The front yard and boulevard have become a destination garden for many. Among the streams of admirer’s yesterday an elderly couple remarked, “Your corn is higher than an elephant’s eye.” Behold the scientific study in my garden.
a closeup
Comparison photo, me in the foreground and the corn flanking both sides
Comparison study, me and the elephants eye. I am standing on the ground
If you look carefully,you will see me trying to touch the corn with a ten foot pole. I needed a fifteen foot pole
Like clockwork, a year to the day, since our last year’s tomato tasting, Corey Mintz shows up at my door to borrow a cup of tomatoes. He was bearing my ORANGE! Kozial shopping basket. I had missed it so badly, a year is along time to pine for a shopping basket, that I decided to celebrate its return with an orange salad from my garden.
”Caro Rich” a true orange tomato, hung tantalizingly ripe in my garden. It was an obvious first choice. Foraging in the garden , I came to my peace sign-shaped marigold bed. I picked the marigolds that I had planted in my textile garden to keep my giant teak elephant from Rajasthan company. In the front yard I have two ancient pots holding tomatoes and under them I had planted carrots from seed. I have heavy clay soil in my garden and despite many years of soil amendment, carrots will only grow in a pot. Nasturtiums trail up my front walk. I picked the orange ones. Out onto the boulevard and my Swiss chard. I found some leaves with orange stems and picked those. Now for the dressing, Saffron? Commonly lauded as yellow ,the saffron that a friend brought me was definitely orange.
I prepared the dressing by putting a pinch of saffron in a blender, adding a small spoon of dijon mustard, a dollop of honey, a peeled peach [pastel orange] and salt to taste. Blend until smooth. taste and adjust adding little lemon juice if you think it needs it.
Thinly slice the stem of the chard, use the leaves in another dish. Place in small pan, appropriately I have an orange one, but any color will do and will not effect the taste.
When the chard is boiling , drain and refresh under cold water.
Assemble the salad .If you happen to have an orange plate, so much the better. Slice the tomato and arrange on plate. Top with diced carrot, sliced chard and then the dressing. Pull the marigold petals away from the stem and artfully arrange the petals and whole nasturtium flowers on top of the dressing. As a florish I placed a few “Painted Lady” runner bean flowers [truthfully, on the red side of orange] on top. Serve
The orange garden salad
ingredients for " Cinnamon French Toast" topped with tomato salad
This is the recipe I created after last year’s tomato tasting . I used cinnamon bread because the taste of cinnamon and basil are reminiscent of each other.
Cinnamon French Toast topped with Tomato Salad
Make a tomato salad following “The Remains of the Day” blog post
For each serving cut 2 pieces of slightly dry cinnamon bread 3/4 of an inch thick
Spread 2 tablespoons of soft fresh goat cheese on one piece of bread and then top with second piece to make a sandwich
For each sandwich, lightly beat 2 eggs with 1/4 cup milk , you probably won’t need the whole amount for each sandwich
Soak the sandwich in the egg and milk mixture ,turning occasionally until you think the bread has absorbed as much batter as it can
Preheat oven to 350 degrees f.
Heat olive oil in a nonstick pan
Turn down the heat under the oil and slip the sandwich into the pan. Gently cook, you don’t want to burn it before it is cooked through and the cheese is warm. Finish the cooking it by baking it in an ovenproof dish until done.
Place on a serving dish and sprinkle with a half a teaspoon of sugar
Top with a generous portion of tomato salad and serve while still hot
Cinnamon French Toast topped with Tomato Salad
Ariel enjoying a bite
preparing tomato salad with the remains of the tasting
When the tasting was over we sent some guests home with tomatoes and cut up the rest for salad.The method is quite simple. If you have different kinds of tomatoes the salad will be more colorful but even with just red tomatoes the salad will look beautiful and taste delicious. When you have cut up the tomatoes in the desired size, tear up basil with your hands. We used “Lettuce Leaf “and “Purple Ruffles” basil which we had growing in a container on the roof . Sprinkle with sea salt and olive oil to taste and serve. We refrigerated the salad overnight and contrary to the adage,” never refrigerate tomatoes,” they were delicious and refreshing the next day. I left heaping cupfuls in the lobby of www.124merton.com with a sign “please help yourself to organic tomato salad grown on our roof .”
