Picky, Picky, Picky

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

July 8, 2009

It’s a day of mourning in the household (well, okay, I’m wearing weeds, everyone else is going about business as usual): the Twits* would prefer to get in a car and drive to a store to buy lettuce rather than pick it fresh in the back yard. To quote the Teen Twit: “First I have to walk over to vegetable garden, then I have to cut the leaves, then I have to bring them back to the house and then you make me wash them, and gently, or the leaves get damaged. It sucks, Mum. Why can’t we just be like normal people and buy the bagged stuff?”

Gag. Has it come to this? I thought the next generation was supposed to be scolding us to live greener, cleaner lives closer to the land. True, the Twits do want me to add hens to the lot, but that’s only because they think it’ll be a cool thing to tell their friends (the fact that I make butter is starting to sound kind of old), and has nothing to do with fresh eggs.

However, I am undaunted. I wear my weeds proudly as I march out to the beds and pick the first of the blueberries, the last of the snap peas, the startlingly red beet leaves, the massive zucchini blossoms, the sweet, sweet shallots and yes, the lettuce. And I will serve my undeserving Twits a memorable meal: those crunchy snap peas with tzatziki and fried zucchini blossoms to start, then a rustic beet leaves-and-cauliflower torte accompanied by yes, that ubiquitous salad, gently tossed by hand with a shallot vinaigrette, then ending with blueberry cobbler.

I believe my Twits will tuck these memories somewhere deep in their hearts, and when they’re older they’ll remember this meal, and realize how lucky they were to have been blessed with homegrown and homemade food, and that they’ll pass these values, however unappreciated at the time, onto their own children.

In the meantime, I have some picking to do.

Those Whom I Tirelessly Serve