every day is a good day
High in the flowering cherry, the first buds have opened. One clump of blossoms opened two days ago. All the other flowers on the tree are waiting, waiting for the sun’s warm rays to pop open. What was it about that one clump that made them bloom earlier than all the other buds?
On the ground, the rhubarb is springing up. I’m salivating thinking about the sublime sauce those first new stalks will make. Good food is just around the corner.
When you’re a child, it’s a given that adults are crazy, have a feeble grasp of reality, and are prone to pronouncing illogical edicts at the drop of a hat. Even so, I wasn’t prepared to learn out how batshit crazy the founding fathers were when I was reading a chapter in American History back in grade school. It was the first time I saw the word “union” in print, and read it logically, the way it was spelled: un-i-on, or the same as “onion”, another word I hadn’t seen in print yet.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and I believe Paul Revere, were all going on and on about how “in onion there is strength.” The USA was founded by onion worshippers? I wasn’t impressed. In my mind, they were as crazy as the Israelites complaining after fleeing Egypt, that at least in Egypt they could eat onions and leeks, as if that was anything to complain about. Not having to eat onions and leeks, well, isn’t that something to be happy about?
Fast forward five decades, and here I am planting spades of onions. What could be possibly more delicious than onions and leeks, slow roasted until they are sugary sweet? What soup or dish doesn’t improve with onion? My husband has been known to suggest, not complain mind you, that just possibly, from time to time, I may use too many onions when I cook. It just goes to show that people change. In onion there is strength.
I’ve been experimenting with the optimal flour to water ratio in the loaves of whole wheat bread I make, trying a little more, a little less, over the last few months. 80% water to whole wheat flour is a bit too much. 70% is not enough. 75% seems to be the optimal ratio.
The other important thing is to let it ferment sufficiently. After mixing the flour and water and a pinch of yeast, let the yeast and other bacteria feed on it for a day, gently folding the dough occasionally. After twenty fours, add some salt, knead it in gently, and let the microbes gorge on the dough for another day, gently folding it occasionally.
On the third day, with the dough fluffy from all the farting the microbes have done the last two days, bake it. The crust is crunchy, the inside fluffy with a nice chew, and the microbes have performed a miracle, converting the flour into heaven you can taste.
And the Oscar goes to … is it SalmonBerry in “Vermillion and Yellow”, Pepper in “Pepper Lays an Egg”, the Pear Buds in “Like Peas in a Pod”, the Daffodils in “Dancing Lemons”, the Plum Blossoms in “Fifty Shades of Pink”, or the Lilac Buds in “Together for Now”? Envelope please!
Ten days and the arugula seeds have sprouted and are sticking their first leaves above the soft earth. What do leaves feel when they first poke out of the earth, breathe the air, and feel the sun’s rays? Is it as momentous as a baby’s first breathe, a chick’s first peep?
In about ten days the cherry buds will open and fill the air with their powder fresh fragrance. The quiet tree will buzz with thousands of bees. That’s momentous.
The United Nations Environment Programme reported on February 26 that 40% of invertebrate pollinators such as bees and butterflies were in danger of going instinct. It’s so sad what we humans are doing to this amazing world. We are so incredibly lucky to have an earth so full of life. Every species, no matter how small or insignificant they seem to us, is precious, an important thread in the fabric of life so complex we can’t begin to fathom. We keep plucking these threads of life and throwing them aside, unaware that at some point, the web of life we depend on will be too fragile to keep us alive.