorfii or monumental, white sylvestris.

The jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) plants look like small trees, and I am hoping for a squadron of hummingbirds, this year, to vibrate among their branches.

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Sunday in rainy Harlem, with occasional thunder

Sunday evening's soundtrack in Harlem: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall (Ella Fitzgerald and The Inkspots).

It is raining, and it is wonderful.

It has been a dry month.

Water runs and splashes and cleans and is used and lost.

In the wooden boxes that line the terrace's edge the herbs are growing fatter.

Tonight we eat the cilantro (about to bloom) with spicy leafwraps. 

Above: last week my rash purchase arrived. Five Nicotiana mutabilis plants from Annie's Annuals (California - eek), packed incredibly well. I can find no good seed for it online, and I want the height, tiny flowers and changing pinks on this year's summer terrace.

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) - growing statuesque (which is good). The three seedlings from last year have produced dozens of offspring.

Indoors, in the 127th Street window. FDNY action outside.

And later, paging through Kobus van der Merwe's Strandveldfood cookbook, while sampling the quails eggs I did not have time to peel last night (for a foragers' drinks party) dipped in mugwort salt - somehow I had missed this lovely double page picture of Kobus and Rupert Koopman; like having them in the house, suddenly.

And now it's to those leaf wraps. Time to pick the cilantro (I don't have basil, yet) and quick-pickle some carrot-slivers. The meaty filling (beef, lemon grass, ginger, lime juice, tamarind, fish sauce) has been bubbling since 5pm.

Good luck with Monday. It's going to be a doozy.

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The tentative terrace

The late May air has become muggy prematurely. Dusk lingers, and by 8pm neither the candles nor the solar jars have been lit.

The terrace is getting going, in terms of growth. The climbing beans are heading straight up, and by late June will form their leafy screen. The black raspberry has set fruit (green right now). The two clumps of favas are looking fine. We have been eating the leaves once a week in a huge salad. The herbs (cilantro, parsley, thyme, oregano, mint, sage, self sown fennel, calamintha, agastache, nasturtium, and rose scented and lemon pelargonium) are all very happy. There are  jewelweed volunteers all over - one can eat the young greens, but I also keep them as handy poison ivy antidotes and hummingbird attractors.

The long darkness of winter, the longing for the light, seems far behind us.

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The green islands of the big city

Perhaps heading to Pelham Bay Park, on the Bronx side of the Long Island Sound on the first warm weather holiday weekend of the year was not the brightest idea we've ever had.

Usually we're here in April, for the giant, unsprayed stands of Japanese knotweed, now too tall and tough to collect. Still - for me, the plant lover, I knew that new discoveries lay ahead. The crowd-averse Frenchman was less optimistic.

There were boom boxes, there was salsa, there were unclad bodies of every proportion. There were sprawling picnics emerging from plastic bags and foil trays and there were dozens of portable barbecues. Fully dressed, with backpacks and long lenses, we stalked through the shiny masses, pale aliens from the planet of observation.

And into the green. The salsa brass still shimmering behind us.

This was helpful. The little flowers above belonged to a Smilax vine, but looking at them later I was able to tell the difference between Smilax rotundfolia, above and below...

...and Smilax herbacea (below), which has starburst flowers. The young, growing tips of Smilax are edible and taste (without the cobwebs) a little like grape tendrils, but are more succulent and less astringent.

The last of some native pinxter azaleas were in bloom - Rhododendron canescens.

While the woods here are plagued - dominated - by noxious invasives (a USDA classification) like Japanese knotweed, day lilies, vinca, garlic mustard, mugwort, and field garlic (all high on my Eat List) there are still wonderful, if threatened, patches of indigenous wildflowers.

Common cinquefoil, above (cinque = 5 = the number of leaflets), is Potentilla simplex, masquerading often as the barren strawberry.

Lovely and new, last seen one April when its leaves were red: This is wood betony, above, Pedicularis canadensis. It carpeted the forest floor in just one area for a couple of dozen feet.

Inbetween the wood betony plants grew these dainty flowers - yellow star grass, geophytes whose tiny hairs are indicated in the species name: Hypoxis hirsuta.

There were pathside clouds of Geranium maculatum.

Tall and pretty and invasive dame's rocket - Hesperis matronalis. While it behaves and looks a little like Phlox, its four petals indicate that it belongs to the big mustard - Brassicaceae - family. So, yup, edible.

And growing in sheets down to the water, Aristalochia clematitis. Responsible, apparently, for kidney failure and urinary tract cancers down the ages, in those who consumed it as a medicinal herb. It contains aristalochic acid. It is European in origin and has taken over one side of a small island, here.

We made our usual pilgrimage to our picnic spot.

And were rewarded with the sight of two American oyster catchers on another rocky island.

Two sandwiches, and one all-American beer. We developed a fondness for Miller on a Namibian camping trip, and drink it for the fumes of nostalgia.

I baked a sour cherry sourdough loaf on Saturday morning, and the sandwiches were smeared with beach plum chutney before being stuffed with cheese and arugula.

Another troop of picnickers arrived, three families and four strollers strong, with their barbecue. 

On the way out through the phragmites - also very invasive - I nibbled the pale and tender tips of young stalks that slip easily from the middle of the giant grass cylinder. Tastes like cucumber!

And then it was back out again.

And through the good-smelling smoke of the hundreds of barbecuing partiers with their boom boxes camped beside the giant parking lot.

...onto our bus, driving past pretty pink horse chestnut (Aesculus x carnea) and  back to the 6 train and Harlem.

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Shopping for dinner

Union Square is green at last.

The fiddleheads of ostrich ferns (Mateuccia struthiopteris) are still at the market, driven down from Vermont twice a week, where the season is well behind ours. Although I think they are delicious, I am curious about the impact that harvesting has on natural populations of the fern. 

And I was pleased, and also amused (despite myself), to see lambs quarters (Chenopodium album) for sale. I bought almost half pound. Ouch. Yes folks, your 'weeds' are selling in New York City for $6 a quarter pound. Eat up! Lambs quarters are closely related to quinoa, and are very nutritious. I am growing my own planterful on the Harlem terrace. Personally, I think they blow spinach out of the water, once cooked.

And another green in the foraging vein, but cultivated, in this case: a skinny-leafed species of plantain, Plantago coronopus. 

Also known as erba stella, and minutina.

So, supper, with a dessert of the first strawberries I have tasted this year, was: a risotto with the fiddleheads (cooked for a minute, first), and asparagus tips. The Frenchman scraped the pot.

Tonight? Lamb's quarter phyllo triangles with feta and sumac, and the salad of the minutina.