New potatoes, potatoes eaten within minutes of plucking out of the ground, are so orgasmically good, that it makes you wonder if it should be legal to sell potatoes that are more than a few days old. Maybe the reason you never see potatoes picked today in grocery stores, is that if they ever sold such potatoes, no one would buy the old ones that they normally sell.

What is special about these very fresh potatoes, is that their skins are thinner and more delicate than a baby’s breath. Gently rub your thumb along them, and the translucent thin skin peels away. The tragedy of modern life is that very few have any idea how delicious food is. If you let potatoes develop to the point that they have a thick skin, and then store them for months before they get shipped to stores and eventually end up on someone’s dinner table, you’ve lost the magic that new potatoes can play on your tongue.

Herbs by the handful, that’s the blessing of a garden. The rosemary bush at the start of the garden path provides more rosemary than I could ever use. Down the path are three more rosemary bushes. I never run out, even in winter. Oregano has taken over a spot in the garden. Thyme, sage, and marjoram flourish with abandon. There is so much mint, it could feed a flock of goats for days.

After living in cities for much of my life, this is one of the great treasures of being able to grow food: fresh herbs by the handful. Food that really tastes. Meals that satisfy.

Madge is settled in. She’s found a quiet, dark, out of the way spot to hatch eggs. Spending day and night in the dark, she’s missing out on harvesting garlic, and finding all the good things that come out of the garden every day to eat. Today’s lunch was extreme home cooking. You can’t get more extreme than growing all the things on the plate: new potatoes, spicy arugula, pea pods with shallots.