The tenants that hadn’t made it to the tasting were delighted.
Ariel and Rachel
Ariel and Rachel have been friends since they met at Frosh week at university. The two would sit at my kitchen island as I fed them delicacies that I had just cooked. Rachel would sometimes refer to me as “The Chocolate Goddess.”I think that would have been after I served them the Rocky Road Brownies I made for special occasions. They would both eat from one plate and have a running commentary on the food. I suggested that they have a TV show, not another cooking show, but ” The Ariel and Rachel Eating Show.”
Rachel moved to Jerusalem where amongst other vocations, she reviewed restaurants and edited cookbooks. After seven years in Israel she had just returned to Toronto to live. The tomato tasting was the first time I saw Rachel since she landed in Toronto. How appropriate, Ariel and Rachel could taste tomatoes , eat them from the same plate and have a running commentary on their flavors.
When Rachel tasted the “Isis Candy”, a cherry tomato she remarked, “This is sweeter than a raspberry!” A great comment, since raspberries have a tartness not usually associated with fruit and the Isis” had a sweetness not usually associated with tomatoes [a fruit]. “Oh, I will make you a salad with the two!” said I. “And can it have some balsamic vinegar dribbled on it ?” asked Rachel .
Isis was an Egyptian goddess associated with motherhood, fertility and magic. In roman times roses were used in her worship. What better way to celebrate the fertility of my tomato garden than with this salad?
Goddess Salad
Candied rose petals
Raspberries
Isis Tomatoes
Extra Vecchio Aceto Balsamico di Reggio Emilia
The day before prepare candied rose petals: I used “Double Delight” roses because it is a fragrant rose and it’s name is so apt for the inspiration of this recipe. Try to choose fragrant roses from your garden. Taste them to determine which are least bitter and most delightfully rose flavored from your own garden (though the bitterness evaporates after candying). Lightly beat an egg white. Prepare a small flat dish with granulated sugar. Dip each petal individually into the egg white, then place in the pile of sugar lightly coating each side with the granules. Place on parchment paper overnight to dry.
Pick a beautiful plate for serving.
Quarter the “Isis” tomatoes and mix on plate with the whole raspberries. Place the rose petals around the salad.
To serve each goddess or mere mortal , take a rose petal and place a raspberry and tomato quarter on it. Dribble it with the ancient vinegar. This vinegar is more like an elixir than a salad dressing and one intense thick drop will do. Pop the salad whole into your mouth.
Do not despair if you don’t have “Isis” tomatoes and very old balsamic vinegar; candied rose petals topped with raspberries are delicious on their own.
Goddess Salad
the tomatoes are ready for tasting in the rooftop garden
The invitation read
There are many words to describe the taste of wines, but we invite you to conquer new frontiers with words to describe the taste of Tomatoes.
You are invited to attend our Tomato Tasting where we will sample whichever of the 57 heirloom varieties growing on the rooftop of an office building at 124 Merton St (Yonge and Davisville) are at the peak of their ripeness at that moment.Why stop at the Metro on the way home from work, when a quick jaunt to your roof at work will yield fresher produce than any grocer?
This Edenic space is somewhere where tenants go to escape the rote world of the office, and pick organic lettuce for their dinner
After tasting twenty-five or so varieties of tomatoes someone leaned over to look at the labels and cried, “Let’s taste the Clint Eastwood!” Who ever named this tomato must have known this tomato needed a PR boost that comes with a famous name. It was tasteless. Some one else asked, “ How tasteless is it ? Tasteless like supermarket tomato?”
That’s how far everyone palates had advanced in an hour .What used to be the norm, a supermarket tomato, even to people who said in advance, that they didn’t have taste buds to detect nuances: became a standard of the lowest gastronomic rung or a pejorative description.
