Sunday, October 31, 2010

rose petal sherbet

I'm going to take the opportunity that this late bloom of Bishop's Castle provided to present an old world recipe for Rose Petal Sherbet. This delicacy is highly praised by people who dwell around the Mediteranean, since it is a traditional middle-eastern treat that shares its popularity with the Turkish delights and the almond halva. A spoonful of sherbet in a glass of ice water is the way to serve it to guests, especially in summer, when it provides well needed refreshment. If you want to make it special, make sure that the presentation (a silver spoon and a crystal glass) matches the sophistication of the confection, but it would work without it too, because it is delicious. All rose preserves, including this sherbet, should be made of very fragrant Centifolia roses such as this one or Gertrude Jekyll.

Rose Petal Sherbet:

1/2 lb of rose petals

2/3 gallon of water

2 lbs of sugar

the juice of one lemon

Put the rose petals in a salad spinner and spin them a few times to remove the pollen that might be attached to them. Boil them with the water until the mixture reduces to about a half. Set aside and let it cool down. Strain through a thick clean cheese cloth or a coffee filter.

Simmer three cups of this clarified liquid with the sugar on low heat until it all the sugar melts and then turn up the heat. Try the sherbet periodically to see if it achieved the needed consistency. The way to do this is to drop a few droplets in a glass of cold water; if they don't lose their shape and can be picked up with your fingers the sherbet has boiled enough. Remove the pot from the heat when trying the sherbet. As with any sugar confections, the mixture can very quickly thicken beyond the required consistency and become tough and unmanageable. While it's still boiling, set aside two teaspoons of syrup and mix them with the lemon juice.

Set the pot aside, cover it with a wet cheesecloth and let it cool down just enough that it can be handled. Hold the pot down on a towel so that it doesn't move and start stirring very quickly with a wooden spoon until it changes its color and starts looking like pink meringue. When it starts changing color add the lemon juice and syrup mix little by little and knead with your hands until it becomes a fondant paste of uniform consistency. The lemon juice should enhance the color to a beautiful rose pink. Put the sherbet inside clean dry glass jars and press down to eliminate air bubbles.
Posted by all-year-garden at 8:38 PM

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the art of waiting

You walk along the garden path one morning, look around and wonder where did it all come from. Naturally, you planted them all, or nearly all, with a few pleasant surprises here and there of self-sown perennials that sprung out from under annual growies before you got to notice them. Otherwise, though, the tall, stately beauties surrounding you are always taking you by surprise, because the first lesson in humility that is served to obstinate gardeners is the unwillingness of living things to develop according to your plans. They have their own internal clocks, their own environmental sensitivities and a completely different relationship with time than you. So, those lupines that you planted and thought dead sprung up on you two years later, after you planted cosmos over the following year, which self-seeded, and now both plants are gracefully mixing together in a fluff of stringy and palmed leaves, taking over an entire portion of your garden that you were intending for a completely different purpose this year. Or the snapdragons whose seeds you spread evenly over an area, but they decided to all come out bundled together to the left of the patch, leaving the rest of the dirt barren. Or the lily-of-the-valley that you tried to start from roots in the same spot for three years in a row, and now it decided to come out all at the same time and completely take over. Maybe you were planning, but your garden begs to differ. And when the garden and the gardener have different opinions, the garden usually wins. The struggling plant that you moved because you needed the space and didn't feel like throwing away now thrives in its new location with a vigor beyond expectations. Sun loving plants keep blooming in the shade behind the house, in a place that, of course, is not a showy feature of your garden. After a while, the oddities and surprises of your garden become familiar and dear to you, like an old friend's little idiosyncrasies warm up your heart after you haven't seen her in a while. A sense of peace descends upon the wiser gardener, a sense of acceptance that in this dialogue with nature, nature has something to say back to you. If those plants that you failed to recognize when you transferred them outdoors and planted them at the front of the flower bed turned out to be tomatoes, or if the sun garden you neatly organized according to height and flowering season exploded into a jumbled jungle of healthy growth, or if the miniature zinnias developed into four foot tall tree-like structures, or if all those tens of berries you saw on your strawberry plants were gone the second they turned slightly ripe because squirrels and rabbits believed in sharing, enjoy it, allow it, embrace it. If gardening only taught me one thing it would be the art of waiting. If you have enough patience and time, things kinda turn out the way you planned, sort of, eventually.

your private outdoors

Sitting at the table under the tree canopy, a book in one hand, the other hand mindlessly rubbing your temples, you lose track of time. The splotches of light filtered through the branches above move slowly opposite the sun path, while the day merges into evening. The light becomes gentler, more tired, almost horizontal. Around you two full walls, one half wall, a tree for a roof, and a balcony: your private outdoors. Noises come and go, the chirping of birds, the passing cars, people chatting while walking their dogs, the syncopated rhythm of joggers, the soft rubbery noise of bicycle wheels. The words on the page start fading as the evening shadow descends into the night, the contours are less precise, the contrast becomes nonexistent. Your cat comes around rubbing against your leg to remind you of dinner. The kids go in and out of the house abruptly, slamming doors, running down stairs and giggling plenty. Night flowering plants release their fragrance in the warmth of the day's end, and as light becomes more scarce, the sounds and scents intensify. The cat settles down in your lap, purring. Eerie little blue solar powered garden lights dot the darkened contours of the plant masses, and you discern more than you see the familiar garden path, the lilac bush, the archway above the gate. White flowers look like reversed shadows in the headlights of passing cars. The heavy summer night air, thick with humid fragrance, slowly cools down into a breeze.