Feijoa Flowers--Or--Pineapple Guava Petal Pull

Yesterday I made sorbet. Today I made frozen pops. If I had more of what I needed tomorrow I'd make a fruit salad. And it's all because of this little flower from a feijoa bush, also know as pineapple guava.

These flowers are edible. You might have gathered that. But let me assure you, really, they are deliciously edible. I got my first batch of them this weekend from the market. I had moseyed over to the stall for Towani Organic Farm where co-owner Guy Baldwin paused when he saw me, raised his finger, and said, "I have something for you."

They won't let me forget it: Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie

This is the month for rhubarb-strawberry pie--for baking it and for eating it. It is a Monday, and Mondays need a little sweetness to start off the week. It is spring. Where I live the sky is overcast, and the air is so much cooler than it has been that I don't feel threatened by the impending doom of heat. I've just finished my morning piece of pie. It tastes an awful lot like a certain rhubarb-strawberry crisp I made a couple years back. But this time it is a pie. And at the risk of sounding totally over-the-top, it is perfect.

 

In the Meantime: Elderflower Cordial

I know I decided over a month ago that it was spring, but certain things have happened since then that make it really true: Cedar and I picked our first two buckets of strawberries at the farm down the street last week, I bought rhubarb on Monday, I made a pie version of my rhubarb-strawberry crisp, the favas are in, the Eureka lemons are out, the loquats are turning color (and I've located a foraging spot), I made a small batch of limoncello, and I picked just enough elderberry flowers to make my very own elderflower cordial. Oh, and I've worn shorts for two weeks now. It's that warm.

 

A quieter moment

I had planned to talk about one thing or another this week, but it just seems off. I don't usually like talking about current events, but I guess there are always exceptions. The Monday bombings at the Boston Marathon and then another blast in Texas this morning that, I assume, is totally unrelated, has me reeling. Peace to all of you in those areas immediately affected. Peace to those connected to those affected. Peace to all of us as we help by picking up our own selves by our bootstraps and keep walking.

An old college friend of mine lives in Boston, and she joined many that same night for a Freedom Trail Run of support for all those injured or killed in the bombings. She said she was proud of her city and to be a part of it. "It was a very emotional run," she said.

I'm proud too--to be a part of humanity. We might often be stupider than mudbricks, misguided, misinformed, and outright awful, but we also sometimes get something very right. We sometimes understand the good things in life: bravery, community, grace, peace, hope. May we spiral into the latter friends. May we know what it is to be taken over by love.

The Paskha and The Kulich

I found the recipes for Easter sweet cheese (the Paskha) and Easter fruitbread or cake (the kulich) a year or so ago. I was coming down off of another fruitbread/fruitcake rampage, and I had high hopes of extending the glory of Christmas baking into the Church's more awkward festal seasons. But then I never made it.

It might have been that I felt too busy or too virtuous to make them at the time. I do tend to swing pretty hard back and forth from health foods and dairy-less nourishment to devil-may-care cakes and breads and cheeses that ooze in that good way to make me swoon and sigh, and think that life really can be only ever good.

 

Wild Almond Blossom Ice Cream--And Yet

It is spring, I swear it is, and I am a nervous wreck.

I do realize this seasonal statement is slightly premature. According to my calender the first day of spring is still a week away. There is no rhubarb yet. There are no fava beans. There are no radishes. There were still no asparagus bunches at the market last week, and there is yet no sign of those wee green fists stuck to the branches of the plum tree, promising summer fruit. But (!)--*music please*--there are blossoms.

There are cherry blossoms and plum blossoms and more and more almond blossoms. We are surrounded. We are inundated. And I am just about to break out my faery dust. I've been obsessed with the idea of these blossoms for weeks. The ideas are fuzzing my brain like so much pollen: pickled cherry blossoms, tree blossom salad, plum blossom liqueur, and, of course, wild almond blossom ice cream.

And yet.

The Main Reason: Double-Baked Almond Croissants

Double-Baked Almond Croissants--this is the main reason I make and bake croissants. That particular pastry, nay, confection, is why I used to drive nearly an hour from my basement suite at 12th and Cambie in Vancouver all the way to the North Shore. I'd drive by Stanley Park, over the Lions Gate Bridge, turn right when we hit land again, go east, and then loop down south and end up facing Vancouver Harbour. It just so happened that I'd been looking across that water and, though I couldn't quite see it, up to my home on the hill. I would drive all this early on Saturday mornings, before baby and after (sometimes with him sucking on my finger the whole way), just to get my hands on one of Thomas Haas' Double-Baked Almond Croissants.