Spring Tonic
Yesterday I was gardening. Today I've been greeting weeds. This is the time of year when my thoughts turn to stinging nettles. It's time to go foraging for new shoots. Nettles are one of nature's superfoods. The Food Doctor on my bookshelf tells me they are rich in potassium, iron, vitamin C and beta-carotene. They are the most reliable of my 'tried and tested' from Richard Mabey's perennial publication Food For Free (still enjoying reprints since its first publication in 1972). My dried morels are still awaiting their risotto, and a recent crop of jelly ears are bagged-up in the freezer like something vital from a Silent Witness storyline.
Early March is the best time of year for my nettle and cheese omelette. The plants have just emerged, offering the tender tips and first few leaves that can be nipped off, put in a pot and steamed like spinach. Then it just needs to be chopped and chucked in with eggs and cheese.
It seems to have become an annual habit for me, a time to reacquaint myself with the land as the soil warms up. March months long gone are still imprinted on me, such as the time the new nettles were alive with grass snakes, entwined.
This is the time I realise I need to explore before the vegetation runs rampant and the nettles are seven feet tall. I did this at the weekend secretly somewhere in the county. Apart from evidence of the current season's game shooting activity I was alone in a wild place feeling I had stepped back in time, silent and still and sepia-coloured. And then a water rail squealed.
Early March is the best time of year for my nettle and cheese omelette. The plants have just emerged, offering the tender tips and first few leaves that can be nipped off, put in a pot and steamed like spinach. Then it just needs to be chopped and chucked in with eggs and cheese.
It seems to have become an annual habit for me, a time to reacquaint myself with the land as the soil warms up. March months long gone are still imprinted on me, such as the time the new nettles were alive with grass snakes, entwined.
This is the time I realise I need to explore before the vegetation runs rampant and the nettles are seven feet tall. I did this at the weekend secretly somewhere in the county. Apart from evidence of the current season's game shooting activity I was alone in a wild place feeling I had stepped back in time, silent and still and sepia-coloured. And then a water rail squealed.
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