In the spirit of strawberry season, my cousin Stephanie sent me the following two photos. They depict her and my cousin Jon’s incredibly cute children, Ella and Ryan, posing with a basket of fresh and local strawberries, handpicked in Montague, MI. I think we’d all gain from celebrating the season’s harvest with the kind of…
Month: June 2011
summer lovin’
As I start to pack up for next week’s move to Ann Arbor, I’ve decided to get as much use out of my family’s food processor as possible before it’s too late (this college kid’s kitchen appliance collection is limited to a can opener and a cheese grater, I’m afraid). A tip from Amy Piersma…
the heart-seed berry
“Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.” – Dr. William Butler, 17th century English writer, writing about the strawberry Strawberries have officially taken over market stands all across Michigan, and so it is only appropriate that the Sprout Diaries acknowledge and appreciate this incredibly lovable summertime fruit. Before proceeding…
mind your peas
“Easy to see why” is a phrase oft-used around the Fields home, having entered our vernacular via a certain picture book now legendary to my childhood, as some picture books are wont to become. And the phrase becomes relevant again here. After preparing two a-pea-ling dishes for this week’s blog post (a fabulously fresh tabbouleh…
shelling for beginners
Before the recipes, a story of woe, borne out of plain pea ignorance: On Saturday morning, this idealistic blogger drove to Grand Rapids’s Fulton Street Farmer’s Market in search of peas. It’s June, doggone it, and I predicted the market would be pea pandemonium, a treasure trove of not just snow and sugar snap, but…
a fashion and a madness
In a letter dated May 10, 1696, French noble Madame de Maintenon wrote: “This subject of peas continues to absorb all others. The anxiety to eat them, the pleasure of having eaten them and the desire to eat them again, are the three great matters which have been discussed by our princes for four days past….
mastering the (t)art of rhubarb
If asparagus reigns king of the springtime vegetables, I’d like to crown rhubarb its rosy-cheeked queen. Pair the tartness of rhubarb with something sweet (as I’ve done in the following two recipes: first, a simple rhubarb sauce and second, an old-fashioned strawberry rhubarb crumble) and you’ve just about captured the taste of early summer. And…
rhubarbarians!
Tis the season for rhubarb, the pie-friendly, perennial favorite of springtime vegetables. Or is it a fruit? Like the bamboozling tomato, rhubarb challenges easy classification as vegetable or fruit. Most experts agree that rhubarb is, indeed, a vegetable, since the edible part of the plant falls under the grouping of root, stem or leaf. Conversely,…
the sprout diaries 