It’s good to be home

From Family

My nephew and his new bride circumnavigate an amazingly green field right after the wedding ceremony. What a wonderful way to start their married life together!

You may have noticed a lull in my posting schedule. For the past week I have been in upstate NY, Massachusetts (near Providence) and Philadelphia, PA. It was a very, very green and wet family visit.

I think it rained at some time each day, though not enough to keep us from going out and doing things. The result of all the rain was a deep, dark, rich green that I truly miss living here in southern California. I also got to enjoy lightening bugs – another east coast phenomenon that is sadly lacking here. It was fun to see everyone’s veggie gardens also.

Still it is nice to be back to our cool, dry mornings, brilliant sunshine, and hot afternoons. My daughter did an excellent job of watering my container plants in my absence. Nothing died! The native gardens have slowed down for the summer and I have been cutting back dormant grasses and cleaning up a bit. (I received a brush clearance notice from the fire department, so I am working hard to come into compliance. The neighbor who doesn’t like my parkway garden has been very busy. After contacting the fire department, he went to city council to bring up the fact that my garden is still in violation of the parkway landscape ordinance. More on this when I am less upset.)

So for today’s post, I would like to focus on food. Tomatoes are looking great, though the only red ones are the cherries. They taste good, not great.

I harvested another meal’s worth of Blue Lake green beans.

From Veggie Garden

The basil is wonderful and made a great dinner of shell macaroni with basil pesto. My breath is still garlicky.

From Veggie Garden

I also made a large pot full of schav – a cold sour cream and French sorrel soup – for a 4th of July barbecue at my son’s house. The French sorrel (in the cage to the right of the tomato plant) is a perennial that has been in my garden for many years. Each summer I harvest the leaves for this cold soup that reminds me of my childhood summers as much as sweet corn and juicy, red watermelons.

From Veggie Garden

I’d love to give a recipe for this Jewish, eastern European dish, but I don’t have one. Here’s a brief description of how I make it.

Schav

1. Clean leaves and stems of a bunch of French sorrel. Separate the stems from the leaves. This is especially important for older plants since the stems become very fibrous.
2. Put the stems in a pot of water and cook for about 15 minutes. Strain the water and squeeze it out from the stems, leaving a sour broth with no fiber. I do this using a spoon and a coarse screen strainer.
3. Cook the leaves in the sour water until they wilt and change color, just a few short minutes. Gently strain the sorrel leaves from the water. Reserve the sour water.
4. Put a small amount of kosher salt in a bowl. Add chopped scallions (green onions). Rub the scallions with a spoon in the salt to release the oniony juices.
5. Coarsely chop a peeled and seeded cucumber. Add this to the scallions.
6. Add some of the sour water to the scallion and cucumber mix. Add sour cream and stir. Adjust the quantities of sour water and sour cream to taste (I told you I didn’t have a recipe!).
7. Add the cooked sorrel leaves at the end. Adjust the salt and add white pepper if desired.
8. Refrigerate. The soup gets better with time as the flavors blend together.

My mother used to add hot boiled potatoes to the cold soup when she was in a cooking mood. Others include chopped hard boiled eggs. I like it plain.

I realize this recipe will be difficult to follow for those who have never tasted schav. Guess you’ll just have to come visit some summer.