Writing about food: Happy Birthday to Barbara Kingsolver, from "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"
"Vegetables are gorgeous, especially spring greens, arriving brightly as they do after a long winter of visually humble grains and stored rood crops. Bronze Arrowhead lettuces, Speckled Trout romaine, red kale -- this is the rainbow of my April garden, and you'll find similar offerings then at a farmers' market or greengrocer. It's the reason I start our vegetables from seed, rather than planting out whatever the local nursery has to offer: variety, the splendor of vegetables. I have seen women looking at jewelry ads with a misty eye and one hand resting on the heart, and I only know what they're feeling because that's how I read the seed catalogs in January. In my mind the garden grows and grows, as I affix a sticky note to every page where there's something I need. I swoon over names like Moon and Stars watermelon, Cajun Jewel okra, Gold of Bacau pole bean, Sweet Chocolate pepper, Collective Farm Woman melon, Georgian Crystal garlic, mother-of-thyme. Steven walks by, eyes the toupee of yellow sticky notes bristling from the top of the catalog, and helpfully asks, 'Why don't you just mark the ones you don't want to order?'
"Leafy green are nature's tonic, coming on strong in local markets in April and May, and then waning quickly when weather gets hot. ... But on a brisk April day when the tranquils are up and Jack Frost might still come out of retirement on short notice, hot weather is a dream. This is the emerald season of spinach, kale, endive, and baby lettuces. The chard comes up as red and orange as last fall's leaves went out. We lumber out of hibernation and stuff our mouths with leaves, like deer ... . In April I'm happiest with mud on the knees of my jeans, sitting down to the year's most intoxicating lunch: a plate of greens both crisp and still sun-warmed by the garden, with a handful of walnuts and some crumbly goat cheese. The is the opening act of real live food."
