Spring Gardening Prompts Writing and Recipes
We’ve got onions, potatoes, and peas growing in our garden this year. The peas will be ready for harvest six weeks from now, according to my husband who planted the newly sprouting seeds.
In another part of the yard are the tomato plants, still very small. We got a late start. Perennial herbs: sage, oregano, rosemary, thyme, mint and dill made it through the winter. I’m waiting for my fresh basil and cilantro.
Each year the line-up of vegetables is different. New vegetables. New challenges on how to best use these fresh ingredients. This year for 2024 we’ll be harvesting lettuces, spinach, beets, broccoli, peas, leeks, kohlrabi, and eggplant.
Always we must have tomatoes. They do well in Maryland and they are versatile both raw and cooked. Home prepared tomato sauce, gazpacho and tomatoes off the vine with fresh basil are the best.
I’ve got a little book, sixty-eight pages in length, coming out the end of September, published by Old Scratch Press. Some of the fellow writers in the Old Scratch collective asked me what is the vegetable to harvest in September, suggesting I should write about it when my book, RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN, ( for a sample visit this link) is officially released. In September I think of apples, not a vegetable, and regrettably we don’t have any apple trees. But a trip to an orchard, the purchase of fresh pressed cider, that first bite into a tart crisp apple do inspire me. I’m a sucker for a home baked apple pie with just a hint of brown sugar, lemon juice, and a pastry crust made with butter.
I do not like golden delicious or red delicious; apples cultivated to ship well. I find their flavor too bland. Two of my favorites are Macintosh and Honey Crisp. Any apple that has been sitting in a warehouse too long becomes mealy and tasteless, not a piece of fruit I want to spend time with, so I savor those fresh local apples purchased in the fall.
Fruits and vegetables should be eaten in season. In my part of the United States it is asparagus season. And this year, my husband Peter planted asparagus. But it will be several years before it will be ready to eat. The first shoots came up and the stalks are fragile and too delicate for consumption. Successively it takes several years for the plants to establish themselves, maybe three years from now we can dine on asparagus picked outside our door. Until then, I buy it at the market that sells local produce.
So what is the best way to cook asparagus? I would suggest as minimally as possible. My mother and grandmother would put it in the pressure cooker until it became soft. Too much flavor is lost when asparagus (Gus) is overcooked and the texture borders on mushy. Steaming a few minutes, or a coating of olive oil and a few minutes under the broiler or on the grill rotated half way through the process to keep the temperature even, are my favorite ways to enjoy Gus. You can also cut it up for use in a veggie stir fry or sauté with garlic, tomatoes and scallions to dress up a pasta. Top with fresh grated parmesan.
WRITING PROMPT:
You’ve been invited to a dinner. What are they serving? What do you notice on the table? How does it taste? How are the other guests reacting to what is being eaten and to what is being said? This can be fictional or it can be a memory, but select the details that clearly bring the scene into focus. Write for fifteen minutes. Read back what you’ve written. Is there a sentence with power that pops? Take that sentence and start again maybe adding an action such as a glass is broken, there is a knock on the door ie something happens to change the scene slightly. Have fun with it and maybe you’ll expand it into a story or essay.
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Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on May 19, 2024.
