Chers Lectours! (Dear Readers!) Happy Spring

This is one of my favorite times of the year, before humidity strikes. Gardening is a pleasure. Fresh green onions grow wild. Redbud trees in bloom. Thanks to all of you who emailed in your votes for the winning Bread of Dreams. Turns out the winner was Perpetua’s smoky pizza topped with a roasted eggplant, onion, and tomato kishk.

What’s happening in your garden? I love this time of year, but I am so very far behind, with seed starting that I almost said ok, I missed it this year. Do you ever feel that way? But then, I realized, its only March. I can’t give up! (Also thanks to the team here at C’est si Bon! who had started some cucumbers and more summer vegetables. The nice thing about having multiples of plants is that you can have a continued harvest.)

So, just before the rains of last weekend, I planted sugar snap peas in the little garden and started acorn, spaghetti, and butternut squash seeds.

This week is Spring Break for many schools, and we have a group of students that will be cooking and learning with us all week. Our menu today had a lot of components!

Asian Small Plates

Orange Sesame Pak Choi Salad

Bulgogi with Quick Cucumber and Ginger Pickles

Steamed Pork and Shitake Buns

Momofuku Grasshopper Pie

But what about those potatoes, you ask? You know, the ones in the photo that you prepped and that you should be planting right now?

I found a little tiny, wee little potato that had wintered over in one of last year’s pots on the deck when I was getting ready to plant this year’s potatoes.

Over the past 10-12 years I have experienced planting and even some harvesting of potatoes. But potatoes are my nemesis. My Achilles heel. My albatross in the garden.

POTATO TALES

One time, years ago, I was teaching one of our CSB interns, J, gardening. What this means is we were weeding and picking whatever was ripe and ready and needed cooking or preserving.

I was excited because maybe this would be the moment of potato truth. A few months earlier I had brought back and planted a number of beautiful blue potatoes from an amazing place - Good News Gardening - in Hood River Oregon.

J and I dug around carefully in the potato bed and found blue potatoes. I laughed. We found five potatoes between us. “I don’t think we’re going to make it as potato farmers,” I said to J. He looked surprised. Was it because he wondered how in the world I thought he had come to CSB to learn how to be a potato farmer? Or because I had inadvertently assigned responsibility to him for our lack of potatoes? No, dear Lord, just no. So, I laughed and pointed to all the tomatoes that were growing in the next row.

“What I mean is, always plant tomatoes and potatoes, so that way you have a fighting chance of having something to eat.” He seemed relieved and even smiled.

Could this lesson apply in other ways? How might it have meaning in your life?

A few years later, and out of high school, J reached out to ask for a recommendation and in his essay he mentioned his experience at CSB and “that people looked at him weirdly when he told them to always plant tomatoes and potatoes.” I had to laugh because, as a teacher you often wonder if anyone is ever listening. But that day? I am happy to tell you that it felt very nice to read those words that had been said in the garden years before. What are your moments like that? Have you had gardening challenges that teach life lessons? Have YOU planted potatoes? :)

LAUNCH NEWS

I am so excited and grateful for your support. And bursting to share the blurbs provided by my colleagues for the back cover of The Bread of Dreams Cookbook.

I’ve included links to their websites and books for your reading pleasure.

Release date for the book is set for May 1.

Tip! Keep reading after the blurbs and learn how to participate in the book launch.

ADVANCED PRAISE

BLURBS FOR BREAD

Dorette Snover’s Bread of Dreams is an enchanting companion to her novel Tales of the Mistress, an elegiac journey on the wings of a dream through her sixteenth-century Mediterranean characters, illustrated with fascinating, unique, and delicious-sounding recipes for a variety of breads and other foods. Bread of Dreams is a poetic tour-de-force with intriguing characters, wonders, and enticing recipes that will have you dreaming of bread.

Clifford A. Wright, Winner of the James Beard Cookbook of the Year and Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food for A Mediterranean Feast in 2000 and An Italian Feast 2023

The Bread of Dreams just might make you dream of not only heavenly breads, but also sweet cookies, rich stews, and rustic dishes that will make you wish for a time machine to take you back to an era when everyone cooked these luscious dishes.

Debra Borchert, author of Soups of Château de Verzat: A Literary Cookbook & Culinary Tribute to the French Revolution.

Ambrosial bread recipes based on ancient wisdom woven into a delightful tale of suspense lead the reader on a journey of discovery across the present-day Mediterranean, revealing the secrets of long-lost bread-making and Old-World languages and cultures as Epi searches for the bread of dreams and a lost mother.

Jonell Galloway, Contributor to Le Tour du Monde en 80 Pains

In The Bread of Dreams Dorette Snover takes her readers back in time to a world where Persephone roamed the fields and the goddess Hestia tended the hearth. Ancient grains of the Mediterranean that we are only now rediscovering: spelt, blue emmer, trakhanas and beyond return the taste of the olive orchard covered hills of yore to the bread basket. For those who’ve read the stories and savored the descriptions from her novel, Tales of the Mistress, as well as those who’ve yet to crack its cover, this much anticipated companion cookbook shares the savoir-faire of the past brought forward to our modern kitchens. Flavors and methods will delight the creative cook and enrich many a feast. Check the ingredients’ list, fill your pantry, and prepare to tempt your senses.

Madeleine Vedel, owner Provence Cooks LLC, Touring Company

ARC TEAM SIGNUP

I’d love for you to join the ARC Team! for “The Bread of Dreams: Stories and Portraits of the Psomi Mistresses.” You’ll receive a free (digital) Advance Review Copy in exchange for posting a review on/before launch day (May 1). Please fill out the Google form linked here.

And that’s all the news for now.

Buona Pasqua! Joyeuses Paques!

Mixed Greens With Red Bud Vinegar and Chili Paste

serves 8

1 tablespoon grape seed oil

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon chili paste

3 cups water

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 tablespoon red bud vinegar (made with ½ cup picked fresh red bud flowers and 1 cup rice vinegar. steep for 2-3 days at room temperature)

1 bunch collard greens, cleaned and cut into 1 1/4-inch-thick strips, 3 inches long

1/2 head green cabbage, cored and cut into 1 1/4-inch-thick strips

1 bunch mustard greens, cleaned and cut into 1 1/4-inch-thick strips, 3 inches long

make the greens:

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Sauté onions until translucent, for about 7 minutes. Add garlic, chili paste, water, salt and redbud vinegar, and let the seasoned water cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Add greens, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 30 -40 minutes. Remove from heat, adjust salt and serve.

The Eyes Have It.