We began to pick out favorites. Corey Mintz, food writer for the Toronto Star, who last year favored “Gold Medal” http://www.thestar.com/living/food/article/723930–secret-ingredients-are-bounty-from-the-garden-and-dumb-luck switched allegiances and picked out “Wapiscon Peach” as this year’s star. Jennifer Agg of The Black Hoof , a charcuterie restaurant, wanted to make a “Vivian Tomato Salad” for the restaurant. A botanically based dish in a carnivore’s heaven? What a compliment!
The tasting continued with everyone pitching in adjectives and favorites. Sarah Battersby of Toronto Gardens had just posted her blog on the 124 Merton street gardens
http://torontogardens.blogspot.com/2010/08/vivian-reisss-rooftop-veg-garden.html in advance of her blog on the tastings. Am I giving her next blog away if I tell you Anna Russian makes a superb tomato sandwich?
Clara Kwon’s www.plantifesto.com/blog favorite was the Spoon tomato and she was not alone in enjoying this tiny marvel. Joel’s, who refuses to eat tomatoes, favorite was the crunchy carrot plucked from one of the pots. The black tomatoes, really dark red and green, even though they are prone to cracking, were standouts. One of my personal favorites, Paul Robeson, is certainly the baritone of tomato tastes, rich and full bodied. Ariel opted for Tondose des Condores, a cherry tomato and Crynovic Yugoslavian, that she said tasted like a burst of tomato juice.
After we were all giddy from the tasting [who knew you could get high from eating tomatoes? Maybe only when you you eat them grown on a high altitude like a roof!] One last tomato to taste, The Julia Child, a big ,very red tomato. As I bit into it and the juice began to dribble down my jumper, my voice mounted several octaves and I nasally declared ,”Even if you bite into it on television and the juices roll down your front, you will keep your aplomb because this red red red tasting tomato is divine!” At under 5 feet in height I felt as tall as Julia.
Such is the transformational experience of growing and sharing tomatoes on an office building rooftop.
Jennifer and Corey play hide and seek among the tomatoes
Crynovic Yugoslavian Tomatoes sliced on a roof slate
Anna Russian
Clara comtemplates a "Fuzzy" tomato
The carrot that got the paparazzi going and Joel's favorite
If you would like to check out the office suites available where sampling organic tomato salad on the roof and in the lobby is the norm, go to www.124merton.com
Corn swaying in a rooftop planter
Buying supplies for my rooftop garden, I had an after thought.” Why not try growing corn in the planters? I am sure it will look beautiful and rustic.” I picked up a cell pack of corn seedlings and headed up to the garden to plant.
The plants grew tall and the sides were swollen with cobs. We boiled the first few cobs and ate them very simply: plain. We had a row, not a cornfield, so our crop was limited.
For the rest of the crop, I wanted to stretch our yield on the table. The whole Summer long I had been making and enjoying corn from the market, Mexican street style. To make it, you barbecue corn, slather it with mayonnaise, sprinkle it with chile powder, roll it in grated queso fresco, and then squeeze fresh lime juice on it. This was the inspiration for the pasta dish I came up with.
Corn Lime Chile Pasta
fresh corn on the cob
dry corn pasta [available at Whole Foods or other health conscious stores]
lime leaves [available in Asian markets]
chile powder
queso fresco
whole limes
a mild flavored oil such as canola
Heat barbecue and when it is hot, barbecue corn turning it several times until it is cooked and lightly charred in spots.
Grate the cheese on the large holes of a box grater
Fill a pot of water and put in the lime leaves. I used about 10 leaves in the water for a half a package of the pasta. You want to flavor the water in which the pasta will boil. The purpose is to infuse the pasta with a taste of lime. Boil the pasta with the leaves until pasta is done.
Hold the corn cobs vertically and cut the corn off the cob with a sharp knife.
Drain the pasta. Remove and discard the lime leaves. In a serving dish, add oil to the pasta until it is lightly coated. Top the pasta with the corn, chile and grated cheese. Toss and serve with lime wedges.
corn,cheese,limes leaves and chile
Lime leaves and queso fresco
corn pasta and chile powder
chile corn lime pasta
chile corn lime pasta
cotton boll in my garden with discarded blossom behind it
Today, I noticed our cotton is growing fat bolls. When they burst we will have cotton. Cotton has been cultivated for 7,000 years, but is this a first for Canada?
cotton boll
erlene's green cotton blossom
pink cotton blossom
cotton blossom
Which of these "Giant Belgium" beauties will make the perfect sandwich?
The favorite sandwich of my youth, hardly requires a recipe. Slice a tomato. Spread one side of a slice of rye bread, and yes, it must be rye, with mayonnaise. Top with tomato slices and another piece of rye bread. Only spread mayonnaise on one side, so one piece of bread will resist the tomato juices and the other side will soak them in. Slice in half and enjoy!
Giant Belgium tomato Sandwich with Belgium art vase
A sandwich made with a Gold Medal tomato is a whole other experience;sweet and one slice covers the bread!
What's for breakfast?
I love making and eating soup for breakfast. On this hot Summer’s day looking at a pile of ripe tomatoes that I grew, it was obvious what the main ingredient for today’s soup was going to be.
I knew that I felt like having cold tomato soup but I knew my husband would prefer his hot. From one base I created two fast soups that would please us both.
The soup base:
Cut up tomatoes, several varieties or colors are fine. Place in a blender adding a minimal amount of water if necessary to start the blending. Blend for several minutes until completely smooth.
The cold soup
Pour a portion of the base into a soup bowl. Top with a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt. Add a dollop of light sour cream. Quarter some cherry tomatoes. Dice some cucumber. Chop tarragon and parsley. Top the soup with the prepared ingredients. When you are ready to eat, mix and enjoy.
The hot soup
Melt some butter in a small saucepan. Add a portion of the soup base. Heat and add a little milk until the desired consistency is reached. Add salt to taste. Cook until hot. Serve sprinkled with finely cut chives.
fig and leaf
figs, Turkish brown, in my garden
Last year I planted fig trees in all of my gardens. www.annexrentals.com I even planted them in pots at the entrance of our office building. www.empressbuilding.com Their leaves are beautiful and growing such exotic fruit in our climate, Toronto Canada, peeks the interest of the many people who notice them and watch them grow and ripen.
Autumn arrived and this dilemma with it. What were we do to do with all those fig trees? I really couldn’t care for or find space for all of them indoors even if we had potted them. By default we left them to winter in situ.
Spring arrived. The figs had one strong stem and looked pretty well dead. Weeks went by and they looked the same. “Okay,I’ll just yank them out,” but their roots and stem were so entrenched as much as I pulled and dug I couldn’t remove them. ” “Okay I will let them stay” and lopped off the stem about 6 inches from the ground .
Summer arrived and lo and behold all the fig trees had verdant leaves and more amazingly figs!
When the figs ripen and Fall is near I will make these original fig appetizers that I created last year.
Recipe
Ripe figs
Soft fresh goat cheese
As many slices of prosciutto as figs, plus a few extra for repair work!
Mint leaves, preferably chocolate mint
Method
While preparing figs preheat barbecue
Cut figs almost in half from stem to bottom. Stuff with about teaspoon of soft fresh goat cheese. Nestle a mint leaf in the cheese and wrap the fig in a slice of prosciutto using extra pieces of the ham if there are big tears. Wrap the prosciutto around the figs holding together the cut side and then mold the ends around the figs.
Barbecue the figs turning once until crispy and the cheese is melted.
