The spirit and the menu need something MORE than our land allows right now.  We know, and we share the longing.  We wish to fast forward to peaches and strawberries.  And many menus do, bringing the first of the season from far, far way.  That can be a relief...but we can also go deeper into how we eat from this place.  We can dwell here in this liminal space a minute.


There's an art to eating in season and no season calls more strongly on its artists than the very end of winter.  We are past the Equinox but still buried in snow.  When the snow crumbles, mud prevails.  How does one get excited about a garden that will not yet yield to the shovel?


Remembrance.  You are called upon to remember the flavors of last summer.  Bring them back with strawberry jams and the fruits you put away at the peak of bounty nine months earlier.  This vernal calling refreshes your ambition for a new season, makes you actually want to plant too much (again), gift surplus to your neighbors, dig up more ground than you can weed.  It is delusion, ambition, folly, longing, remembrance.  First from the yard will be the bulbs your mother loved most.


While we can't eat the seed catalog for dinner tonight (well, some gardeners may argue that, but the kids are more discerning), there are plenty of flavors we can eat:


Aged cheeses made from spring and summer milk - look for your nine and twelve month cheddars. Go beyond them with the 24 and 36 month aged cheeses.  Reward your cheesemaker for their investment in time. 

Frozen fruits, jams and preserves.

Biscuits made from the grains of last summer.

Roast a large cut of meat on a night the house doesn't quite need the woodstove, but there's still a little chill to the air.

April begins seaweed harvest season.  Finding fresh seaweed can be an adventure - take it.

Ferments and kombuchas are both an antidote to the barrage of late virus illnesses and a form of vegetable you can eat long after the last fresh cabbage is gone.

Charcuterie shifts with the seasons and finds its home on a menu in Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.  It is the reliable friend to the seasonal produce and featured cheese.

Speaking of featured cheese, look NOW for the return of your favorite chevres as the kids have been kidded and the goat milk is rich and flowing.