May Days

"What potent blood hath modest May." Ralph W. Emerson

The garden is awash in blooms: roses, sweet peas, foxglove, sea lavender, nigella, calendula and nasturiums!   The tomato seedlings started in February and transplanted in early April -- albeit with the use of the Wall-o-Waters -- are 4 feet high and laden with blossoms.  A few tiny clusters of cherry tomatoes have formed. I still have a week or so to harvest the remaining artichokes & asparagus and there is plenty of arugula for salads to stave off hunger.

Inspired by Georgeanne Brennan’s book “A Pig in Provence," recounting her early days in Provence establishing her farm and learning to make goat cheese, I tried my hand at making a simple Farmer’s Cheese with goat milk using a variation on a recipe provided by the Fabulous Beekman Boys.   It was delicious & simple to make.  

Farmer’s Cheese with Thyme

Ingredients: 1 gallon of organic goat milk, 1 pinch of salt & the juice of one large lemon

Directions: Pour the goat milk into a stock pot, and whisk in the salt. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.  As soon as the mixture begins to boil, turn off the heat & stir in the lemon juice. The goat milk should begin to curdle within a few minutes. Pour the mixture through a sieve lined with cheesecloth.  Squeeze out the liquid (whey) and tie the cheesecloth bag to a wooden spoon suspended over the sieve to allow more of the whey to drain off from the curds. After the whey is drained off, mix in a tablespoon of chopped thyme.    

I plan to serve the cheese with arugula, artichokes & asparagus from the garden and some crostini with ham from Iberica, courtesy of The Spanish Table.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Cave art, tracing your ancestors & Pistou soup

Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Ancestors” is a must see.  Cave paintings created 32,000 years ago in the South of France were discovered only in 1994 by 3 cave explorers led by Jean-Marie Chauvet. 

Chauvet

I was interested in seeing this documentary because in the summer of 1983, as an archaeology student, I visited many caves in the South of France including Lascaux.  

Lascaux

The documentary is historic for a number of reasons, including, inter alia, access was unprecedented as only a few scientists are permitted to enter the cave and after herculean efforts Herzog was permitted a mere 4 hours a day for 1 week. The shooting in 3D conveys, as flat photographs cannot, how the artists used the bulges & ripples in the rock formations to show the muscles and movement of the animals.  Finally, Herzog's interviews with the scientists explain the magnitude & importance of the discovery.  I highly recommend listening to Terry Gross’ interview with Herzog about the making of the film.  If you do nothing else, watch this trailer for the film.

Speaking of ancestors, I’ve been tracing my own after reading a New York Times article about the available Internet tools and encouraged by the success of my friend Rebecca.  She traced her ancestors back to the Revolutionary War, plowing through hundreds of records online, patiently reviewing town hall records in print and corresponding with groups who have created indices of early gravestones. There are a number of books about her patriotic ancestor, Seth Warner.   You can read about Warner & his ancestors in this article, which includes photos of Rebecca and her son Zeb.   Rebecca has been wonderfully patient in guiding me through the maze of finding ancestors & creating a family tree. Below is a photo of Rebecca at a ceremony for Israel Putnam Warner, Col. Seth's son, who bravely served at age 9 (yes, at age 9!), a courier at the battle of Bennington and died at age 93.  

So what does all this have to do with gardening?  Nada.  However, in honor of my recent discovery of French ancestors and the French cave artists of southern France, tonight I am using the chard, escarole, spinach and spring garlic from my garden to create Provencal Pistou soup with a recipe adapted from Laura Calder’s recipe:  

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

            3 cloves of minced garlic

1 cup each of shredded escarole, spinach & chard 

     1 potato, peeled and diced

1 cup carrots, diced

Salt and pepper

1 bay leaf

1 sprig thyme

1 cup cooked white kidney beans

1 cup zucchini, diced small

2 tomatoes, seeded, and diced

            4 cups of stock

Pesto, for garnish (See recipe below in the 4/23/11 post)

Parmesan cheese, for garnish

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a sauté pan and gently cook the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic.  Add the greens, potato and carrot dice. Pour over 4 cups stock. Season with salt and pepper, add the bay leaf and the thyme. Bring to a boil, and simmer 10 minutes.

2. Add the kidney beans and the zucchini and continue cooking until all the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes longer. Stir through the tomato. Ladle the soup into bowls. (Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs). Add a spoonful of pesto to each bowl, and grate over Parmesan cheese.

Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein & Gardening in France

 The book is also interesting for Alice’s explanation of the differing French and American culinary views.  Noting the French pride in their culinary history, she notes:

"We foreigners living in France respect and appreciate this point of view but deplore their too strict observance of a tradition which will not admit the slightest deviation in a seasoning or the suppression of a single ingredient.  For example, a dish as simple as a potato salad must be serve surrounded by chicory. To serve it with any other green is inconceivable." 

