Chocolate Easter Mousse Cake

Easter is a time of celebration and I strongly feel that it is no coincidence that food-wise, this involves chocolate. Chocolate is luxurious so it is no wonder, that historically when it was tradition in Christian countries to give gifts over Easter, that this used to often be a gift of choice. And if anything, its decadence and deliciousness is all the more increased after the fasting of Lent. (I never fail to delight in chocolate anyway, but try going without it for six weeks and eating it for the first time after that is definitely a heavenly experience!)

Anyway, this year, I decided to go all out on the chocolate experience, and one day, at work, in a state of chocolate-deprived delirium, I got to designing a dream chocolate cake that I could indulge in on Easter Sunday.

Also, I have always loved the idea of working with chocolate, which I had always heard was quite difficult.

But there we go, always one for a challenge, I was not to be deterred. I had too often seen the delicious chocolate collared cakes in Melissa's food and coffee shop and longed to create the same. (That following the more immediate thought of wanting to surrender to ordering a piece of that chocolate wonderness with my coffee!)

But I digress: back to the mousse cake, which, initially was supposed to consist of a layer of cake, then a layer of mousse, a layer of chocolate pavlova and then whipped cream, topped with profiteroles and then more chocolate and spun sugar. (Spun sugar being something else that I have been so keen to try out - a few months ago I went out to buy a candy thermometer in anticipation of doing this one day - look out for when I make a creme bouché!)

But then I came across the Woolworths Taste Magazine in which South African Masterchef judge Peter Goffe-Wood had put together a three-layer chocolate mousse cake. A layer of chocolate brownie as the base - decadent with six eggs and then a layer of white chocolate mousse - which is possibly one of the most divine things that I have tasted though I am not all that hugely fond of mousse. Then a layer of dark chocolate mousse.

The white Chocolate Mousse worked out wonderfully - a basic combination of melted white chocolate (500g) to two and a half cups of cream that has been slightly whipped. After the chocolate has been melted and has cooled slightly, mix in the cream. A smooth consistency forms as the mixture increases in volume. It also thickens slightly as the chocolate cools down and then becomes quite manageable as you pour it over the chocolate brownie layer.

Pop this in the fridge for a few hours and it would have set.

The Dark Chocolate mousse proved to be a little more challenging and the first time I made the mousse, in exactly (I thought) the same way as the white chocolate mousse it curdled. The ratio of chocolate to cream is also different (300g chocolate to 3 cups of cream). On the second try I allowed the chocolate to cool for longer and the cream to be more consistently whipped and a little warmer. All went well but as I had the about the last cup of cream to add, I noticed the same thing happening. So I just stopped adding and thankfully, had a relatively smooth dark chocolate mousse.

Pop that on top of the white chocolate mousse and
back in the fridge.

In the mean time I made come chocolate easter eggs  (out of  rugby ball moulds as it turns out since all the smaller egg shapes were sold out!)

Finally it was time to attempt the profiteroles. Puffy rounds of choux pastry delights.

Except, that from the recipe that I followed (since I had not made choux pastry, literally in years, was not all that up to scratch. The egg to flour and water and butter ratio was a bit out. Subsequently I found another recipe and it worked out beautifully!  So here are some tips:

• Add a little more water if your butter is cold as it will take longer to melt and if too much of the water evapourates, there is the steam that makes your choux pastry rise.

Allow the dough to cool sufficiently and stop mixing as soon as it forms a ball.

• Add one egg, already beaten, at a time once your mixture is cool.




• Then work quickly with the mixture and pop them into a pre-heated oven - the oven should be heated to hotter than 180 and when you have piped out your pastry and put them in, you can reduce the  heat. Let them cook for 25 mins and then leave in a hot oven to dry out a little more - it is almost impossible to dry them out too much but you will get a lovely crispy shell! 

Fill with cream.

Lastly, assemble the chocolate collar: Put the  tempered chocolate on a plastic film and position around the cake. When it is solid, peel off the plastic.

 Top with profiteroles and then drizzle them with chocolate

Lastly: top with painted Easter eggs and wait for dessert time!

Voilá!

The Cape Malay Experience at Cellars-Hohenort

Getting to Cellars-Hohenhort is like taking a little journey back in time and place. Winding down into the depths of Constantia, past the Alphen green strip and into what was indubitably a farm-house estate, the idea that you arrived in a car and not a carriage becomes more and more foreign.


