Spring's here!

This is my favorite time of year. Snow storms aren't bad any more because you know the snow will last a few hours, not a few days or weeks or months. The weather is unpredictable, and ever-changing. I can steal flowers and forsythia branches from the neighbors (just one or two per house! I'm not a total jerk- I never take enough to be noticeable).

 

 The field behind my house looks green and inviting, and I can pretend that it's not going to dry up in a couple months,and be full of puncture vine that will stab me and Whitney through the blankets as we read for as long as we can until we're sweating and the pale skin we got from our Western European ancestors is pink and dried up (we can usually make it like, twenty minutes).

In April, these jerks don't exist.

But my favorite thing about this time of year is planning a garden. I have a dozen of scraps of paper scribbled with the plants I will have, those I might have, and those I should consider, if my tiny garden can magically fit more than I thought it would. I draw out little maps of my garden and divide up the space with twigs and twine. I love planting seeds indoors and seeing things grow. I like testing the garden dirt to see if it's dry enough: balling up a wad of dirt in my hands and throwing it to the ground to see if it's more mud pie or workable.Getting callouses from shoveling. Finding wonder in the living. And I love- I love- that soon my house and tea and dinners will be filled with things that I grew.

  

Elderflower syrup

My mom took my sisters and Luke and I up the canyon in search of elderflower. We should've gone a week or two earlier, but we were able to find enough. I've been googoo gaga about elderflower since I first tasted a fizzy elderflower drink from the British store, and wished that it wasn't seven dollars for a liter. So I decided to make my own elderflower syrup, which I'll mix with soda water for practically the same drink for pennies, rather than dollars. (I hear that IKEA makes an elderflower syrup like this, which I will see if I can find next time I'm there, since I don't think I'll have enough to last me until next elderflower season).

I think this an awesome picture of Luke. I like how he wouldn't miss out on the flower-picking action just because he was smoking.

My sisters

The process is a bit time consuming, because you have to get all those tiny little flowers off the stems and into a bowl (the bark and leaves of elderflower plants are mildly poisonous), but it was a good thing to do while watching a movie.

I used about twenty heads of flowers. I put the flowers in a bowl with the juice and zest of two lemons. Then I dissolved four cups sugar in four cups water over medium heat, and poured the simple syrup over the flowers.

The mixture sat steeping on top of the fridge for five days with a towel over it, and then I strained and put it in the fridge.So that's it! Mix two ounces of syrup with two cups of sparkling water, and you have a refreshing, flowery, sweet-but-not-too-sweet elderflower soda!

When I started getting into new crafts/hobbies a couple years ago, I promised friends and husband alike that I wouldn't become the kind of girl who made sachets to stink up the house, car, or my underwear drawer. So far, I've kept my promise. Stinking up the house has been the unintended effect, though, of tonight's project: drying lavender.


My mom harvested me a big bucketful, and tonight I opened the back door to let in some fresh air, and turned on some favorites, like this one:

Meiko - how lucky we are Found at abmp3 search engine

Then I de-leafed, tied, and hung up the lavender to dry. The whole house (granted, we've got three rooms) smells lovely, and I think it'll be a couple days before I get the smell off my fingers. I'm looking forward to exploring lavender's culinary uses- I see a lavendery summer in my future.

Crystalizing flowers

I think it's cool that when I tell Luke that I've been learning about edible flowers, and now I want to use little paintbrushes to paint individual flower petals with egg whites and then sprinkle them with sugar, not only does he not think I'm an idiot, but he wants to do it with me. We candied/crystalized about a hundred little flowers, both cherry blossoms and forsythia. After the painting/sugaring, the flowers have to dry for at least twenty-four hours.


A lot got ruined trying to take them off the pan the next day (next time we'll use wax paper), but we still had enough to make spring cupcakes for some friends. Paired with cupcakes and frosting, you couldn't really taste the light floral flavor, and they just tasted like sprinkles (for a full tutorial on crystalizing flowers, go here).



I think it'll take a few more times before we really master it, but I'm excited to try crystalizing other flowers (like johhny jump-ups!), and just exploring edible flowers in general. Tulips supposedly taste kind of like cucumbers or fresh peas, marigolds like saffron, bachelor's buttons like clove, etc. etc. There's a lot to learn.