Chronicles Continued

My experience has been that the Dutch do not cut and gather from their gardens the blossoms growing there. Suggest as I might that the enjoyment is prolonged. it doesn’t happen. These stems are a bit more than a yard in length. What happens when beautiful, strong iris, can not support themselves in an upright position, I don’t know. My first attempt was to brace them with bamboo pole supports, but the number of the in-the-bent-over-position outnumbered the poles available. Thus, I cut them off and brought them in the house. I don’t know if they are going to find that to their liking but for today, here they are.

The Season of the Tulip. I pay cash for each bunch of 10 stems and if it’s a choice between food or flowers the tulip takes the cake every time. The season is waning, the peony is being offered in place of the many tulip varieties. As an ode to the my FAVORITE flower, a few postings of this season’s delight.

The salt-sea-air, the knights templar, the bay-windows-of-Valletta, winding rock walls, grass-trod-by every-colonizing-warfaring-power over centuries; was all this to taste in the Malta Potato? No, unfortunately. The potato was the juiciest I have ever cut into and was patterned – reminding me of white-on-white-silk fabric. Whether boiled in water on the stove top or roasted in the oven, the taste was a full-bodied potato with a crumbly texture. Likely a terrific candidate for mashed potatoes.