A white rose-garden greets you and through the doors of the Cellars hotel is a magnificent Victorian-style lounge, with its plush seats and fresh blooms on each of the tables. This is the Martini bar but I feel that this sophisticated early 20th century drink doesn't lend it's name well to the surroundings. Instead of the dark leathers and sleek veneer that martinis imply, there is everything that is opulent about this lounge bar with its doors that lead onto a patio and the rolling lawns of the gardens beyond. I expected to see ladies in Victorian or even further back in history, late 17th / 18th century pastel or boldly coloured bustles floating over the lawns rather sooner than I expected to see a suave martini-drinking modern businessman here.
So I would say: forget the martini (I can't believe that I just wrote that - martini lover that I am) but this is possibly one of the nicest spots to sip a glass of bubbles as you sink into one of the plush. Worth a try, because I find it so absolutely decadent is the 2007 Klein Constantia MCC Brut which is made from a Chardonnay left on the lees and which has an exceptional flavour. In the heat of summer there was a cool breeze that waltzed in through the doors that open out onto a stoop that overlook the lush and leafy-green gardens that in a typical Cape Town was was accompanied by dark clouds hanging over the mountain. Even the weather seemed to be colluding in creating an atmosphere that was other-worldly.

The Conservatory restaurant, as it is very aptly named for the 18th century buildings is itself is situated in a space which feels like it is cantilevered over the gardens and the floor to ceiling glass doors and windows give the impression that you are in a treehouse as the foliage and old oak tree trunks surround and slope down out of view below you while the wrought iron gates that lead outside remind one again of a culture that highly valued landscaping over the rustic.

In keeping with the traditional Cape farm buildings, the restaurant serves a Cape Malay Experience. Cape Malay food came to the area by way of Indian and Malay settlers who were brought to the Cape as slaves in the 17 century.

 The aromatic, hearty dishes have evolved into what is a unique culinary expression of  South African Cape Indian-Malay culture. It also often involves the balance between sweet and savoury, making it a difficult cuisine sometimes to get right. The irony that this should be served to its fine-dining  patrons aside, mostly because it has evolved into fine-dining, this completes a sense of authenticity of the place and the time you have stepped back into.

The theme of floral that one first encounters in the rose gardens outside persist in the dining room. But not in the décor, as you might imagine. The dining room itself is simply and elegantly restrained with white table table cloths and dark-wood riempie ribbon-back chairs. Rather it is in the food and wine that the floral essence carried through.

 Our wine server, Lunga Sodinga, very diligently recommended that we pair our food with the Paul Cluver Riesling 2011, which was not only light with citrus and lime and complimented our food perfectly, but which had a wonderful nose of intensely floral roses.

We were presented with a kind of “amuse bouche” which consisted of mini mince samoosas, chilli bites and poppyseed egg squares that were served with dipping sauces of mint and bulgarian yoghurt and fruit chutney. The starters are a tangy ginger and butternut soup with a milk foam while the alternative is a delicately dressed garden salad with artichoke.

 Then comes a selection of curries.

A yellow butternut and lentil dahl with lots of danja (coriander) is mild and refreshing. It is also vegetarian. The mild Cape Malay chicken and prawn curry is delightfully seasoned with cumin, tumeric fennel seeds and danja that marry together beautifully. And to add to this is the scrumptious, and to me, the highlight of the meal, lamb knuckle curry, slow-cooked till tender with potatoes and tomatoes. Again it is not heavily spiced but the flavours are distinct. With this comes basmati rice and a selection of symbols, chutneys and atchas so that you can spice up or cool down your meal according to your taste.

The traditionally South African malva pudding carries through the theme of South African heritage to the end of the meal. The syrupy malva came with a vanilla crème anglaise, a scoop of amarula ice-cream and chopped up dried apricots, which is another ingredient that we often find in Cape-Malay cooking. But the malva is just the penultimate South African touch. With coffee come mini sticky koeksisters.
>The menu changes regularly though, according to the Chef Martha Williams lastest creations.   It was great to chat with her and it turns out that she is something of a celebrity having been on Pasella and Top Billing.

Ps. I was lucky enough to have to review this experience for The Waiting Room Magazine.

Les Macarons

What better way to start the month that 
encapsulates a day that celebrates love than with these little delightful bites of pure heaven.


