the taste of spring

it rained all day yesterday. and today, happy windy day -- like winnie the pooh said? it is a windy sunday. indeed, the weather is up and down – like my dear mr bill cunningham has described the new york weather in his latest on the street. this time his report is about spring coats, which people no longer talk about. a few days ago, coincidentally my mother said to me “almost no one wears a spring coat these days…” in our conversation when its topic came to my new half-length cotton trench coat i just bought. i remember the old days when my mother used to be measured up for a bespoke, mostly pinkish beige, spring coat at a department store to get ready for windy spring days.

so, weather-wise, i am spending quite a disappointing weekend, but my eyes are happily catching anything fresh light green here in my living room or trees outside. even in newspaper articles, i wouldn’t miss anything light green as the definite sign of spring. then, i came across a recipe of risotto with 空豆 sora-mamey (broad beans: i’ve learned they are called “fava beans” in the us, which i didn’t know) yesterday. actually, on friday, when i stopped by a local supermarket to get a carton of milk on my way home from work, i noticed small plastic bags of shiny fat broad beans displayed among haricots verts (french beans) and green peas (english peas). i took home a bunch of bananas and an avocado, but no broad beans.

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saturday night means, for me, garlic. i popped into the supermarket in the rain and got a small bag of broad beans, after all. the food writer of the new york times wrote “their season is, sadly, a short time”, which is true. shelling peas looked like a fun job? the broad leathery pods happened to contain only a couple of peas, though. still, it seemed all right, enough for one people. i cooked a garlicky risotto with them, but i did not follow the new york times recipe. i substituted green peas and rucola pesto for asparagus and saffron as i used saffron for bouillabaisse (a poor man’s version, however) my supper last saturday. to make it a little more original, i placed a poached egg on the risotto, too.

the taste of spring was not bad at all. i didn’t take pictures of it, unfortunately – since i don’t like food pictures with lighting. instead, let me share my old and sort of kaffe fassett-inspired spring image with you, please? i took it during my “flower london era” a long long time ago.

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