Serve while hot, two per plate as an appetizer
figs ready for cooking
fig appetizers
Addendum
Butcher shop on St Clair Avenue, Toronto
Long before it became fashionable to make artisanal charcuterie in Brooklyn, New York; Italian butchers in Toronto, Ontario have been turning out fabulous prosciutto, sausages, salamis, and cured pork loins.This cheerful and helpful butcher who describes his meats and methods in a combination of pride and matter of factness opened his shop in 1967.It is here I stopped to buy his prosciutto for this recipe.
tiny spoon tomatoes
Standing in the greenhouse looking at a choice of seedlings of 200 varieties of heritage tomatoes I could grow was a thrill.This Spring having built more wooden boxes and added more colored plastic tubs to my office roof top vegetable garden I could still only accomodate about 60 varieties, accounting for multiples of favorite ones from last year. I had poured over the printout catalogue and circled the ones that sounding most tempting . Looking at the seedlings I switched and added varieties. To have a complete collection I needed some cherry type tomatoes even though I am not overly fond of them, too much skin to fruit ratio. A tempting variety caught my imagination, Spoon Tomatoes, tiny miniature tomatoes! Even being an avid collector of mini kitchens, toy dishes and implements I hesitated. Being more of a hunter than a gatherer , I love finding, planting and nurturing edibles ,but picking? Much too tedious!
One of the first tomatoes to ripen on the rooftop were these minis. They detached easily from the vine and I popped a few in my mouth. Zowie! With a pop and a crunch , mini explosions of concentrated tomato taste and sweetness ignited my palate. I immediately began to construct a dish to use these tomatoes.
In size, color and effect of the explosions [crunchy skins enclosing tastes] they reminded me of salmon roe. Tomato and roe ,unami tastes. I remembered a favorite dish of my husband’s of our early married years, spaghetti with caviar. It involved lots of heavy cream and butter and well as chives and grated lemon rind. For this dish, I wanted to emphasize the difference and harmony of the earth and sea. For earthy, I picked multi grain fresh linguine, both for the color and taste. Chives, for the earth, a stand in for onions that would have been too heavy and overwhelming. For the sea, I picked bronze fennel whose fronds reminded me of seaweed and the grated lemon rind which evoked lemon groves by the sea in Italy. I used olive oil to complement the tomatoes and the richness of butter to deliver the taste of the roe.
Method: Bring water to boil for pasta. Assemble spoon tomatoes, finely minced chives, salmon roe, grated lemon rind, chopped fennel fronds and flowers, olive oil, unsalted butter.
Cook pasta until done, fresh pasta cooks faster than dried.
Drain pasta and toss with butter.
On individual plates put a portion of pasta. Grate black pepper over the pasta. Strew the roe, tomatoes, fennel, chives, lemon rind in an amount both pleasing to the eye and palate. Drizzle olive oil on top. Serve, instructing guests to toss the ingredients together.
Today on the boulevard the broom corn has reached 10 feet tall and the millet-like sprays are opening. It is sure to add another few feet. The amaranth heads are 3 feet high by at least one foot wide. The cotton is blooming , pink, white and yellowish greeny white blossoms reflecting the various varieties. The artichokes are vigorous,the beet tops are red, green and other variations. Rice is tall but no grains have appeared yet .The chard is knee high. The sorghum is inching higher and developing their sweet sap. The buckwheat is flowering and setting seeds known as kasha or soba!
amaranth
One of my favorite cookbooks is Edward de Pomiane’s cookbook ,”Cooking in 10 Minutes”[ first published in 1948] I love it, not so much for the recipes, but for the theory that a delicious meal could be prepared in ten minutes.The first thing he advised doing when entering the kitchen is to put on a pot of water to boil, as bringing water to a boil took the longest of the processes he proscribed. He should know. Edward de Pomiane was a scientist and before molecular gastronomy was popular ,often described the chemical reactions in food preparation.
This morning I bested his ten minutes. I simply walked out the kitchen door into the garden.I picked tomatoes, basil, shiso, purple pole beans and chives.Back in the kitchen I sliced and layered the ingredients, sprinkling them with sea salt and olive oil et voila! Breakfast in minutes.