How many times have I encountered this strict observance - "pas mal, but the dish my dear Deborah is made with chervil, not tarragon."   As Alice would say, "horror of horrors!"  

Illustration by Sir Francis Rose

“For fourteen successive years the gardens at Bilignin were my joy, working in them during the summers and planning and dreaming of them during the winters....The first gathering of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby--how could anything so beautiful be mine.  And this emotion of wonder filled me for each vegetable as it was gathered every year.   There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown.”

“The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” is a great read, albeit not necessarily for the recipes.  Few of us can afford to make these rich dishes - say a luncheon salad that requires a lobster, truffles, several partridges and a turkey, among other ingredients.   However, the book is fascinating to read as a memoir of her travels with Gertrude Stein, the garden she tended in Bilignin “surrounded by mountains and not far from the French Alps” and the meals prepared for the constant flow of visitors.   She once spent hours poaching and decorating a striped bass with colorful cutouts of truffles and fine herbs, which she named “Bass for Picasso.”  Whilst he admired the beauty of her design, the ever critical Picasso remarked that the design was more in line with that of Matisse than his own.  

Photograph by David Douglas Duncan.  This is not Alice's striped bass!

There is a rare recording of Alice reading from her cookbook, including an explanation of the origin of her famous canabis brownies at Pacific Archive.  Alice explains that the American publisher decided to omit the recipe after being advised by Washington that “you can do anything you want with canabis but eat it.”  

I was prompted to read Alice’s memoir by two exhibits about Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and the Stein art collection.  The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde.”  The Contemporary Jewish Museum is presenting “Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories,” which includes photographs and videos, exploring her life from World War I through World War II.


P.S. Kathy Bates does a great impression as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's new film, "Midnight in Paris."

Wicked Plants

Amy Stewart has written a fascinating book, “Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities”, covering plants from A-Z used and misused by folks over the years.  My personal favorite is a hemlock known in Scotland as “deid men’s oatmeal.”  It looks like carrot but is deadly if consumed.   Many a mystery writer has used this plant to kill off some obnoxious foe.  See e.g., “Death of a Dreamer” or “Five Little Pigs.”   

The San Francisco Conservatory is presenting many of these “wicked plants,”  in an exhibition described as “mayhem under glass.”  Included are such demonic rogues as the strychnine tree, a source of poison used by many a fictional killer as well as real ones. 

Hey - Look what I made in camp!

The first artichoke of the season was "harvested" today.  Silly me, I planted only 6 plants.  I love artichokes -- the fruit of the plant as well as the leaf structure -- but they require so much room!  Tonight will be a feast of homegrown asparagus, artichokes, radish and snow peas with this yummy aioli sauce.  The recipe below is from Laura Calder.  Huge fan of her Food Channel show and her books. 

Ingredients

• For the aioli

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• 1 cup grapeseed oil

• 1 head garlic, roasted*

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Juice of 1 lemon

•

• For the artichokes

• 12 baby artichokes (poivrade variety, which are the tiny ones)

• 1 to 2 lemons

• Kosher salt

• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

To make the aioli: Beat the yolk with the vinegar and mustard in a bowl. Whisk in the oil, drop by drop, to make a thick mayonnaise. Squeeze the garlic out of the roasted cloves into the mayonnaise and whisk smooth. Season the aioli with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, to taste.

To prepare the artichokes: Trim the artichokes, rubbing with lemon as you go, until you are down to the core with a bit of stem attached. Halve. While you're trimming, bring a pot of water to the boil. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into it and salt it. Drop in the artichokes and cook until tender, about 10 minutes, depending on the size. Drain, and pat dry. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and brown the artichokes on all sides. Transfer to paper towel to drain. Serve with the aioli.

Cook's Note:

* To roast a head of garlic, wrap in foil and bake for an hour at 350 degrees F.

Inspirational film - "Man Named Pearl"

The iris are in bloom!

If Spring hasn't lifted your spirits -- the film "A Man Named Pearl" will do so.  Pearl Fryar is an incredible gardener and topiary artist.

Self-trained and wonderfully giving, the film captures his love of gardening, his artistic spirit, his desire to share his love of the natural world and his work with school children.  Another great plus is the love story shared by Pearl and his wife.  A must see.  It is available on Netflix or you can purchase it from Amazon.  Visit his website.



Gotta go plant beans.  Enjoying asparagus, escarole and French Breakfast radish from my garden for dinner tonight. Must admit I've never seen radish served for breakfast in France & my French beau, Roland, considers it an American invention.  However, he does enjoy sliced radish with a hefty dab of Normandy butter & fleur de sel on a baguette for an appetizer with a glass of white burgundy. Oh those French!