Breaking News!
The scapes are in! The scapes are in!
OK, maybe not as memorable as “The phone book is here!” but still plenty exciting for me. The first bounty from the gourmet garlic garden has arrived – the scapes, the long, thin, curly stem that emerges from certain strains of garlic. Scapes are a tender, delicate, and short-lived spring delicacy, and I once thought I would have enough to try to sell some to a local restaurant. Well, not quite. But there’s more than enough to make pesto with, which I will do for this weekend’s free concert on the New Haven Green (Yo-Yo Ma, outdoors, for free? How do you beat that?). I tried a basic recipe tonight, and it was tasty. I think Saturday’s version will include toasted walnuts and more basil than I used tonight. Yum.
The garlic harvest itself will probably start in a few weeks. As you can imagine, the different varieties have different ETA’s. I don’t expect super-sized heads, for a number of reasons (including the organic farming methods and my slightly premature planting last fall). But whatever I get will be welcome. If you are a fan of the stinking rose, there is nothing like fresh (well, dried first, of course), local garlic.
And in the weeks to come? Maybe I’ll finally do the follow-up post on my Washington BIO trip (already seems like ages ago…), and the housing situation, which I am still reluctant to talk about lest I jinx things (yeah, add superstitious to the list of foibles, quirks, and oddities). Till then, it’s work, work, work.
