Sasasnippets Green: Things Making Me Happy of Late

I’m fairly bursting with Spring fever still. The highs are in double digits! There are vegetables other than carrots and parsnips (not that I’m disparaging carrots, you understand) and sometimes I just stop in the road and turn my face to the sun and there is enough heat in it that I can shrug my jacket off nearly every day.

Spring Chickens

It’s been birthday season around here lately and I made four cakes for three lovely people – because I cleverly managed to throw one of them on the floor as I attempted to invert it at the same time as I was conducting a conversation on Skype. I’m pleased to report I was completely zen about it and calmly scooped up what could be eaten ( 5 second rule and all that), ate it, then walked to the shops to buy some more pears for another toffee and pear cake. Not especially seasonal I know, but that’s what the birthday boy likes and he’s the one I turn to for Sasasunakku tech support so he must be placated with regular offerings and libations. I also made a flourless chocolate and hazelnut cake for a gluten-free friend and an enormous chocolate celebration cake for F.’s mum which I’ll post soon.

The Hills are Alive

I’ve recently discovered the joys of Grooveshark - it’s like Youtube for music. It makes it easy to loll about and listen to Interstate Love Song and State of Love and Trust whilst reliving my angsty teenage years. I’ve also been listening to Dire Straits’ Romeo and Juliet in preparation for my visit to Verona to hang out with a cynical chef.

I’ve also been listening to Edible Radio rather avidly as I fluff around in the kitchen, I particularly enjoyed an interview with Mark Bitterman about salt.

Eat your vegetables

My hankering for greens has been appeased (twice) with this Orzo and Broccoli Pesto Salad, my own crunchy mish mash of green things in a bowl and Deb’s Green Beans with Quickle Red Onions and Toasted Almonds.

Charming Descriptions of Food

I just read “Cider with Rosie,” a memoir of Laurie Lee’s childhood in Yorkshire and was delighted to find passages like this: “Chopped carrots like copper pennies, radishes and chives, potatoes dipped and stripped clean from their coats of mud, the snapping of tight pea-pods, long shells of green pearls, and the tearing of glutinous beans from their nests of wool… Peas rolled under the tongue, fresh cold, like solid water; teeth chewed green peel of apples, acid sharp and the sweet white starch of swedes. Beaten away by wet hands gloved with flour, one returned in a morose and speechless lust. Slivers of raw pastry, moulded, warm, went down in the shapes of men and women – heads and arms of unsalted flesh seasoned with nothing but a dream of cannibalism.” (Own stress).

Kimberley’s Seasonal Food Guides, not to mention her entire blog The Year in Food are an inspiration; beautiful photographs and you can tell how sweet and smart she is in every post.

Happy Passover/Easter/long weekend and tell me, what’s afoot in your world possums?