Luckily, I had heeded his advice and had put on a kettle of water to boil. I picked some chocolate mint, lemon verbena, and a few scented geranum leaves, crammed them in a carafe, and poured boiling water over them . Instant breakfast herbed tea!
De Pomiane’s cookbook is subtitled,
‘ The Adaptation to the Rhythm of our Time” What is more fitting for our fleeting Summer than breakfast in a flash?
herb tea in the garden
Today on my office rooftop garden at www.124merton.com there were at least 22 varieties of tomatoes ripening.We have a total of 57 different varieties of heritage tomatoes.
Photos from left to right: Hawaiian Pineapple, Crynkovic Yugoslavian, Anna Russian, Abe Lincoln, Stupice, Black Russian, Wapiscon Peach, Black from Tula, Tondose des Conores, Spoon, Speckled Peach, Orange Banana, Orange Strawberry, Thai Pink Eggs,Feuerwerk, Clint Eastwood, Watermelon Beefsteak, Florida Pink, White Rabbit, group photo: Purple Cherokee, Watermelon Beefsteak, Stupice
In Perspective a Watermelon Beefsteak Tomato
As a child my Mother encouragingly told me;” You can do anything you put your mind too.” As an adult, reality usually impinges on that fantasy and you realize that a great deal of action is required too. Well maybe, not anymore!
Thinking in Interaxon's Thought Controlled Living Room
My Daughter, Ariel Garten is the CEO of Interaxon www.interaxon.com a thought controlled computing company. You see me seated in their lastest endeavor, a thought controlled living room. Imagine donning a headset and just by thinking ,your brain waves can dim the lights, pour a drink and put on a movie. No, the movie isn’t a sci fi classic , this is the reality that Interaxon is bringing to your living room .
Bee and Bean
This morning Dan Goodbaum www.foodbomb.org came to my garden to interview me for a video he is making about my garden and my gardening philosophy . The bees were at work.
Dan at work
Chasing the bees to capture their good side
Dill in my garden planted from seeds from Kashgar
My daughter Ariel www.interaxon.com plucked a dill flower from the garden . “Mmm tastes like plov.” It wasn’t a stretch of her gustatory imagination. Ten years ago, Ariel, Joel and I took a trip to Central Asia. Plov figured prominently on the menu in Uzbekistan and Western China. It may sound more familiar to you as rice pilaf. Plov is made with heavily fatted lamb, rice, shredded carrots and dill seed.
In Kashgar China we visited the Sunday market. At one time it was a prominent market town on the Silk Route. It is perhaps the world’s oldest continuing market.For the most part the market is steeped another era except for one fact. I renamed it the Polyester Route for the large amount of petrochemically derived fabrics that were on display for sale there. On the way to the market men were preparing huge cauldrons of plov for the crowds plying, trading and buying.
On a dusty thouroughfare, a spice merchant was peddling his wares. As we bought his spices, a crowd gathered to observe us. I kept on choosing spices not so much out of need, but for the cultural interaction. It was fun! I brought the spices home and let them rest in my pantry,using them most occasionally.
This Spring as I was planting my garden I went to pantry and found cumin seeds and dill seeds that I had bought ten years earlier. Would they still be viable? I casually tossed them in the ground. The cumin never germinated even though I made several efforts.[I since found out they need warmth to germinate.Maybe I will try again now.] The dill ? That is the beautiful dill you see in the photo, the taste of which reminded Ariel of plov.
recipe: This morning I made summer salad from cucumbers from my office roof garden www.124merton.com and the dill that grew in the last century in Kashgar, China
1 cup nonfat yogurt
1 tablespoon light sour cream
2 teaspoons sugar
mix together in a serving bowl. Add chopped dill fronds and the tiny ends of the flowers to taste.
peel and thinly slice 2 medium cucumbers
Mix sauce and cucumbers and serve chilled
cucumber and kashgar dill salad
'Christina" oil on canvas, 42x54 inches by Vivian Reiss 2010
Early this Spring a very stylish and beautiful woman came to my studio to buy a painting.Her name is Christina. As we looked through some of my portraits her equally stylish and handsome husband asked if I could do his wife’s portrait. Thus began the painting you see today.
