New Girl on the Block

You guys, I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. Wait till you see the newest garden prize (aka why I should never be allowed to browse while picking up soil at OSH because it may or may not lead to pricey impulse buys). It's my very own dwarf Meyer lemon tree!

Don't you think fruit trees are so romantic? Lemon trees especially. They're so sexy California. My neighborhood is filled with them and I've always wanted one. There's something appealing about the idea of offering someone a gin & tonic in your best Lauren Bacall smoky noir voice, and then reaching delicate fingers over fruit for it from the tree outside your window. Not that I associate film noir with lemons...but I do with booze. Which goes great with fresh lemon. Hey, you know what else goes with lemon? EVERYTHING. Love it.

Hi, I'm Liz Lemon. I like to wear man shirts. Watch me skateboard!

Let's ask Max what he thinks...

Not sure, huh?

Actually, the photo I didn't get was him storming up, taking one sniff and shoving it over. He didn't get the memo about seductive citrus. Cocktail party at my place, as soon as my tree gets lemons. Or maybe we should do a couple of practice rounds first, just to be safe.

O sweet new radish sprouts!

O sweet spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

purient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee,

has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty. how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true









to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

e.e. cummings

Garden update: The Great Arugula Tragedy

It is with heavy heart I report that I lost my arugula. The bed flooded in a recent rain storm and the plants were doomed. (This may have been due to the fact that a certain blogger forgot to unplug the container's drainage holes prior to planting). Goodbye you peppery delicious little greens! O how you made me smile and salivate, you zesty garden treat!

I just can't take it. It's too painful. Give me a minute...sniff...sniff...

Warning! Certain images contain plant destruction and may not be suitable for fans of delicious arugula. You may be traumatized as I was. Just warning you.

Oh the humanity!


What's a gardener to do? Remember when those first little sprouts appeared last fall?


Well readers, you know what this means. I mean if this was a real literary tragedy the reader would experience a catharsis in the face of loss, and so thus here is mine: It would be a disservice to the memory of arugula, the sassiest plant on my balcony, to not buck up and plant more. And so, with this taste of spring outside and little seedlings in my mind, I get out the seeds and start again. Only this time, I'm not taking chances with drains.

Garden Spotlight: Baby Beets

Gardening types told me that you are supposed to thin beet plants by yanking some to make room for others to grow. I have a problem doing this. I know I'm supposed to and that my beets won't be fully formed otherwise. But I implore you, how could I pull one of the most beautiful things in my garden?

Even just for ornamental beauty, they bring color and texture to the garden.
The color on these, you have no idea...

So I found a delicious solution--my folks came over for dinner and we made orzo with sausage, olive oil, and sauteed greens. It was originally going to be all Swiss chard from the farmer's market, but we sauteed delicate little beet leaves too from plants that had been pulled. Yum!


Max gets in on the action--kitty approved! He didn't eat any though.


So maybe the beet itself is a bonus! I love this idea that different parts of the plant are good for different things. At this point I'm not sure I care if mine ever fully mature, now that I know what to do with the leaves.

Garden spotlight: Mizuna

You guys, can we talk about Mizuna, my new obsession?

Hello gorgeous! Where've you been all my life?

This fall I was lucky enough to be treated to a flat of mizuna seedlings by a fellow garden enthusiast. Now y'all know I don't say no to free plants or free produce. As it turns out, Mizuna is a delicious Japanese leafy green that looks like arugula but tastes sweet and newly green like fresh snap peas. I've tried it cooked in soup but the best way seems to be eating it fresh in a light salad.

Salad is one of those things I have a love-hate relationship with. I mean I love it and enjoy it while I am chowing on delicate greens in equally delicate vinaigrette, but for a single cook, buying lettuce is really stupid. It rots before I remember it's in the crisper drawer and that's the end of that. But oh, what luxury to have a salad green growing two feet from my kitchen! And the more you cut it the more it grows, so all the better!

Ready for its close-up. A perfectly beautiful dinner!

A little vino? Well, if you insist!

Balcony garden omelet--arugula, roasted peppers, goat cheese, & parmesan...
mizuna dressed in meyer lemon juice, olive oil, kosher salt & black pepper.

Won't you join me? More wine? Well, maybe a little...

Breakfast for Dinner

What is it about breakfast for dinner that is so special? Is it that we throw off societal rules about how we are supposed to do things? Or maybe it's even simpler than that. Maybe it's that syrup in the evening or the remnants of challah toast and fried egg (we will get to my relationship with fried egg in a future post) remind us of Saturday mornings, pajamas, dad reading the newspaper and mom with her cups of hot tea. Or maybe it's just because that's what you craved on a chilly February night.

Behold, your next dinner:
Buttermilk waffles with banana, Greek yogurt, and homemade blueberry syrup.

For blueberry syrup (Adapted from Gourmet), simmer 1 cup of blueberries with 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup Brandy, and 1 Tbsp lemon juice until the berries burst into a pool of sanguine and sapphire and all you can think about are your deepest, darkest secrets...then turn off the heat and cool off awhile. You and the sauce.

Well hello little blue darlings

Ooh, I feel brighter already.

Some for you and some for me...Enjoy!
Freeze leftovers if you're a single cook to revisit the moment during the week.