Waiting for Spring

Like you, the wild garlic is a particular favourite! And spring lamb is also a favourite to look forward to, as well.

Rhubarb - forced and juicy.

I've already been able to buy some Seville oranges to start my marathon marmalade making session. I make enough for family and friends to last the year - but always run out and end up making orange/lemon/lime marmalades, later in the year.

When the weather warms up and the snow is melting , not far from work or home , maybe a half hour drive towards the country side you can see the maple trees and the Maple shacks getting ready to make the syrup. The smell in the air in just so wonderful. My nephew is wild about this.
It might be cold to walk outside but the owners serve wine or brandy while they show everyone how they make “tire sur la neige” (draw on the snow).
But before this we eat 'Cabane a sucre' which is a nonstop breakfast consisting of eggs done three ways, bacon, ham, sausages, home fries, beans, French toast, pork rind, and lots of maple syrup.
First real sign of spring....


Then with my father we go wild garlic picking....
There is a rhubarb patch at work where I pick tender stalks for rhubarb (I eat it just like that sometimes) and strawberry compote or baked rhubarb with sugar and orange juice with a light crumble crust.


Fiddleheads are my favourite, steamed with butter and salt, thats it.


The cherries.......oh Clafouti with fresh cherries and a tablespoon of thick whipping cream..
or Hungarian sour cherry soup.
Nothing magnifies spring more beautiful than a Magnolia tree or the smell of Lilacs and above all an apple orchard all in bloom.


Asperagus....right up there and a roasted lamb dinner with ALL the trimmings.:roll:

It's high summer here - we are up to our elbows in stone fruit, watermelons and fresh garden produce of all varieties. Maybe I should send some over?

Spring time is a time of great anticipation. All that's in the stores before then is root veg, piled upon more root veg, cabbage, onions, potatoes. They get boring fairly quickly. When spring is coming all I'm waiting for is the first "real" tomato, and then with summer, the stone fruits. Just as they are - if picked straight from the tree- all the better. Nectarines are at their best here now, dirt cheap and so sweet. Sprinkling of brown sugar, dash of greek yoghurt - now there's a breakfast. The season for stone fruits at their best is all too short, so we get our fill while we can. I think my son has become addicted to nectarines :)

But, the apples have lost their winter crispiness, and the cauliflower is looking limp and sad (and the shops want to charge like wounded bulls for it). Seasonaility has its virtues.

I can say that I look forward most to wild fiddlehead ferns, I admit this is the best and especially exciting when you find a wild patch on a random hike anywhere in New England, when I owned my litlle farm to table bistro I would dream about produce, it was always difficult because the whether got nice quick and people were expecting spring flavors and we had to wait for the farms to catch up, serving butternut squash and other tubers along with beets and parsnips in April. Verrill Farms in Concord was my savior in may with greenhouse spinach and baby lettuces (salvating just thinking about them) along with bok choy, snap peas, tiny and ultra bitter peppers, along with the fiddleheads, asparagus, mini sunburst squashes and micro greens.l Locally foraged morels always ended up top dollar in the city so I never got my hands on them but that didn't stop me from trying or cooking around them.
Reminiscing further into my childhood I remember eating the last preserves of strawberries on Easter that my grandmother fended off from all potential snackers, sometimes as early as february. Also squashes and fresh dug parsnips, the smell of hickory and pine filling the house with its aromatic warmth as we'd gather around eating egg sandwiches plucked from the hen's nest that morning. Also the wet earth in the field, first tilled with the tractor and planted by hand, plucking little beans as they first beared fruit, by the time the cherry tomatoes started their climb summer had arrived.

I used to look forward to apricots. Nowadays it's all pluots and apriums around here. :mad:

But yeah:
Apricots,
Peaches,
Nectarines,
Cherries,
Tomatoes (the real ones),
....

Warm weather !!!

Everybody wants warm weather, but as per now, you can use wild garlic, or fresh cherries, or apricots.

I've started planting some mums and I am still harvesting my lemons inside the house. This is what winter is all about...canning and preserving times and preparing seeds to plant for spring as soon as the winter frost is over.

DC Sunshine I can relate to you at this time of year I really would like to go home to Melbourne but I just got too much things to do here. I missed all those summer fruits I have growing in my backyard. :smiles:

Elizabeth - it is a great time of year here (very dry and hot Vic. summer), and I'm having fun learning about Melbourne. Love the markets! What area did you live in here , if you don't mind the question? And what lured you to Missouri? :)

The stone fruit season is all to short, but whilst its here, it is so nice. Making the most of it :)

"Bill and Izzie: Proud parents of a soldier."

