We had a lovely respite, beautiful blue skies, warm temperatures, for a week in late March. Then the winter that had never truly come hit us in April. This pseudo-winter is only now beginning to abate. Yesterday (and today) again we see blue skies, and the warmth of a possible spring. We bought fresh strawberries and pineapples—on sale—at the store. I’d hardly ever bought a pineapple myself, and certainly rarely (if ever) peeled one. But still I had extensive experience with eating them in Indonesia: they routinely appeared on my plate, whether as in Java beautifully carved in spirals with no disfiguring ‘eyes’; in Kalimantan as chunks sprinkled with salt; or in Bali as part of a strange, spicy-hot-sweet fruit salad called rujak—said to be preferred by women at ‘that time of the month’ (amazingly, all delicious). But I managed to remove the skin and most of the eyes from one of the pineapples we’d bought; and we sat out on our back porch, alternately munching on sweet fresh pineapple and imbibing the alcoholic drinks I’d made in honor of Cinco de Mayo—the Mexican celebration that North Americans have adopted as a convenient yearly excuse to drink margaritas.
The strawberries too reminded me of my life in Indonesia. I got out my recipe for the Australian/New Zealand dessert, pavlova, and started the process of making it—remembering the times in Bogor when our friends from ‘down under’ routinely brought this dish to community potlucks. I never got enough of it there (being cognizant of the need to share); but now that I know how to make it (not so very difficult), I can fully assuage my gluttony. The meringue is in the oven now; the strawberries are cut into slices; and the cream is ready to be whipped.
One thought leads to another. Strawberries have been one of my favorites since childhood. My first memories are from my paternal great grandfather’s small house in the tiny village of Cyril, Oklahoma (circa 1948, definitely before I turned five!). My parents were both in college at the University of Oklahoma, and we were quite poor. We would go to the grandparental home in late summer to help collect and can the vegetables from Grampa’s garden. They shared their produce to help feed us through the coming winter. Grampa also grew strawberries, and—contrary to our usual practice—I could have all I wanted, delicious, fresh from his garden. I can feel the leaves and stem in my hand, the bright red shape before my eyes, my teeth piercing the fruit, the taste on my tongue, the juice dripping down my childish chin.
My next vivid memory is from Turkey when I was 10 or 11 (1956 maybe). My parents and I lived in Ankara, and we went on a cruise on the Black Sea up to the Russian border. It was at the height of the Cold War, when Ankara was full of the American military, ‘protecting’ us all from the ‘godless Communists’. We routinely heard jets flying overhead, and in childhood, I worried whether they were ‘ours’ or ‘the Russians’’. On our cruise, I felt a titillating fear/excitement when we reached the last Turkish town, Hopi, being so close to the border with ‘the enemy’. My parents and I took a walk up the hill behind the port where our ship was docked. Turks are exceedingly hospitable people, and the inhabitants of one of the houses we passed invited us in. They fed us fresh strawberries, covered in powdered sugar—something I’d never thought to try before (nor had I had strawberries for quite a long time). The wondrous sweet flavour comes to my mind clearly, even now. Such things can hit us so powerfully when we are young.
When I began writing, I was thinking about my own garden though. The warm weather drew me out into it and toward my flower garden (the fact that I’m inside writing on this lovely day is a testament to the neurotic depth of my inability to resist putting ‘pen to paper’). The garden remains bereft of blossoms, but the poppies and the aquilegia are masses of healthy looking leaves; the strange reddish peony stalks are 1-2 feet high; lilies have popped out of the ground, rising a few inches off the ground (hopefully this year not to be eaten by marauding wildlife as soon as they bloom). All suggest beauty to come.
My focus yesterday was eradication of weeds. I have learned to distinguish several:
- a furry leaved plant that is sometimes sold, but that proliferates so abundantly in my garden that I see it as a weed;
- mugwort—I love that name—a small, but pretty plant that threatened to take over last year, becoming the bane of my gardening existence (so far it seems less ubiquitous this year);
- goldenrod, which was the bane of 2010 (successfully controlled by my own vigilance).
But there remain other plants in the garden that I can’t distinguish—-are they soon to develop lovely blossoms, fodder for my flower arranging mania? Or are they simply large undesirables that I should yank out by the roots? My cousin introduced me a couple of days ago to garlic mustard—a plant with pretty, tiny white flowers that the entire county is apparently striving to obliterate, as…[roll of drums]…an invasive. Recognizing my civic responsibility, I obediently spent an hour or so removing such plants from the various garden beds around our house. But there are thousands more clearly visible in the ‘back 40’ (actually considerably less than 40…we have maybe 2.5 acres back there)—-a nearly wild area of swamp, trees, and honeysuckle. Honeysuckle smells wonderful. I like it, but everyone else here, including my husband, despises it—-rather like blackberries in Oregon. Yesterday’s anti-garlic mustard campaign hardly made a dent.
Now, having developed this unexpected enjoyment of gardening, I have another mutual interest to share with my daughter whose green thumb has long been evident. My husband also encourages me in this new preoccupation, as he labours away in his vegetable garden. We both enjoy his produce. Unlike the gardens of my childhood, I’m sure his efforts save us no money. Instead they provide a pleasant excuse to be outdoors, and very tasty fresh produce. His tomatoes—for which I must wait til August—-are unsurpassed! Peas, lettuce, radishes are more imminent.
The lure of the outdoors has become irresistible. I go.