I have to admit that I didn’t use to think much of marigolds. I think that I sort of grouped them with dandelions in my mind. In my defense, this was before I had a garden, and flowers were not something I spent a whole lot of time thinking about.
Then I saw the Mira Nair film, Monsoon Wedding. It’s about a Punjabi wedding, and there must be about a hundred thousand marigolds in the film. Someone even puts a whole one in his mouth and eats it.
Suddenly, I saw marigolds slightly differently. That was about ten years ago, and in the intervening years I have come to appreciate many qualities of the marigold. They are generous and free-flowering; they are unfussy and forgiving; they are pest control allies; and of course, they are a lovely burst of color, available in all sorts of varieties.
The newest addition to our consortium is Yummy Mummy, a chrysanthemum-flowered marigold (hence the name, which I find quite satisfying). Here she is from her spot among the tomato plants:
And here’s to all the unsung beauties out there, and hoping that somebody sees you for what you are.
The garden is full of scents! A honeysuckle that we planted in the outdoor kitchen is in full bloom, and the scent of it wafts about, making kitchen work positively dreamy.
The stinky and the sweet: fresh garlic and the honeysuckle by the kitchen.
As I worked on lunch, Ali wandered over with a flower from the white peony. It’s got a scent that reminds me of lily of the valley, but the scent of it in say, a talcum powder.
Can you spot the spider? Who could blame it for choosing such a sweet smelling home.
I was working on getting some lunch together — bubble and squeak and rarebits. My dad was a great fan of bubble and squeak — I think he liked to say it as much as he liked to eat it. There’s a nice article in the Guardian that breaks it down into a simple formula (equal parts potato and cabbage by volume not by weight, fry well). I thought it would make a good lunch for Kaya as well.
At the table, Kaya happily submitted to eating a few bites of the bubble and squeak that I had pureed for him, before making a lunge for my rarebit. I broke off a piece and gave it to him, and he tore away at it with his new front teeth. He demolished about half of it, eating it as fast as I could give it to him. It was a minimalist sort of rarebit (no beer, for instance), but as he liked it so much, I thought I would share the recipe. It’s a nice thing to make to go alongside a soup or a vegetable dish.
Bare bones rarebit:
1 1/4 c. milk
1 bay leaf
pepper
2 T butter
2T flour
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 t mustard
Worcestershire sauce
2 slices bread (you may have enough sauce for more than two, depending on the size of the bread)
Put the bay leaf in the milk with a few grinds of pepper and heat to boiling then shut off and let them get to know one another. In the mean time, melt the butter in another pot and add the flour to form a roux. Let it cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the milk in three installments, stirring well to keep things from getting lumpy. Cook the resulting sauce for another two minutes before removing from the heat. Add the cheese and stir vigorously to melt it. Then stir in your mustard and add a bit of Worcestershire sauce as well if you like.
Heat the broiler and toast the tops of your bread under it before spreading a thick layer of cheesy sauce on them. Set them under the broiler, but not too close, and let the sauce get hot and brown.
Keep out of reach of babies, or else make a helping for any babies present.
Hands off my rarebit!
And while I am on the topic of food that Kaya loves, I have to also make special mention of a wonderful recipe I found at one of my favorite blogs, From the Bartolini Kitchens. It’s for polpettine (diminutive meatballs), a new staple in my kitchen. We had them the other night, and Kaya was jumping up and down in his seat for more (even Baki, the world’s pickiest eater, tucked in happily). What’s so interesting to me about this is that the blog is dedicated to sharing family recipes, many of them tied to wonderful memories and stories. Wouldn’t it be nice if one day Kaya learned to make polpettine so that he could bring back his memories of eating them under the garlic braids in the garden kitchen.
While the rose petal elixir is maturing, here’s a peek at a few other things happening in the garden.
The climbing rose next to the greenhouse is starting to bloom. It’s a relatively recent arrival, so it is not the spectacle that the red rose is, but I love the flowers- they look like petticoats.
That hand is Kaya’s. He emerged from the shadows and attempted to devour the roses (due to their inviting scent?)
The roses were promptly whisked away.
Kaya had his first taste of wild strawberries over the weekend. Wild in the sense of being small and fragrant, but not literally wild; we started them from seed a few years back, and they’re doing well. Kaya was very enthusiastic, which drew Baki’s attention, and he made sure we didn’t leave any behind.
Another pleasant surprise was the sweet peas. Sweet peas are a sentimental favorite of mine, because it was my nickname as a baby. Still, despite my mother’s and later my own enthusiasm for them, I was for a long time quite unaware of the lovely scent of some of the older varieties.
My mother and I found ourselves in Kew Gardens in June of 2004 and caught wind of a beguiling scent as we strolled beneath wooden pergolas. Following our noses, we were bowled over when they led us to sweet peas. I’ve grown them every year since, and I’m always careful to choose scented varieties.
These ones self-seeded, so they were unexpected. At this time of year, the garden is just one surprise after another.