"Thank your son or daughter for their service. I spent 20 years doing the Ricky Rescue thing in the US Coast Guard.

""Bill and Izzie: Proud parents of a soldier."

"Thank your son or daughter for their service."

My thanks, too. I spent three years as Communications Officer on a can (umm... that would be a destroyer, not a toilet :rolleyes:) and I am hugely impressed and respectful of our troops in the services today. :peace:

I look forward to these people being our leaders in years to come. It will be a lot better than the dregs of the 60's generation we've got now.

A destroyer is called a "tin can" because the thickest metal on them anywhere is just about one inch thick. Our Executive Officer - a WW II vet - told us stories of Japanese armor-piercing shells hitting a destroyer, going through one side of the hull, then through several compartments, and coming out the other side and sinking into the ocean without detonating, because the fuze, which was designed to penetrate heavy armor before triggering the explosion, just didn't realize it had actually hit anything!

Sort of a fun way to travel, though, it the weather wasn't too bad. :lol:

Mike

DC Sunshine -- you're learning about Melbourne? Where did you come from before living in Melbourne...just asking. I have a house down Sandringham (Bay St.) across the beach. Our middle son is living in it right now and taking care of it for us, hubby and me.

cyberdoc -- and Mike -- yes. We have a son in the military . He is the CO in his group, on his last leg of learning how to be an officer and a gentleman, will graduate this year at UND. He is doing his helicopter scholarship at the moment and is a very good pilot (both airplane and helicopter) and an outstanding photographer. When he graduates this May, he will be indentured to the Army for 8 years. He is enjoying himself at the moment and is #3 in the honor roll, so we are really proud of him. Just like any mother, it breaks my heart if he will be assigned to war-torn countries like Afghanistan but the guys at Afghanistan whom we communicate constantly reassured me that they take care of one another like a band of brothers, especially the chopper guys. We help the military any way we can. I hope you all do too. We will NOT remove our flag outside our house until they all come home. I sometimes wish that our son had just joined the Coast Guard as he originally planned after high school, but it was not to be. Our son will only be 21 years old next month, he is too young...And before I bawl my eyes out, I better stop just right here.

Mike and cyberdoc -- Thank you very much for your service too...we have so much respect for our boys and girls there too fighting in the wars so that we all can sit down peacefully in our backyards during the spring, summer and fall without any terrorist disturbing the many barbeques we may be having with our friends back here.

...now let us go back to our cooking channel.:peace:

Elizabeth - just moved from a 6 year stint in Launceston in Tas - prob the worst 6 years of my life, but that's another story...before that, 5 years in Darwin- interesting time -...grew up in Adelaide, which I still miss to this day. what with all my family being there. Ah well. Sandringham, by the beach - no wonder you miss it! I like taking a day out at St Kilda, watching the kite surfers and all the big ships coming in. Oh, and feeding the seagulls chips :)

Just bought some blood plums and cling peaches today. Had to put the peaches next to the bananas to ripen up a bit, but they are *huge! Looking forward to them. Saw some avocados as big as grapefruit too, was tempted but they were charging way too much for them, and I'm the only 'cadoo fan in the house. Would have been a waste. And some really odd looking melons I've never seen before - shaped like a football/grid iron ball, yellow, about a foot long. Cardoo or something like that. Been busy finding the best local shops, even saw some prickly pears in the place I found today.

I love exploring and finding new foods.

Well , spring is finally here.............found this wonderful gem "Meyer lemon Sorbet Baked Alaska".

http://www.mytartelette.com/2009/07/meyer-lemon-baked-alaska.html


april 4th was a good day in year of expo 67. deserves a nice dessert.:)

Meyer lemons, asparagus, frais du bois, shell peas, chevre (our farmstead producer stops producing for 3-4 months, just saw the first shipment of fresh chevre last Friday), morels....they are almost here, word is next week should see a pop....a buddy in Provence sent a photo of 68 fat morels they found yesterday.....spinach, raspberries......

Spring's lighter fresh green is a soul refreshener....

shroomgirl - you get fraises des bois!? You lucky girl. Morels are great, but fraises des bois!! Wow. I haven't had any in the past 15 years. They don't seem to grow around here.

Sounds great.........

I cannot wait for the asperagus...........
 

im looking forward to the vegis and fruits. i love cherries and blackberries. mostly cause at work we are gonna get m0re things that i can mess around with vegis of the day or stuffing for ravioli or pasta dishes and coulis.... man im too excited.