Monthly Archive for April 2011
far beyond the cucumber
I’m sure there’s some way to spin these radishes—quick pickled in a brine that’s equal parts sweet, sour, spicy and salt—as Passover- or Easter-friendly. Nary a speck of leavened bread! A lovely addition to your seder, tucked up against a piece of gefilte fish! A punchy addition to your otherwise ham-and-scalloped-potatoes laden Easter spread! A pre-Easter lunch bite with a hue to match the eggs hidden around the yard!
still manages
Well, I’m here to report that it worked! The kale-centric goodbye gala for winter that I staged last time I was here really, really worked. Not more than two days after that post, spring arrived—and decidedly so. The winds were suddenly warm and the trees were all-at-once producing buds. As we walked the sidewalks near our apartment last weekend, we stopped to gawk at the fringey-yellow bushes that had burst into bloom and the pert daffodils, tucked up against the houses, that had opened up their bonnets.
Spring’s like that, I think. It arrives every year, yet it still manages to stun you.
in fits and starts
Spring, as it’s wont to do, is proceeding in fits and starts. We shivered through a Cubs game yesterday afternoon, only to find ourselves eating dinner on the deck—sockless! with candles!—that very same night, as the mercury climbed to seventy (!) degrees. Today, it was back to steel gray skies and blustering wind and that tiresome chill. And that, in a nutshell, is how this brief spell between winter and summer typically unfolds for us here in Chicago. We are teased with warm days, tall blue skies, and bright sunshine, only to have the rug pulled out from under us before we can even bust out a single sundress.
So. I’ve decided to throw winter a going away party. I figure that if we properly fête winter—celebrating all that was great about the all-too-long season—it will uproot itself and fade away. Who’s in? Without further ado, here are the things I’ve loved about this winter: