What We're Eating

My mom asked yesterday what we are eating. With the late spring, we planted late and many things are maturing later than usual. But here's the list:

• The first cucumber -- as always as with the "first," to be sliced plain and appreciated just as is
• Spring beets, with lots of mint and onion chives, and just a splash of olive oil and cider vinegar
• Snow peas (ending) and sugar snaps (coming into their prime), straight off the vines
• Radish seed pods, crunchy with a hint of spice, and a few self-seeded "Green Mountain" (summer) radishes
• The occasional baby pepper and carrot
• Mint pesto
• Basil pesto, with parsley, garlic scapes (the flowering stalk of the garlic plant) and garlic chives

Beet, mint & chive salad

• Goumi berries -- a prolific Siberian native with jewel-red berries; tart, with a hint of sweet
• "Black cap" wild raspberries
• The small bowl of "bird cherries" (Prunus avium) -- brought to the U.S. by early colonists and now growing wild -- that Richard knocked down for dessert
• Lots and lots and lots of greens: beets greens, turnip greens, mustard, kale, orach ("mountain spinach"), amaranth, chard, mizuna and semposi (the last two Asian greens). Stir-friend, sautéed, and braised.