A cliché? Maybe, but I am just too excited! It is like finding true love and after many trials and errors, thrills and disappointments (such are relationships), I have finally managed to master the art of making...les macarons.


These little almond meal and egg white sugary delights have long been a favourite of mine (what is not to love? Almonds + sugar = love)





The first time I remember seeing macarons, before they became something of a cult fixture was in LADURÉE, Burlington Arcade,London.

Who could help but be fascinated by a tower of delicate but brightly coloured confection constructed in the window?

The colour-splashed window (as if it were not enough in its own right, is encased in gold with rich dark wood window frames. Sauntering up from Bond Street and in through the Burlilngton Street arcade, for a second, walking past Ladurée  it feels as if you are suddenly back in Victorian London. No, it is more decadent than that: as if one has suddenly transported into the 'beau-monde' : the world of fashionable society of the late 18th century.
Although officially it was only in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century that these almond delicacies were sandwiched together with chocolate ganash by Ladurée, indulge me for a minute.


And as you can imagine les beaux-mondes like their delicacies and petit-fours. One could imagine how with elegantly gloved hands ladies reached for the small but scrumptious treat when they stopped for tea in the arcade while shopping for fabric. 
Macarons often form part of a petite-fours plate : Little baked pastries that are no more than bite sized.  Perfect for high tea, but for the details in which I also delight but for which you'll have to wait for the next blog post. 

The macaron has a fascinating history that dates back to the 16th century when they were created by Italian pastry chefs for Catherine de Medicis in 1533 on the occasion of her marriage to the Duc d'Orleans who then became king  Henry II of France in 1547. 

There are other little tales that involve royalty and macarons, which,had clearly moved from their Italian home to become thoroughly French nationals. 

In Nancy there is a tale of two Benedictine nuns, Sister Marguerite and Sister Marie-Elisabeth, seeking asylum in the town of Nancy during the French Revolution (1789-1799) who produced this "fine dough" ( the meaning from which the macaron's name is derived) and sold them in order to pay for their living. 


Again in Nancy, Catherine de Medici's grand-daughter is said to have escaped starvation by eating one of these delights. In Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the macaron of Chef Adam regaled Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain at their wedding celebration in 1660. 


For some of us, once we have been transported to that era, there is just no going back. Well maybe that is wrong to say. Like Owen Wilson's character in "Midnight in Paris" there is an ever-longing to go back.  Taking a bite of this originally French delicacy, one is transported immediately into that world of colourful decadence and the only way to recreate being there is to take another bite. 

 There is also only so much you can spend on these relatively expensive delights before the indulgence brings you back to reality. 


All the same, for a treat there is no denying where I would find myself heels no longer clipping cobblestones but the marble flooring of Burlington Street arcade.  


Also close to Covent Garden where having tea at the Covent Garden Hotel was another favourite thing of mine to do, mostly because just post the Victorian era I could imagine Virgina Wolf having tea there (when she was in a sociable mood and eating - but I digress here into another era, so that's for another blog-post) 

I think that more than anything, that once you have had a really good macaron, there is just no going back. I am not afraid to say either, that I judge ones which have bits of almond because the pastry maker didn't go to the trouble of grinding the almonds finely enough. I see that I am not alone in my peculiarity...


 They are things that you crave and so, they not being as popular back in Cape Town as they were in London or Paris, and so I had to set out to make my own.  
This, of course, was more difficult than I originally thought. Like all things meringue-based, they are particularly finicky. Undermix the mixture and you get hard almond cookies. Over beat the mixture and you end up with baked watery blobs. Leave the mixture too long and all of a sudden the air is deflated out of them and you won't get the "feet" that are the hallmark of a true macaron. 

You can get some really fantastic food colouring these days and I'm besotted with this electric blue but pale colours are equally delicate.

The trick is, however, to work quickly and not to handle the mixture too much. Learning to use a piping bag can be another challenge but happily was a skill that I quickly perfected - it's all about keeping your eye on the prize! 

Festive Roast Chicken with sage stuffing, roast potatoes and sautéed green beans

Monday night was always a night for roasts in our household. Being a family that placed a lot of store by food, I think it came from the school of thought that if you started the week off with a good , sturdy roast, then you were more or less set, what ever events would unfold themselves later on in the week.