The next day when Christina arrived at my studio she brought an assortment of traveling clothes. They live in London and the Cote D’azur. The painting was destined for their home overlooking the Mediterranean where it a Max Ernst would be taken down and replaced by my portrait! Usually when people sit for a portrait, I ask them to bring an object that has meaning to them. One was the mammoth ring in the shape of an owl that Christina had designed and then she suggested that white tulips were her favorite flower and could form the background of her painting. More than that, the tulip shape is the main compositional element. Observe how you can find it in her dress, hair, body and physical presence.
Eggplants and Dahlias from the garden
These eggplants are beautiful, delicious and prolific. I have planted them in all my gardens this year. When it comes time to eat them, place raw ones in the middle of the table as a centerpiece and set the rest of them whole in a hot barbeque. Roast the eggplants until their skins are smokey colored.There is no need to turn them as their skin is delicate and they might fall apart. Serve the eggplants, one to each guest ,after they have cooled slightly, along with a salt cellar and bottle of olive oil. Each guest can open their eggplant and season to taste.
Ghost eggplants in my garden
Centerpiece
The theme was India
It’s not often , I get to spend time fully in the color spectrum, in a world of white. It was Michelle’s birthday and we got to boat across the white capped lake to her and her husband David’s island paradise. The party was held at her partner and neighbour Chrissy’s cottage on this idyllic Ontario isle. Both Chrissy’s and Michelle’s houses are a paradigm of style, symphonies in white where the guests provided the color.In a world of white warmth we passed the day with love and appreciation for Michelle.
Boat ride with the Beckerman Girl's
The fashion designers the Beckerman girls were there for the party too. Here is a link to their blog
Irving and Joel
On the road to Crowe’s Landing ,Stoney Lake ,there is a farm wth an arresting sign: a life size soft sculpture of an old man holding a board that reads,”EGGS”. If you are lucky he isn’t holding the sign that says ‘Eggs sold out”.
I stopped as usual to buy Meg’s eggs , stocking up to make Chocolate mousse for Joel’s concert the following week when I remembered I had paper and gouaches in the car.
I asked permission to capture the chickens on paper and set about painting. Here are the results.
gouache on paper 22"x30" copyright Vivian Reiss
gouache on paper 22"x30" copyright Vivian Reiss
gouache on paper 22"x30" copyright Vivian Reiss
gouache on paper 22"x30" copyright Vivian Reiss
Salat
Last month on a tour of the Medieval Gardens At The Cloisters, the uptown branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the docent paused in the herb garden to tell us of the Medieval cooks ’ love of salats. That is salad to us. Many herbs , flowers, greens were used. Lettuce was not always the main ingredient. Bitter greens were popular, probably for their digestive properties .Foodstuffs in that era were sometimes ”past their prime” .It made me think of beef and my garden. We age beef , not rot beef , so the adding a bitter quality to our meals is not important . I had just been looking at The Unicorn Tapestries. I realised that I could recreate a tapestry of flora from my garden.Thus this “Salat” was born.
Beef and Flora Salat
Grill a thick sirloin steak to desired doneness
While the steak is resting on a platter go forth into the garden
This is what I gathered from my garden: tarragon, parsley and parsley flowers, celery, basil and basil flowers ; lemon, purple,Thai, variegated, and lettuce leaf varieties, chives, nasturtium leaves and flowers, Cherry Chief sage flowers, dill and dill seeds, fennel fronds and flowers, arugula flowers,marigolds,pineapple sage, lemon balm, chocolate mint,string bean flowers, shiso, mustard green flowers and hyssop flowers.
Any combination of herbs and edible flowers can be used. Wash, dry, pluck, destem, and chop as desired.
Slice steak thinly. Make layers of steak ,salat. Dribble each layer with olive oil . The last layer should be salat and oil saving the most colorful elements for this tier. Serve untossed.
www.vreiss.com