Garden surprise!



Spinach and mâche

The only thing possibly more satisfying than finding a 5 euro bill in the pocket of a seldom worn pair of jeans has go to to be walking into your (neglected) vegetable patch to discover that a seed you'd planted months ago and forgot all about actually grew into something you could eat for dinner!

That was the happy surprise that awated me tonight.  All shops are closed on Sunday in Provence, so no emergency shopping expedition.  Our half-empty refrigerator starting back at me, I resolved to get creative.  So off I wondered to the garden (in the rain, mind you) in search of salad material.  Anything would do at this point , but as it turned out, I wouldn't have to settle because in the garder awated two rows of bright green, gorgeous, spinach.  I stood there looking at it for a couple of minutes, musing at the fact I only watered the seeds a couple of times after sowing them back in late August.  Having never tried a winter crop of anything before, when nothing germinated in the first couple of weeks I just wrote the whole thing off. Turns out -  and you savvy gardeners already know this - spinach likes cold weather.  Its time had come!

The other goody I harvested tonight is a small, dark leafy salad that the French call "mâche" (it's the one in the colorful basket).  The dictionary translates the word "mâche" to "lamb's lettuce" and although I'd never heard of this particular type of salad until moving to Provence, I'm sure it's probably not that out of the ordinary.  Mâche too loves cold weather, and according to the friendly owner of my local organic store, its hardy, frost-resistant leaves were a farmer's main defense against winter-induced vitamin deficiencies, back in the days when the seasons (and not Whole Foods) dictated what we ate.

The green bounty that unexpectedly graced our dinner table tonight was a really nice ending to a somewhat ectic weekend.  Got me thinking though: what else goes unnoticed around me while I'm busy being busy?  Maybe I should check my jeans pockets again, just in case