This Monday proved to be rather a different reason than the fact that the frivolities of the weekend had  passed and that we were now firmly ensconced in the working week. Truth be told there seems to be very little work to do and since it is the festive season, but more so this Monday was a day to celebrate because my sister had arrived from Oz and one of my best friends had arrived from London.

So there we are, when we celebrate, we eat and this Monday called for more than just an ordinary roast chicken, but a festive one.

A note on roast chicken: It is the easiest thing in the world to cook. Once it is in the oven, your work is done. 

One of the flavours that rings true of festivities and the Christmas season has to be a sage stuffing. I love sage, I have to say and have been planning a blog on the herb for some time – oh, how evert-day life gets in the way! -– because it can be used in so many dishes to impart its somewhat fresh but earthy flavour. And where better to start than in a sage stuffing?

So for the stuffing:

2 thick slices of seed bread.

1 celery stalk

¼ onion

2 rahsers of bacon

1 T lemon zest

1 T dried sage

salt and pepper

This is easy, easy easy:

Make breadcrumbs out of the two slices of bread in a blender and pour them into a bowl

Zap up the onion and celery and add that to the breadcrumbs. Do the same with the bacon.

Season with salt and pepper and add the sage and lemon zest. Mix the whole lot up and then put ¾ of the stuffing into the cavity of the chicken and then place the last quarter carefully under the skin that covers the chicken breasts. Be careful not to break the skin as you pack the stuffing. Putting the stuffing here not only creates additional basting for the white meat that can dry out, it also provides extra flavouring.

Place the bird in a roasting dish. Roughly chop up the rest of the onion and place around the chicken. Cook at 180 degrees for about ½ hour.

For the rest: As many carrots and potatoes as you need

In the mean-time, peel as many potatoes that you may need and then proportionately same amount of carrots. After the ½ hour, throw these into the same baking pan, adding a few glugs of olive oil and a generous grinding of salt and black pepper and some sprigs of rosemary. Return to the oven and allow to cook for another hour at 180 degrees.

For the beans:

1 pkt green beans

1 truss vine baby tomatoes

5 T sunflower seeds or flaked almonds

1 t mustard seeds

2 T butter

1 T olive oil

In a pan, toast the sunflower and mustard seeds. Add the tomatoes, and then the butter and the olive oil.  Add the beans and toss. Season with salt and pepper and toss again. Remove from the heat.

To check that the chicken is cooked make a small incision between the thigh and the body and if the juices run clear then the chicken is done.

Lay the beans on a platter. Then put the chicken in the center and surround with the veggies that you've just roasted.

I always make the gravy in the roasting pan that I made the chicken and the veg in. For one thing there are all the spices and the drippings and the flavour of those now wonderfully caramalised onions!

Carve the chicken and voilá!

Oh, a note on the wine:  we started on a nice bottle of bubbly with a little bit of finger food. There must be Mediterranean blood in me because we ended up eating at 9:30 pm - but that is no matter because we were chatting and there were hors d'ouvres. We opened a bottle of merlot to have with the dish and it went down extremely well even though we were eating white meat. Sage is quite a strong flavour and so it compliments reds quite well.  You don't always have to follow the white wine / white meat rule!

A little Tuesday dinner at Bizerca Bistro

An odd name to choose for a restaurant, but the evening did turn out to be a little on the odd side, so I guess that that was fitting then.

I was delighted to be picked up for the evening even though my companion's driver was evidently off that night and because he stayed almost adjacent to the restaurant, was told that I was lucky to get a lift. None-the-less, I could live with this considering he was a fellow gourmand who had wooed me into giving him my number with rose water-flavoured promises of an eight course tasting menu at Cellars-Hohenort's Greenhouse.


There was a big walk going on in Cape Town central that held up the traffic and which seemed to complicate parking arrangements. These were eventually reached after circumventing the venue, via Heerengracht Traffic circle... and then through the Adderly street circle because we couldn't get around the first, driving through a police barrier (kindly moved aside by a bergie) and then reversing 100 m down Hans Strijdom Avenue (happily not busy because I assume that the barrier that we had driven through, had now been replaced by an official. I fear that this was something of an oddity for my companion, who is a Joburger and who assumes that one always parks at a venue and not near it.

But, the bistro was just down the road and my heels, high but sensible (as a seasoned Capetionian, I am accustomed to find the first available parking within 500m and then walking to my destination)  were up for the little stroll down to Tilbugh square, where we found ourselves at Bizerca.

