This early season seems extreme at our place, on the edge, with wild swings of weather and animal surprises: Orioles and bobolinks are absent, bees elusive, bats … gone. This morning an unusually large and noisy flock of crows fills the sky. I just know they’re planning to attack the raspberry patch once they’ve cleaned out the songbird nests.
As a child I wanted swordfish and artichokes for my birthday dinner. I can’t imagine what came over me to ask for swordfish, but I still crave artichokes every spring the way my mother fixed them: steamed whole, upside down. Perhaps I loved them because they were expensive and made their appearance in northern New England groceries so briefly. Perhaps I loved that they came all the way from California.
I’m probably breaking all the rules of “local” down in my basement, where under banks of grow lights artichokes, epazote, cumin and lemongrass, nigella and fenugreek, radicchio and rapini, Corsican gourds and tomatillos, and 12 varieties of hot peppers are humming along. There are the usual suspects, too — tomatoes and eggplants, squash and greens.
