Some green pictures while we are waiting for the bread to prove… test your plant knowledge! Answers below :)
In no particular order, broad beans, a green astrantia, cardoon, brunnera Jack Frost, potatoes, japanese painted fern, garlic, himalayan birch – bet you got them all!
The trouble with doing eng lit at school is that bits of poems get stuck in your head for ever! Though I took this photo trying to capture the carpet of wild garlic flowers up every slope…
From: The Garden
by Andrew Marvell
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here we go gathering nuts in May…
I wonder if that children’s rhyme was written by someone who lived on the other side of the world? No, I have googled and it supposedly refers to the young edible leaves and buds of the hawthorn tree also known as ‘the bread and cheese’ tree. Just nipped out to the garden, grabbed a handful, can report that the leaves are quite soft and well leafy, not bitter though, not so keen on the flowers….back indoors for a cup of coffee – eats shoots and leaves :) – that was a bit of a digression, ok here we go.. PS following Choclette’s comment I have done a bit more googling and I can’t resist adding this link I’ve just found to The Knots of May! Go on guess what they do ?
At the risk of being repetitive I have to say that I love The Handmade Loaf by Dan Lepard. I love the beautiful photographs and the stories about the people who Dan met on his travels and I have really enjoyed making the breads. This was the first bread book I ever owned and it is a great friend which will inspire and excite you and lead you to try all sorts of wonderful breads that you didn’t dream you could make for yourself.
Zeb Bakes 