Introduction to Spring Cooking and Baking

This year the first few days of Spring in the U.K. have been very cold, but a friend and I still ventured out to the lovely Wisley Gardens south of London looking for hardy early blooms.  Walking along the outside paths, our faces were hit by frigid air yet we were greeted with thick clumps of white snow drops, pink camellias and rhododendrons, bluebells, violet and white crocuses, and yellow daffodils.  Surrounding these multi-colored beautiful gardens are many farms with sheep coated by blankets of coarse heavy wool.  This is the time of year that lambing barns are busy with new life.  We witnessed baby lambs finding mother ewe’s warm nourishing milk.  A couple of days later these same lambs were frolicking in open, green, rolling hills of English pasture.  With each leap, they seemed to cry out, “We made it!”

         Being in the Surrey countryside reminded me of one Spring on the homestead in Alaska, when our normal routine was interrupted by a very distraught older cow moose.  We had noticed her on our daily treks out the narrow muddy dirt road.  She hovered around the same thick green spruce and birch forest area near a small lake where her young calf had died. The calf was probably killed by a bear.  As we made our way one morning in early June, the panic driven moose broke away from a patch of young alders and charged us.  My parents, brothers and I scampered  up a leaning silver birch tree to a position above her reach. She rushed below several times furiously snorting and tossing her velvety dark brown head. Our hearts thumped loudly as we tried to hold in our breath and hide ourselves behind new light green leaves. We waited with trepidation.  After what seemed like a very long while she slowly wandered away out of sight. Giving her a few more minutes, we then gingerly climbed down and quietly hurried on our way. 
         We always had much to do this time of year with the starting up of our greenhouse to ensure plenty of delicious tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers for home use.  There was also the large vegetable garden to plant with rows of potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, green onions, cabbage and various varieties of lettuce.

          School breaks occurring in late Spring offer yet another time for hands-on cooking and baking with your kids. Like the emergence of new blooms, kids have a sudden interest to participate and create when given the opportunity.   In this section, I’ve laid out an Italian/American theme.  Lunch starts with pizzaiola tartines. For it use the most beautiful bright red tomatoes you can find, and then progress to make gnocchi lightly covered in tomato sauce simmered with aromatic oregano and garlic.  Most  young children can use their hands to shape balls of this potato pasta. The dessert here, banana cream pie, has been universally applauded by kids in my cooking courses. It is topped with the easily whipped up meringue given in the Easter chapter for baked Alaska.  Finally, smelling  cinnamon rolls, hot from the oven, is truly to die for!    

© Judy Labi 2013