The  restaurant is elegant and we were lavishly welcomed by the host in French as we were swept inside and taken to our table.

Starters and mains were chalked on blackboards but we were given the seasonal menu as well. The asparagus with prawns and hollandaise sauce immediately caught my attention. I was in for a treat I thought smugly.

The wine selection is excellent, though don't expect a sauvignon blanc or a wooded chardonnay by the glass.

None the less, the waiter waxed lyrical about the hollandiase sauce pairing with the viognier, which was slightly more on the melted butter side and less on the sauce side and not all together that tasty. And then there were little cubes of tart tomato which I snobbishly ignored and left on my plate. The viognier which the waiter recommended was excellent and a beautiful honey colour, but not with the starter where it became overly acidic. The unwooded chardonnay, whcih was more acidic at first might have mellowed out and proved better at pulling the dish through, especially with the tomato. (Which might have been nice if they were boiled in cream. I can't really comment on the prawns in the dish since they were hardly there.

My companion's veal tongue looked very interesting, but I wasn't sure if it was beyond the boundries of politesse to ask for a taste. He was definitely enjoying it so I didn't want to interrupt.

The courses were well paced and there was a great deal of chit-chat and laughing, as we talked of travel and art and, well, food like old friends.

The main course however was superb! The beef bourguignon was delicious and the malbec which we had with it complemented it superbly! The beef was tender and the little mushrooms, onions, carrots and potatoes that attended the beef were all cooked to perfection. I have to say that I could not leave any of it behind. I did briefly consider mopping up the sauce with a bit of bread but then my companion did that for me.

And how could I deny him the pleasure of tasting that delicious sauce?

Dessert was a surprise as the berry panacotta trifle came in a martini glass. Quite pleasantly it came with an aside of berry sorbet that had a shot of vodka at the bottom of the glass.

Refreshing. I always like a bit of a digestif – in fact I had been craving a vodka martini the whole evening because I had just signed a contract and as everybody knows, a vodka martini is the only way to celebrate. But I fear that the vodka perhaps did me in. Oh who am I kidding? When I mix white and red wine, even with food, I'm a cheap date and I was having a very entertaining time.

That said, the espresso was excellent. Though it does mean that I am still up at 1am writing this post.

Mr Vidulich, you will be pleased to know that after all, that you were indeed right in your estimation and that I would still give the place a 6 out of 10.

 A little harsh, I know, but mostly becuase of the aircon that was suddenly set to artic blast at around 10:30. And that we were constantly asked which dish we had ordered. So service could do with a bit of a dusting up.

No lingering there then, unless you went to go and peruse the cellar, which was slightly warmer than the 14 degrees it should have been but a more comfortable temperature than the restaurant itself, like that of a sunning room in fact, in comparison to the rest of the restaurant. I could have happily sat down and opened one of the expensive bottles of wine (a bottle of boujoulais and the Russell-Hamilton pinot noir caught my eye) and enjoyed it in there. Indeed both the location and temperature were conducive to being a little on the mischievous side - except the walls were glass and the wine would have cost a fortune if we had been caught at it!

Flaked Salmon with green beans and faux hollandaise sauce

It is an odd phenomenon that in exciting, but slightly stressful situations, that people in our family will turn to cooking or at least eating, gourmet.

Before I was to get on a plane back to SA after a wonderful holiday in the States and then in London for two weeks, that a certain resident of a house in Putney will remember a rich lunch meal of smashed baby potatoes, grilled salmon with an apricot glaze with asparagus and hollandaise sauce. Did we manage a glass of Bordeaux white with it? I can't quite remember, but I do remember the meal precisely because I made it as I was keeping one eye on the clock to make sure that this culinary delight was served and eaten before I had to take that tiresome trek out to Heathrow.

I'm not entirely sure what this is about, a kind of combination between being set on using the best ingredients in the fridge if we are not going to be present to eat them (which shows an unexplained possessiveness over our food) and a last meal, if you will. Whatever stressful situation may arise out of travelling at least we will be secure in the knowledge that we dined like kings before we left the house for the airport.

