late May

One of the delights of early spring is finding unexpected edibles in the garden. Each year, at least if the winter is not too severe (and it has not been so lately), some vegetable plants, normally considered annuals, survive over the winter and put out new growth in spring. It's not predictable, although I often try to over-winter things, like spinach, by covering them with leaves in the fall, I'm not always successful. I've had good luck on occasion with the spinach in the past, but not reliably. Last fall we haphazardly covered a lot of things with the abundance of leaves - including spinach, lettuce, and some kale which was still small in the fall. This spring no spinach survived, but a bunch of radicchio plants surprised me with new growth since uncovered in March. I've been picking leaves regularly in the past weeks. Several little kale plants also survived the winter to grow again, and I will keep an eye on them to see if they get big enough to pick before flowering. They were planted on the late side last year and never got too big. The radicchio and kale had both been started indoors last June and transplanted into the garden in July.

Then there are the re-seeders. I've already mentioned the dill which has been re-appearing for years without benefit of re-seeding (June). Sprouting pockets of feathery growth in numerous spots around the garden, dill consequently ends up cut and scattered over all kinds of dishes. I'm getting in the habit of picking a bunch up by the in the mornings and sticking them in water like a small bouquet to keep fresh for using later in the day. The little plants go into a shot glass and as they get bigger and bigger they move up to a quart jar. There's a ridiculous abundance now, but it's always a challenge to still have enough around by the time the cucumbers are ready for pickling.

Deepening my love affair with arugula, I started some wild arugula (Rucola selvatica) seed a few years ago. A little more bitter than domesticated arugula, it's still a great wake-up call for the taste buds alone or mixed in with other greens. In the last couple of years I haven't needed to seed it again, as it has re-seeded thickly in some spots, and is scattered just about everywhere else in small bunches or single plants. It's slow to grow when first seeded, but after a while it seems almost invasive. Garlic chives is another delicious treat in spring and early summer, which has been spreading a little too promiscuously. This year I'm being more aggressive about picking the garlic chives and wild arugula, so as to make more use of them and make more room for other things! The garlic chives are solidly rooted and so I go around with a hand shovel and pull out bunches of plants to thin them out. Often I bring them into the house and put them in a big bowl with a little water in it to keep them fresh for a day or two while cutting off the tops and using them here and there. Other times I clip the tops off right in the garden after digging out the roots, carrying the compost bucket (to throw the roots) and scissors, along with the harvest basket.

It's amazing how many foods can absorb a quantity of garlic chives, especially stews and soups. Since it's good as an ingredient in pesto, sometimes I make a pesto with it as the major ingredient, and then later in the summer, when basil is available, the pestos can be mixed together.

The wild arugula can be cooked up like dandelions, garlic mustard and other greens, and saved in small containers in the freezer for use throughout the year. From early spring til late fall, it's one kind of leafy greens after the other. They each have their special qualities, but when there is an abundance they often get mixed up together in the pot as cooked greens. Dandelions and wild arugula are on the bitter side so they benefit from more liquid in the cooking. Garlic mustard can be awfully chewy, but if chopped fine or even pureed after cooking, it makes a fine deeply flavored sauce. Radicchio is already wonderful raw - a deep smoky taste, so only makes it into the cooked greens at times of most abundance when we can't use all of it fresh. Mustard greens can vary as for their sharpness of taste. In recent years I've been growing Tendergreen mustard (from Gurney's seeds) which is a milder and prolific form. After sowing seeds in early April, thinnings are ready to eat in a month and by early June plants are starting to send up flowers and it's time to pick them all.

Thanks to Golden Temple Vegetarian Cookbook, here's a lovely recipe for mung bean-mustard greens soup:

Cook 1/2 cup mung beans with a few bunches chopped mustard greens and plenty of water. Puree after it's cooked.

When that's almost done, sautee onion, garlic, and gingeroot. Add a teaspoon or two caraway seeds and curry powder (or garam masala), salt and pepper. Add the pureed beans and greens and heat slowly.

A surprise this spring was shallots. It shouldn't have been a surprise if I had been paying attention. I planted seeds for them last spring and didn't get around to harvesting them until so late that I didn't find them all. If I was thinking I might have done what I did by accident anyway, as people often plant shallots in fall for next year's harvest, just as we do with garlic. So we've been eating some of them as green onions, and now I'm going to let the rest mature into shallot bulbs, and maybe will plant a few in the fall! They are sending up a lot of shoots with seed tops, so I'm picking those for fresh-eating and to divert the energy back into the bulbs.

I had started epazote by seed a few years back and to my delight it re-seeded itself in subsequent years, so that I started to depend on it. It's good to throw in epazote leaves with the black beans. Besides adding authentic flavor, it is purported to neutralize the flatulent effect of eating the beans. Alas it stopped coming back last year, so I had to start seeds again. C'est la vie! But they didn't germinate! Then I discovered they were growing thickly in the pot where I had been growing cilantro, which was now dying off. In fact they're showing up in several potted plants that are using my recycled potting soil. What luck! Now I just have to rememer to use them when cooking black beans. The fragrance clears the head.

