Tag Archives: plum

A May afternoon with friends.

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cistus

After church on Sunday I had twelve friends over for a little party. Half of them were children under ten, and all of those had been in my house before; they fell to right away playing with my dress-up clothes, dolls, and matchbox cars. At one point the squirming baby let me remove her to the armchair in the play area where we read a couple of stories together, so that in the other room her mother might drink tea with both hands.

dwarf pomegranate and helianthemum

The weather had warmed up just enough between Saturday and Sunday to make it pleasant for eating outside, and for the children to enjoy organizing the playhouse. I had spent more time cleaning that little hut in preparation than I did the real house — but I still have not sewn new curtains for its window, in these ten years since it became mine.

May is in many ways the perfect month for a garden party, because of the variety of blooms — and what a joy to have other people soaking up the beauty with me. This spring, since I “lifted the skirt” on the pomegranates, the orange helianthemums are bursting with more flowers than ever before; the wisteria is in its prime, and the bees are buzzing all over it. The snowballs on the viburnum are at their best. And we have the possibility of temperate and sunny afternoons. I always think it should be easy to host more such gatherings, but just finding a date that works for everyone takes a lot of effort; in this case I’d begun that process seven weeks ahead.

snowball bush

I’d started planning the menu, too — it needed to be items that wouldn’t need fussing over that day. One thing I made the evening before was this favorite quinoa salad that is tweakable to what one has on hand, which I found on the New York Times cooking site. I am unlocking the recipe for you, and you can access it through the link: Quinoa and Broccoli Spoon Salad.

A warning about the quantity of salad that came from one of the cooks who joked about it supposedly serving 4-6: “…it serves 4 to 6 distance swimmers during an Olympic training camp.” I used two cups of quinoa and ended up with plenty left over for my guests to take home plus more than I can eat staying here. I don’t like mustard so I left that out, and I used dried California cherries instead of cranberries, toasted walnuts instead of pecans. I like these NYT recipes because the cooks who try them share things they learned when making them according to the original instructions, or after they alter various ingredients or procedures.

figs in the fall

Few people like raw broccoli, but as I have learned and other cooks testified, the dressing in this dish quickly marinates the small pieces of broccoli and removes the unpleasant rawness, while retaining a little crispness.

In an effort to use up foods from my freezer and pantry, I made one dessert using plums from my trees that I’d put by last summer, and another dessert using figs that I had tried freezing raw for the first time. Both worked well and were heartily eaten. Plum and Cream Scone Cobbler from Smitten Kitchen I’ve made before with peaches, but this time I had enough plums to use them.

It was delicious, but I will change some things if I make it again. The scones that make the cobbler topping are just too rich, with a whole stick of butter and a cup of cream in the dough. At least, they are too rich combined with the amount of fruit called for. Maybe I would decrease the butter by half next time, and use at least 50% more fruit. (Ha! I see that last time I made it I told myself to make those very changes next time, and forgot.) I also seem to have cut my scones too large…

My guests and I didn’t only talk about books over the course of our leisurely afternoon, but many book titles popped up in our conversation, more than I even know about. A few that I can recall just from our last hour together were: The Ethics of Beauty; St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns On Paradise; The Hidden Rainbow; Christ the Conqueror of Hell; The Little Liar; and Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future.

At one point I ran upstairs to get this book to show the others, my latest deep read. They all had a good laugh with me. It’s not just goofy, but is actually a very thought-provoking book! Maybe I will tell about here it sometime: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. I do a lot of that already, but I’m sure there’s room for improving my skills.

Usually when children play in the playhouse, they like to prepare salads or other halfway-pretend dishes made of all the edibles I give them permission to pick from the garden, including flowers as well as vegetables.

collard flowers

I meant to point my younger guests to my exuberantly flowering kale, parsley and who-knows-what in the planter boxes I am not cultivating right now, but I never got around to it. After everyone had gone home I checked out the back garden to see if there was the sort of happy mess I’m used to in and around the playhouse. There was no evidence that anyone had done any “cooking,” but rather a lot of setting in order, with the dish soap by the sink and a lavish bouquet completing the scene. It was symbolic of all that I had received from my guests who gave me an afternoon in spring.

A garden chant of constancy.

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Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous;
praise is meet for the upright.
Give praise to the Lord with the harp,
chant unto Him with the ten-stringed psaltery.
Sing unto Him a new song,
chant well unto Him with jubilation.
For the word of the Lord is true,
and all His works are in faithfulness.
The Lord loveth mercy and judgment;
the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.

-From Psalm 32

When I saw these plum buds this morning, I thought of how the earth is full of predictability, spring following winter, summer following spring, leaves falling off the trees every autumn without fail.

It’s just one way, consisting of uncountable events, that He demonstrates His constancy.

For the word of the Lord is true,
and all His works are in faithfulness.

What any kind of pruning can do.

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It’s surprising how much glory has bloomed and gone, in my garden and by the creek. Well before the end of July we’ve cut back the purple explosion of germander and forced the bees to move to the echium and salvias, which continue to branch out and lengthen their nectar offerings. The Jerusalem sage and lavender I always think of as long-lasting…. How can they be done? Santa Barbara daisies at least come again and again after each shearing.

By the creek, the Queen Anne’s Lace and fennel will continue for months more, and other insects feed on them. But I never see honeybees there.

Early on when the gyms first closed because of the covid-19 quarantine and more people were walking those creek paths, I saw that many of the fennel plants down there had been mutilated and dishonored. I wished I had clippers with me so I could cut them off neatly to relieve the humiliation.

But three months later, those same plants are most beautiful! For all they cared, the breakage of their stems might have been expert pruning by loving horticulturists. Now those specimens have branched out gracefully to outshine their fellows that shoot straight up. The ladybug above is posing on one.

Last fall I planted a few begonias in pots on the patio, but so far only this older one has opened:

In the vegetable boxes many of the things I planted rather late and experimentally did not even sprout, but currently collards are coming along. And in the greenhouse, moringa! I bought the seeds two years ago at an event I blogged about: here. (I also had a bunch of little amaranth plants from that source growing nicely, but something ate them off at the stem.)

This spring I managed to keep three of the seeds warm and moist long enough for one of them to sprout. If the seeds had not been so unusual, I might not have invested in the project, but who knows… and whether I will ever use it, no one can predict that, either!

I plan to grow my little tree in a pot, and then a bigger pot if I manage to keep it alive long enough for it to outgrow containers. The leaves can be used like spinach, or for tea. It’s supposed to be one of those “superfoods,” which I’ve noticed become fads and then after a while you don’t hear about them anymore. I’m more interested in this species because it’s not a sweet fruit to add to the carb load of a diet.

My fruit trees are looking good. The plums and fig got their solstice pruning to keep the size down. For the fig, that mostly meant taking a foot or two off the top. I’m keeping them at a size where I can pick the fruit without a ladder, and take care of the trees on my own. The fig tends to grow horizontally, which makes it easy for me; it’s a dwarf species also, called Blackjack. But it doesn’t seem particularly dwarfish in its fifth season of bearing! It’s loaded with fruit. Yum.

I have four Elephant Heart plums on my two trees, which this morning I thought I better take pictures of, because in previous years they have not only started out few but mostly disappeared. My lemon tree I have in the last year or so been more diligent than ever to feed regularly, and it has responded by producing a score at least of little lemons that are getting big fast. They will be ripe next winter.

Must leave you now and go see what else needs pruning!