Dispatch no. 3: early summer
in search of peas, the chamomile cake of my dreams, all about alliums (i am!)
musings
stories and thoughts
i truly would never in a million years have thought that at this point in my life i would be able to handle all the movement between dwellings that we have experienced these last 8 months. from a place where i could not have been more rooted (literally AND figuratively) — and so very happily at that — to a not unknown but also not completely familiar new scenario. i am a homebody and i am happiest surrounded by the familiar things that have been given or passed down to me, or collected by me. i can’t help it, i wish i didn’t care about stuff, but the story behind each thing holds meaning for me. and living temporarily in a furnished rental among someone else’s stuff with which one has no connection can be kind of freeing — or it can make one feel adrift. whichever it is on any given day, i am just trying to go with it — and it is not lost on me that we are so fortunate to even have options.
so do i miss my previous life? some days it all feels like it was a dream, like childhood, like a first job, a first boyfriend, being a mom with little kids. the passage of time. but when i am scrolling through photos as for this newsletter, it feels like yesterday, and i get a decided pang and i wonder where it all went. but as i scroll, i travel through the past seasons, they blend with the current season, and i see that in fact i am still here, doing what i always do, in this world, in this lifetime. searching for peas in the month of june.
back to the garden
peeeeas, pleeeease!
before moving to chappaquiddick, when i had my gardens in connecticut, the first thing i planted (after poppy seeds in the snow) were the peas, aiming for a first
sowing on st. patrick’s day, as is the tradition, but sometimes missing that spot on the calendar for a number of reasons but almost always related to the unpredictability of a New England spring. on the tail (or in the midst!) of our sugar season, i would prune our dozen or so fruit trees, saving the pruned
branches — or “pea sticks” as Thomas Jefferson called them — to poke into the rows so the peas could twine up them for support, alongside regular bamboo
stakes. i spent a lot of time researching pea seeds to plant, and was so captivated by the prospect of growing gorgeous purple-podded peas that i always had a variety of those in the garden. and don’t forget that the flowers of culinary peas are edible, too!
these are my favorite purple-podded peas:
“Carruthers (!!!)” and “Beltony Blue” shelling peas from Adaptive Seeds
“Beauregarde (!!!)” a purple-podded snow pea from Row 7 Seeds
my all-around favorite shelling pea:
“Maxigolt (!!!)” from Fruition Seeds
so this year on the vineyard, sans kitchen garden, i was intent on figuring out who was growing peas and how i was going to get my hands on them. after Beetlebung Farm posted that they had harvested their first peas i jumped in my car, waited in line to board the chappy ferry, navigated the burgeoning june traffic in edgartown and headed up island to the beetlebung farm stand in chilmark, literally dreaming
of the first peas of the season. radishes! lettuce! noble jade! but NO PEAS!!! turns out i’m not the only one who gets excited about peas. many many MANY subsequent trips to the beetlebung farm stand (i mostly sent mike heh heh ;-) came up pea-less (although naturally we never left empty-handed as there was so much beautiful bounty, just not PEAS by the time we got there!). so when i saw that beetlebung was hosting a pea tasting, i am guessing i was the very first person to sign up ;-). i arrived early (NOT usually my specialty) so i could duck into the farmstand to buy any peas they might be selling, BEFORE the tasting. success! on to the tutorial.
Farmer Kate (@a.katewoods on IG) discussed several different varieties of peas, and i took notes for my future garden!
kate knows her stuff, having formerly worked at Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture , and studied seed breeding with Michael Mazourek of Cornell and Row 7 Seeds. naturally i was excited to see my beloved Maxigolt in the mix.
our tasting + tutorial wrapped up with an even better tasting — all the peas in a stunningly delicious dish created by the farmers.
thank you, beetlebung farm! can’t wait for your next tasting.
and now that i am finally getting my fill of peas, what, you may ask, am i doing with them? well, i am shelling the ones that require shelling, popping them into salads raw, warming them in butter with a little mint or tarragon and a touch of salt, adding them in the last few minutes to creamy pasta dishes like carbonara and cacio e pepe. a pea puree made from english peas is the ultimate luxury, served on crostini with thinly shaved pecorino and plenty of black pepper. the sugar snaps i use for crudite, blanched and shocked or raw, let everyone pull the strings if they want to or not. the snow peas are perfect for slicing into salads, sauteeing in olive oil, eating out of hand — like ALL peas! the only non-negotiable requirement is that they must be fresh fresh fresh — so THAT means they gotta be LOCAL. get ‘em while you can!
