Ricotta, stewed prunes, Bluebells and kumquats, bath fail

Oh, spring, how do you energize me. This morning's gray drizzle and an epically funny bath fail have given way to a glorious day. I was finally able to plant my mint and marjoram and uncover my basil, fennel, Bluebells and other carefully lidded treasures. They are all aglow now, happily drying out and warming up in the sunshine. Nutmeg is playing with all the abandon a cat on a leash can muster; I do feel terribly for him. He races gleefully after bugs, feathers, anything that appears to scoot, and though he reaches some before the leash length gives out, at other times he's foiled in a dramatic, whiplash way. If I weren't so worried that he'd either never come home or be hit by a car, I'd let him roam free. But we have feral cats in the alley, maniac drivers on the extremely nearby busy roads, and I just adore him entirely too much to risk a feline sayonara.

After dropping the boys off, I went to the market to stock up on stuff for us and the plethora of catering gigs, big and small, in my near future. Since, I've made ricotta, stewed prunes (don't judge; these are amazing in all their orange- and cinnamon-scented glory! If that's not enough of a draw, Molly Wizenberg provided the recipe so obviously it's foolproof!) and am about to embark on candied kumquats. An enormous pile of three types of freshly washed and spun kale is drying on the counter, and the open doors and windows are letting springy vibes wash away the remaining inside cold of winter.

PS- while at the market, I was thrilled to see that this Friday is the annual One Day mango sale. You do not want to miss this, not least because Ataulfo, aka champagne, mangoes are THE best. Canners out there, you should most definitely go nuts. Mango jam, mango chutney, etc. Yee-haw! Non-canners, you should still get excited too: grill your mangoes, make mango/amaretto/vanilla ice cream sundaes, craft some mango salsa for fish, eat them plain, make mango honey mustard, cook yogurt chicken with mangoes.....

How, you might still be wondering, does one experience an epic bath fail? Well, there are two ways.

One, you endure a mudbath in Calistoga, CA. Disgusting. Tom and I chose this activity during our first trip together, to Napa many moons ago. We had been dating all of four months, thought this might be a nice change of pace from wine tasting, got into our respective baths and immediately felt like pigs in styes and got out. Yuk.

Secondly, and this happened this morning, you realize while at the market just how dirty you feel. I passed the fancy, made-in-house bath salt area and was transported to a clean, aromatic world as I trailed my nose slowly over the bins of seductively "flavored" salt scrubs. I sprung for a bit of the rosemary-lavender one, visions of a relaxing, leisurely, exfoliative soak hurrying me home. I drew my bath, the dial turned decidedly to hot, looked with horror at my unkempt legs and felt doubly glad I'd bought the scrub.

I dropped gratefully into my tub, shampooed and conditioned my hair and got to work on depilation and exfoliation. At that point, the water started to feel a bit cooler than I hoped. I turned the cold completely off and enthusiastically commenced scrubbing. People, this scrub should perhaps be renamed bath soak; it's a tad aggressive for a scrub. I think I lost a layer of skin over my whole body. I was smooth, so there's that. Concurrently, the hot water quit. Just quit, and I still had conditioner to rinse out of my hair. I hate cold baths like I hate winter in March. Neither is right. And suddenly, my languid tub felt like a vat of chilly challenge. I have never rinsed so quickly or flung myself into a towel with such need.

That, my friends, is a bath fail!

Carrot Pistachio Pasta, Chard Roots, FM

Isn't that a gorgeous plate of pasta? Shredded carrots sauteed with lemon zest and pistachios, lots of Parm, garlicky breadcrumbs sprinkled over the top just before serving...I had such  high hopes for last night's meal, and boy was it a complete disappointment. Y'all, this was a fail. It was a beautiful, bland, completely lacking in textural variation, mound of meh. Gall-dang was it sad. Tom and I were salting and squeezing lemons like it was our job. If we'd been prepping for a big morning run, it might have at least been a good carb load. But alas, it was, again, a mound of meh.

You win some, you lose some!

After spending yesterday morning shuttling cute little boys to and from multiple birthday parties, whiling away a full hour in Party City sourcing appreciation luncheon supplies, and enjoying a quick lunch by myself (say wha?!), I worked in the yard for hours. HOURS! It was delightful. It's truly amazing just how much detritus a yard can amass after a long and destructive winter. I filled four lawn bags with old leaves, broken sticks, ancient clots of roots, a boxwood that couldn't weather the polar vortexes and related snows. My compost bin finally yielded black gold which I sifted over my gardens. A smattering of new perennials now fills in the spots I usually plant with annuals, and my muscles ache pleasurably from having pitchforked and shoveled my way around.

My VegTrug is full and stunning, the promise of future, fruitful yields in every leaf. I had no idea that rainbow chard roots were as luminous as the stems they produce. Incredible, yes?

Ol and I went back to the farmers market this morning for the first time in a long while. It's still cold but the sun is out, so we donned our jackets and eagerly drove down. He rightly noted that cool climes often mean that eclairs will be available at Bonaparte, so could we please stop there first. Indeed. You have never seen an eclair devoured so quickly. Then he asked for a croissant, two Asian pears, some apple cider and some samples. He ate/drank it all. Wow small boys. I know these sorts of appetites are only going to grow but it is truly incredible to watch male children eat.

VegTrug

Seriously, I am so excited about my VegTrug (the official name of what I prefer to call my veggie cart). I purchased the compact Trug from Gardener's Supply Company because I trust their products, the Trug is made from "FSC-certified, sustainable, plantation-grown fir with non-toxic stain," the liner was included in the kit (not so from all sellers), and, per the usual, I found a free-shipping coupon. As the instructions proclaimed, it really was very simple to construct (an electric screwdriver will help you tremendously), and the not-an-engineer in me felt extremely proud by my end result.

It does require a lot of soil, more than I expected! I used 80 pounds of basic topsoil and have so far topped that with nearly 2 cubic feet of good-quality potting soil. But it's going to hold a lot too. I've got six kale plants and a small rosemary in there now; because you can really pack things in, I suspect I'll fit at least two dozen other greens and herbs.

As I said, we don't get much sun in the rest of the yard, and our primary garden patch directly abuts a hulking Sugar Maple which is a gorgeous but greedy tree. I also wanted to move the kale out of that patch because we had a major white fly infestation down there last year, and try planting my tomatoes directly into the ground versus containers. Crop rotation folks!