After much deliberation (and a healthy dose of procrastination), I’ve finally selected and plotted my intentions for the 2010 garden.
It might seem awfully early to some, but seeds must be ordered, delivered and started before a springtime sowing in late May can be accomplished.
This year will be interesting for a number of reasons.
Primarily because I’m going to be trying to grow a couple crowns of asparagus for the first time, but I’m also attempting rare French strawberries from seed, as well as leeks, garlic and chard.
As you can see from my crude 10,000 foot drawing, there are lots of different veggies being installed, as well as a small bee garden that I hope will attract a healthy amount of polinators to our rooftop sanctuary. We had a bit of a problem with the lack of bees last year, though I’m not sure if it was due to colony collapse or the overall shitty weather, but it can’t hurt to encourage them with a pretty flower garden.
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Tags: asparagus, beans, beets, carrots, chard, Clover Roads Organic Farms, Gardening, garlic, herbs, Heritage Harvest Seed, leeks, lettuce, Lists, peas, peppers, Purveyors, Richter's, Salt Spring Seeds, shallots, tomatoes, Urban Harvest, Vesey's, West Coast Seeds
Posted in Gardening, Lists | 2 Comments »
As soon as I saw the recipe for this month’s Daring Cooks challenge, I knew I would have to make a few alterations, but I was ultimately intrigued.
The recipe that Olga selected was a rice dish with cuttlefish, mushrooms and artichokes by Jose Andres, an American chef who trained under Ferran Adria at El Bulli, one of the few culinary meccas I must visit some day. With that in mind, I knew the dish would be robustly flavoured and hearty, so I set to work considering alternative ingredients.
Since the Everyman doesn’t eat seafood, and I am finding myself allergic to more of it every day, I first opted to switch out the cuttlefish for chicken and chorizo instead. Next, I realized that even though we had half a dozen different specimens of rice in the house, none of them were the one I needed, so instead I chose to what I thought was most similar in properties, yet unique, a purple Thai rice. Lastly, the Everyman eats neither artichokes nor mushrooms, so I had to omit those in favour of the last of our local asparagus and some corn. I know that with all those substitutions you can hardly consider it the same dish, but I’d like to think that the spirit of the challenge stayed the same.
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Tags: allioli, asparagus, August 2009 Challenge, chicken, chorizo, Cooking, corn, Daring Kitchen, El Bulli, Ferran Adria, Jose Andres, Restaurants, rice, sofregit
Posted in Cooking, Daring Kitchen, Restaurants | 1 Comment »
I went to the market again this evening (as I do most Tuesdays once May rolls around) in search of my friend Seth from Forbes Wild Foods. I was hoping he’d have more dried elderflowers since I burned through them rather quickly over the weekend. Unfortunately that was not in the cards today, though he did promise me a bag for next week’s market. As a consolation prize I helped myself to some of his other tasty edibles; maple syrup, more ramps and some garlic scapes, with not an inkling of what I would do with any of them.
One of the things I love about market days is not planning out what’s for dinner. I’ll arrive at the market and let what’s fresh and in season inspire me towards inner deliciousness. This evening I prepared our second real market meal of the season, a sparkling green pasta with flecks of rosy guanciale.
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Tags: asparagus, Cooking, fiddleheads, Forbes Wild Foods, garlic scapes, guanciale, maple syrup, pasta, Purveyors, ramps, Recipes
Posted in Cooking, Purveyors, Recipes | 1 Comment »
I’m a bit of an odd duck.
Ever since I was a child I’ve loved to eat my greens (with the exception of green peppers, which I think are absolutely repulsive). In fact, I’ve never met another person who prefers green vegetables more than any other kind (like I do). I might even go so far as to say that I’d choose them over fruit. Astonishing, I know!
Which is exactly why spring just happens to be one of my favorite times of year. Sure, over the winter months you can get your fair share of (greenhouse) microgreens, broccoli and heartier leafy varieties (like kale, cabbage, chard and brussels sprouts) but none can compare to the pungent sweetness of the first ramps, fiddleheads and asparagus of the season. For the other 10-11 months that asparagus is not in season I have extremely vivid dreams of nibbling on those pencil-thin nutty stalks and spears. Clearly I’m slightly obsessive.
Earlier in the week our organic delivery service brought us a pound of fresh fiddleheads and a deuce of asparagus, plus I had the leftover bounty of topless ramps from the farmer’s market, and the clock was literally ticking for them to get used before they went bad. Another thing to note about fresh, new spring greens; they have a shorter shelf life than your typical root vegetable. But, if you just treat them simply, they’ll be the star of your meal (and possibly give you funny smelling pee!)
Over the weekend the Everyman and I returned to Czehoski on a desperate search for more of those divine tamales, (which we were unable to procure, by the way). After 2 meals out (both at Czehoski, no less) in 72 hours, I felt the need for lighter, spring-inspired fare to combat the decadent cheeseburger and fries with bacon gravy I’d wolfed down at lunch. The pile of green veg hanging out in the fridge seemed the perfect antidote to grease, bacon and fat, so I set to work cleaning the lot of them.
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Tags: asparagus, Cooking, Czehoski, fiddleheads, ramps, Recipes, Restaurants
Posted in Cooking, Recipes, Restaurants | No Comments »
