From My Michigan Garden to My Paris Kitchen

A few little organic holes don't bother me

My home version of “farm to table” requires no transportation by air, sea, or land, unless you count walking from the garden into the house. If my tiny kitchen were in Paris, France, my only “garden” would be a row of pot herbs on a windowsill, but in Leelanau County I am not that limited, and the vegetables are doing well this summer in my garden's straw bale beds. Above, with parsley between the two plants, you see chard, glorious chard! Years ago I discovered chard as the answer to my problems with growing spinach. Spinach doesn’t work for me, chard does. Our grandchildren adored it, too, baked in a cheesy cream sauce (music to my ears: “Is there any more chard?”), which I have done again this season. Grated Parmesan sprinkled on top, baked until brown — but I didn’t photograph it, and you don’t need a recipe for anything that simple. 

Nightshade family but very edible

Eggplants are still small but coming along, as are their garden neighbors and near botanic relatives, the peppers. Acorn squash look promising. We’ll see if the tiny melons make it to eating size before frost. I hope they do.

Growing

Lots of growing to do!

I’m not finished this summer with tabbouleh, but you’ve seen that already, so here is something else to make with cucumbers: a refreshing cold summer soup. Pick the cukes while still tender (before large seeds develop), and peel, cube, and puree in a blender with as much chopped fresh onion as you think you’ll like, plain yogurt (I prefer yogurt made with whole milk, because what is the point of vitamins if the fat that makes them soluble has been removed?), and enough chicken or vegetable broth to achieve desired consistency. Curry seasoning is transformative. Chill in the refrigerator until serving time, and when serving garnish with fresh nasturtium blooms, parsley sprigs, chopped chives, or any other attractive, edible, summer-appropriate note.

Cold cucumber soup with nasturtium garnish

The flowers in my garden give me as much pleasure and satisfaction as the vegetables — purple stars preceding eggplant, large yellow squash blossoms and smaller, lighter yellow blooms on the melon vines. My straw bales are arranged in a square, with entry on two sides, but most of the weeds inside the square are safe from me, because — why remove them? They’re not in the bales, competing with the vegetables for water and nutrients. Besides, wild clovers attract and feed pollinators, and the beautiful milkweed beloved of monarch butterflies — how could I uproot and toss aside such a banquet for beauty?

From Spring Woods to Farm Kitchen

You’re probably expecting, from my subject heading, either morels or wild leeks, but I want to introduce you to a less well-known Up North spring delicacy. It is the humble cutleaf (or cut-leaved) toothwort (also known as crow’s toes or pepper root), found from eastern Canada to Florida.

You can walk in the woods for years without noticing it, as I did. Then one day you make the identification, and from then on you watch for it eagerly every spring. Here is a site that keys it as a Brassica, i.e., a member of the mustard family. Its name has apparently been changed, just like my old childhood friend Brontosaurus, whose new name will never be lodged in my long-term memory. -- Whoa! Here’s good news for my generation: Brontosaurus is Back!!! Well, I'm glad I looked that up!

Anyway, toothwort. I am bound and determined to keep in the mustard family. Look at the four-petaled flower, and try to deny the family relationship.

My point – and I realize I’m taking forever to come to it – is that the peppery leaves and flowers of toothwort are a welcome change from the store-bought lettuce (and even kale) we’ve lived on all winter. I went to the woods on Friday afternoon and picked me a nice mess.

I chose the bland smoothness of tofu to offset the peppery greens. (If you don’t make your own tofu but live in the Grand Traverse area, the best available can be found at the Oryana Food Co-op in Traverse City.)

I dressed my salad with a little olive oil and very small dash of balsamic vinegar, whisked together with a smidgeon of Grey Poupon. And that was that, except for a sprinkling of hard-cooked egg yolk on top. If you don’t care for tofu, you might substitute the white from the hard-cooked egg – an easy exchange.

We seem to have strayed far from Paris today, but it’s that time of year – time to get out into the northern Michigan woods. Although I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that toothwort or something like it can be found in the forests of Europe. We are, after all, at about the same latitude, and many of our plants are common to both continents. And who knows better than the French about foraging in the woods for kitchen treasures?