Author: sylvie
A Good Year For Morels
It’s been a good year for morels… they are even reported to be growing in people’s front yard or back yard or back door. Not mine though. Keith has to go hunt them in the woods. It’s such a good year in fact that our …
Postcard From The Hollow
Elle est belle ma campagne… She’s is greening, pastures growing for cattle and sheep… In the garden, things are also fattening (lettuce & mustard greens) and pushing up: fava beans up (yeah!!!!), peas 2 inches tall, potatoes, and first asparagus tip showing its purple nose …
Spring Salads
Every spring , without fail, I become almost tear-eyed that we are eating great bowls of arugula, spinach, mache, sorrel, chicories and the very first of the lettuces – all planted last fall, all growing again with the milder temperatures… and the rain.Brave greens braving the still chilly weather, they show us winter’s over.
Greens make wonderful companions to fried eggs, poached eggs, omelet, lard-fried croutons, bacon, lardons, duck-fat fried potatoes, duck breasts, thinly cut steaks, any meat really… any thing really. Early spring greens are just glorious, so alive. And I am glad I have them, because, I have to wait at least 30 days before I’ll be able to harvest from the just planted seeds. And with spending so much time out, we definitively need a lot of those quick lunches.
One of my favorite quick meals is a green salad topped with warm breaded goat cheese on a croute (a croute is a French crostini – or vice-versa). I like to marinate the goat cheese ahead of time for added flavor – and I’ll often marinate a lot more than what’s immediately needed – they’ll keep well in the fridge for a few weeks. In a pinch, if you did not marinate the cheese but want that salad right now, just brush the freshly cut rounds with oil before breading them. Continue reading Spring Salads
Spring Garden Rituals
She is here, you know. The blooming maples are splashing the hills red, the garden’s awashed in the yellows of daffodils and forsythias. Snow drops, winter aconites and reticulate iris seem a distant memory already: our hearts rejoiced in the brave little show they put …
Seasonal Flavor
I am very happy to continue writing The Seasonal Table Column for Flavor Magazine. The first 2 pages of the March-April issue Seasonal Table is shown above, with Molly Peterson’s photography. As the magazine also contains recipes from restaurant chefs, my role is to provide …
Postcard From The Garden
Snowdrops have been blooming this week, ever so taller everyday.
They make me catch my breath. Everytime. They break my heart. Everytime. They make me smile. Everytime.
Morning quivers in the thorns; above the budded snowdrops
caked with dew like little virgins, the azalea bush
ejects its first leaves, and it is spring again.
The willow waits its turn, the coast
is coated with a faint green fuzz, anticipating
mold. Only I
do not collaborate, having
flowered earlier. I am no longer young. What
of it? Summer approaches, and the long
decaying days of autumn when I shall begin
the great poems of my middle period.
Chocolat, Je T’Aime.
I post a picture of pickled Jerusalem artichoke or marinated peppers (canned last summer) or wheat berry salad on Facebook. Do I get request for recipe? hahaha… However, I post – as an after thought really – a photo of an almond and chocolate cake… …