My sister left to go to Australia for, ostensibly forever, but for the meantime just six weeks to be with her boyfriend on Friday.  And sure enough, at 8 am she was (if you'll excuse the pun) fishing the salmon steaks that she had bought earlier in the week out of the freezer. "Shall I make us some salmon for breakfast?" she yelled from the kitchen. Followed, a few short seconds and some scrambling sounds of freezer drawers opening and closing, with "Don't you want to make us something delicious with this chorizo sausage? " and " I definitely should make these pies, they'll just go off!"

Bearing in mind that I am not a morning person at all and that at 8 am I was in all likelyhood not awake until I could not ignore the repartee emerging from the kitchen, with some instinctual knowledge that on the occasion that one's sister is leaving the country, one should invariably cook up a feast, I managed to yell back: "If you're going to make the salmon then you should probably use the rest of the fresh green beans in the fridge."

"Here's your tea!" trilled my sister. Knowing that this was the only lever that had enough leverage to extricate me from my bed.

As I came into the kitchen, I pointed out that she should have rather used milk instead of a whole egg to put on the pies so that they'd turn brown.

"How should I do the salmon?" she asked.
"Steam it," I said while swallowing the first sips of warm tea, "over the green beans."

"Here," and I was passed two thirds of a beaten egg in a cup. "Can't you do something with this?"

"Well do we have lemon?" I asked peering into the fridge.

We did and so the remaining egg mixture went into a stainless steel bowl and was whisked briskly with a quarter lemon's juice.

Hmmm, I could not quite remember how to make a hollandaise sauce but it seemed like a good idea to cook the egg and the salmon and beans having been removed from the pot, I whipped the stainless steal bowl over and carried on whisking.

Ah, that was better, the sauce was thickening. And not a lump in sight! A crack of black pepper and coarse salt, and a lug of olive oil (just because that seemed like the right thing to do) and I was done.

A not exactly, but a rather lovely lemon-tasting and lower-fat version of hollandaise sauce completed the salmon that had been flaked over the beans.

Tea was done: now it was time for breakfast and an hour till we had to leave to go to the airport.

A Visit with Shannon Draper at the Gravel Garden

 
On Tuesday, I spent all of a lovely morning with Shannon Draper of The Gravel Garden in Somerset West. After a warm welcome and a great cup of coffee, Shannon showed me around her garden where she grows organic and heirloom varietal vegetables.

Heirloom Varietals are any variety of vegetable that has not been hybradised. They are open-pollinated plants that produce true seed. In other words, seeds that will grow into a plant that is the same as the parent plant that they come from.

From a hybradised plant the seed will give you a variety of results, throwbacks to one of the kinds of plants that were chosen to make up that vegetable to increase its shelf life, produce uniform fruit for packing and shipping and often compromising on taste.

Shannon's beds were being repositioned and she was in the process of turning their old swimming pool into an underground storage facility for rain and greywater. An eco-friendly solution in what becomes a very hot Somerset West in the summer months.

In the meantime though, I was able to see her seedlings in their greenhouse, a structure that again was saved and made useful in it's current form. Seed containers are cleverly made out of newspaper (see below) so that they can simply be put straight into the ground.

Other containers sported the names of tomatoes  that were reminiscent of far-off times and places and whose words left a TASTE  of the exotic and the historic on your tongue as you said them.

The picture of what they would be was complimented by colour descriptions such as pink, red, black and brown, green, orange or, more exotic and tantalising: striped tomatoes!

After a brief peep into the chicken run, Shannon took me out back to a shed and deck that she is building where  other gardeners can come and swap their own produce for  what she  has or what other  people may bring to the stall.  The idea being to   reuse and recycle and not let the excess produce of people's gardens go to waste.

Eventually, she adds, she would like to invite local chefs and foodies cook in something like a closed door restaurant.  Having had ideas of a pop-up restaurant  for some time myself (watch this space), I found this idea wildly exciting.

 

But what I really appreciate about Shannon's approach to growing her produce, is that more than anything, it is a starting point to foster a sense of community.

Shannon's beautifully presented THE GRAVEL GARDEN seed packs

Shannon sells her seeds online. She is very particular about making sure that no cross-pollination happens and that her seed is true seed. See her website THE GRAVEL GARDEN. Also take a look at some of her beautiful picture of the fascinating heirloom varietals that she has grown.

I bought seeds from her and will certainly document with anticipation and great excitement the arrival of their fruit - an excitement only surpassed by what I can then cook with these wonderous "new" varieties at my disposal!