Things I Like - Food

My tomatoes are coming along nicely – the plants are huge and full of flowers, I should start to see actual fruit this month. Mr. White isn’t a big fan of the tomato in its raw form, but I can’t wait for my first tomato sammich. The herbs in my container garden are also doing well although I’m not sure I’ll be able to use the ½ acre of thyme that has taken over the deck...please send recipes.

Gramma Trusgnich had a great garden, but then, she could grow anything. It didn’t even have to be in her garden. There was mint growing along the fence that separated her yard from the neighbor, there was a huge sage bush growing along the side of the garage where she had thrown some garden waste years ago and there was some lovage growing next to it that came up every year and threatened to take over the yard.

This last plant was a weed and Gramma used to cook the leaves up with scrambled eggs, basically a frittata. You could eat it hot, cold or room temp – most of my family loved it. It was one of only two things I never liked from Gramma’s kitchen – polenta was the other.

My sister Leslie has been on a mission to find a lovage plant for her garden so she can recreate the egg and weeds mess that she loved so much. There’s just one problem – we can’t find it anywhere. We know that it grew wild in Gramma’s yard and it’s the kind of plant that grows just about anywhere you find dirt. But for some reason, it’s nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately, no one thought to dig it up before selling Gramma’s two-flat in what used to be a changing but still safe Cicero neighborhood. At this point, no one wants do a quick drive through the alley to see if the plant is still there – the new owners lost the place in foreclosure and it’s probably a crack house by now.

So we’re keeping an eye out when passing uncultivated, undeveloped stretches of earth. My parents live on a frickin’ prairie, you’d think we’d find it there, but no. It’s a weed that seems to be very rare these days. In searching for information about this edible weed, I ran across this article in the WSJ –

Led by chefs and gourmets in search of new and interesting flavors, Americans have been eating a greater variety of greens in recent years. Tastes have moved from familiar greens like arugula to progressively wilder, more obscure plants. The interest in weed cuisine also taps into the current movement toward organic and local foods; as lawn owners have long complained, weeds are hardy and require no pesticides and little water to thrive.
~ It's Salad Days for Weeds

Apparently Gramma was a chef way ahead of her time.