to market, to market
all in for allium!
by now, you know how i feel about ramps, and as spring turns to summer every year i nearly burst with the march of vegetables that start becoming available in rapid succession at the farmers’ markets and farm stands. but let’s take a moment to especially celebrate The Allium in all its early season wonder: after ramps come the chive tips and their subsequent edible lavender-pink chive blossoms, then garlic scapes, green garlic, spring onions, scallions and leeks — oh my!
when you’ve made chive blossom vinegar, garlic scape pesto, chicken with forty cloves of green garlic AND scapes, as i did ;-) and 3 Leek Risotto (from our very popular DRF virtual barn supper (recipe below),
why not make this super simple but heavenly dish with all the spring onions you can find right now?
RECIPE: Spring Onions baked with Creme Fraiche, Marjoram and crumbled Chèvre
adapted from alice waters, serves 4
INGREDIENTS:
- 2-3 bunches spring onions, trimmed (root plus a few inches of stem left intact, leaves removed and saved for stock or composted)
- 1 cup creme fraiche (i like Vermont Creamery)
- two sprigs fresh marjoram, leaves picked
a pinch of cayenne pepper
butter as needed
crumbled chèvre (I like Vermont Creamery)
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
INSTRUCTIONS:
cook the onions in boiling salted water until tender. drain well, reserving some of the cooking water, and cut in half lengthwise (keeping root intact on both halves).
season the onions with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and arrange in a shallow buttered baking dish.
place the creme fraiche in a bowl and add the marjoram, cayenne, salt and pepper. taste for seasoning.
pour the creme fraiche mixture over the onions and dot the top of the dish with crumbled chèvre
bake in a preheated 375 F oven until bubbling hot and beginning to brown, about 30 minutes.
i served it alongside a delicious just-processed-and-never-frozen chicken that was part of the inaugural meat bird offering from our friend Collins at Marshall Farm ,
just down the road a-piece here on Chappy, roasted with a pile of fresh shiitakes — tossed in the chicken fat — from our friends at MV Mycological !
This was my kind of (friendly!) Spring-into-Summer menu — those cool June evenings, ahhhh — that began with a plain green salad celebrating some beyond gorgeous salanova heads from our friends (haha!) at Morning Glory Farm that needed nothing more than a drizzle of fruity olive oil (always first, then toss), a sprinkle of sea salt (always next, then toss some more), and then a squeeze of lemon (but go easy, toss again, and taste ;-).
moral of the story? be FRIENDS WITH YOUR FARMER!!!
With a fresh chamomile cake to finish (see recipe below!), it was the perfect meal to make and eat in a little cottage by the sea. or anywhere you happen to be.
let’s be human, let’s be real,
and you deserve some cake.
the world is a mess right now. there are things we can (and must!) do to attempt to right all the horrific wrongs — as humans and as citizens it is important that we stay informed, use our voices and our votes, participate in petitions, protests and constructive conversation, and donate whatever we can to worthy recipients.
and after all of that? i recommend you bake a cake.
cake is comforting, cake is indulgent, cake generally improves one’s mood, people tend to get a little bit happier when you serve them a piece of cake.
So when i saw the cheerful bunches of chamomile at Grey Barn , and even though i have never ever made nor even had chamomile cake before (at least that i can remember), i just couldn’t get CAKE out of my brain. with a bottle of organic raw milk also from Grey Barn, my favorite cultured butter from Vermont Creamery in the fridge, a jar of our own raw honey (last season’s from DRF) in the cupboard and some gorgeous pastured eggs from Marshall Farm down the road on my kitchen counter next to the ever-present lemons, i was off and running. now, granted, one could make a chamomile-infused cake using chamomile tea bags (you def can!) but just the simple act of picking fresh chamomile flowers from the stem and creating simple syrup and tea with them felt good - the scent, the sight, the very June-ness that a bunch of chamomile imparts can’t help but uplift everything and everyone in its path.
this particular chamomile cake depends on an ample drenching of each layer with chamomile syrup — something i learned from a friend’s long ago lemon cake recipe (where is that?!) and now that reminds me that the chamomile simple syrup actually maybe could benefit from the addition of some kind of liqueur or cognac as the lemon cake had, but - too late! - plus i love the pure unadulterated chamomile flavor accented with lemon here — of course, you can decide for yourself if you want to add a little something ;-).
this recipe may seem like it has many steps — but make the chamomile flower syrup and the tea first, and you’re halfway there.
RECIPE for Chamomile Layer Cake with Honey-Lemon Buttercream and Chamomile Flowers follows!