fudge

In the weeks preceding Christmas I get to fudge-making. Over the years, the many failures only drove me more determinedly to conquer the process. Though not the correct consistency, the failures were usually still edible: generally undercooked and eligible for fudge sauce. Occasionally the fudge was over-cooked and came out more like hard candy. Then there were the intermittent successes, when the fudge miraculously congealed into the perfect smooth and almost solid texture that we desire. When it comes out too crumbly, I save the crumbs to put into cookies in place of the chocolate chips.
After repeated attempts, note-taking and re-reading notes, here is what I have learned to be able to more consistently make the fudge come out right.
The recipe is slightly modified from Fannie Farmer for chocolate nut fudge:
Ingredients: 3 squares of chocolate, 2 cups sugar, 2 T corn syrup, 3/4 cup whole milk; 2 T butter, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 cup chopped walnuts.
Melt the 3 squares of chocolate in a 3-quart sauce pan. Add the corn syrup, sugar and milk. Stir til it all dissolves; bring to a medium boil and stop stirring. I've read those directions in the past, but it took me a while to recognize the significance. Bring to a medium boil and stop stirring - really! As a neophyte I had found it hard to resist the impulse to stir. I was afraid it would stick to the bottom. Why, it was getting stuck to the pan all around the upper edges! Well, there's a better way to deal with that than to stir it all back in. Instead keep a little bowl of warm water near the stove, and use a pastry brush dipped in the warm water to brush down the sides periodically. Stirring actually results in the re-formation of sugar crystals, and will not result in the proper fudge texture. Relax and let the swirling of the boiling mix it all up.
Fudge requires attention and obedience to the laws of fudge physics. It is not one of those cooking escapades that one can modulate according to one's desires. Once begun, timing is all, and the fudge tells you when it's time. The boiling phase requires patience and close attention; it needs to boil at a good pace, but not boil over. It generally takes about a half hour of boiling before it reaches that magical "soft-ball stage", but it might only be 15 minutes or closer to an hour. Different atmospheric conditions and humidity have their effects - it's actually best to make fudge on a dry, cool day. I get the impression that the addition of fattier elements such as chocolate or cream decrease the boiling time. I haven't had much luck with a candy thermometer - the one I used was probably off by 10º - so I'd given up on that. But if you have a good one, they say that 234º is the temperature of the soft ball stage.
I go by other signs. When the volume boils down to about one-quarter of the original volume, and drips from a spoon start to fatten, then the time is getting closer but there's no need to panic. You can even slow it down a bit at this point if needed, by turning down the stove a bit. The soft ball stage is defined as "a small amount of syrup dropped into chilled water forms a ball, but is soft enough to flatten when picked up with fingers". As the ideal stage nears, the last drops from the spoon briefly form small balls on the descent. In a blink of an eye, a tail forms and they look like little sperms before hitting the bottom. If you reach in and pick one up off the bottom of the glass, it does not disintegrate in your fingers anymore, but can be formed into a little ball and flattened too.
Now is the time to pounce! Remove from heat and throw in two tablespoons butter, cut into little pieces. It is the role of the butter to help cool down the fudge slowly. Once again, against all intuition, do not stir at this stage! Put the pot of fudge on a rack so it can cool down from all sides, and leave it alone. (Sometimes I hasten the process by immersing the pot in a larger container of cold water, but this can be risky, as the cooling can suddenly become rapid particularly on the edges.) If you haven't already done so, now is the last chance to butter up the 8-inch square pan, and chop the nuts. Keep an eye on the fudge, for once again you are waiting for the right moment to pounce again. This cooling stage generally takes about a half hour. We are waiting for it to cool to lukewarm, so that is pretty easy to spot. Once the sides of the pan are no longer hot, you can test it by poking a finger in the middle of the fudge. If it's still hot, then it needs to cool longer. Once it's just barely warm, approaching body temperature, then it's time to really whip into action!
Now all that pent-up urge to stir can fully express itself. Add the teaspoon of vanilla and mix it in gently, and then start to really get into it. Oh what activity for 10-15 minutes – muscles and breath! Do this on a solid counter at a good height to maintain good posture. Have a sturdy wooden spoon, as the fudge is now thickening rapidly as you stir, and you want to get the heavy spots on the bottom of the pan to mix in. Beat, beat, breathe, beat! Continue to beat til it just starts to lose its gloss. The gloss doesn't have to disappear entirely, but it must start to diminish. Add the chopped nuts. Now it is really impossible to mix – oh, hands don't fail me now! – you can drop the wooden spoon and roll up the sleeves. Hands always do the best job when things get really stiff. It's all in one glob now. Press it into the pan - no need to press it to the edges. Let cool on the rack and if you have the patience, watch how the gloss continues to dissipate until it's perfectly fudge. You know what to do now, with the knife.
My other favorite is penuche, which my aunt Sissybell made to perfection when I was a child. Unfortunately I never got her recipe or really watched her do it. But this recipe I found on the internet from the Christopher Kratzer Bed & Breakfast in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. It was passed down from the proprietor's grandmother who had learned it from her days in Atlanta.
Ingredients: 2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup milk or water, 1/4 tsp salt; 2 T butter, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 cup chopped pecans. Follow the same procedure.

pictures of May

Steve rescued the crabapple from the chain link fence adjoining our backyard. He thought it was a pear tree, but we're almost as happy that it turned out to be a crabapple.

The geraniums and rosemary were overwintered in the basement, but now get to come outside on the patio. Cilantro was started from seed in February.

This is from a few years ago. Only two of these tulips came back this year.

The south-facing patio is a micro hotspot, occasionally allowing sunbathing in the spring.

I planted this crabapple tree (Malus 'Royalty') in 1987. Before that there was one of the old peach trees which had been planted by Caesar Capucci, but it was dying and had to go. Violets growing wild under the tree have been encouraged over the years by pulling out competitors.

Petals fall.

Early peas waiting to climb the trellis. Lettuce grows nearby.

Garlic, in the background, was started in the previous fall.

A redbud tree and lilac bush from two adjoining yards make us appreciate our neighbors in close city lots.