The Garden of Live Flowers

The summer gates are opening; I can feel it, smell it and almost taste it!  Walking to the train this morning it was hot, not the dry August heat that wilt flowers and people alike, but that muggy May warmth full of moisture.  There are no clouds, the sun is shining finally after weeks of rain and Memorial Day weekend is staring us in the face.  This is the weekend summer begins.

Professional gardening companies and homeowners alike were out in droves this morning trying to prepare the yard for family barbecues and festivities on deck for the weekend.  Hedge trimmers and lawn mowers buzzed away at 7:00 am in an effort to get a handle on the South American jungle growing in our yards.  The end of May is like this, damp and lush, a time when you can hide in your garden without any fear of people locating you in the overgrowth…there is just too darn much of it.  Grills have been firing up all around the neighborhood with the smell of burgers rolling into our backyard, mingling with the scent of lilacs.  If there is a better combination of scent I’m not sure what it could be.

All around me the flowers continue to bloom in pinks and purples, the soft colors a precursor to the vibrant summer season.  Summer is all about orange and yellow and red, but spring is reserved for pastels.  I’ve watched as the iris unfold their delicate petals in so many shades of violet, joining the dame’s rocket, lilac, azaleas and phlox in a brilliant and understated show.  It is these colors I crave to work with, though not in paint necessarily but pastry.

"Pinks" have been an inspirational trigger over the past few weeks as well as an ongoing understanding of my appreciation for the outdoors.  I’ve been working my plot of earth for the past four years, watching it go from a square of barren dirt to the aforementioned jungle of this past week.  I love to walk outside at 1:00am, when the town is quiet and all my neighbors are asleep, and take a stealthy peak at the blooms by moonlight.  There is a particular fresh scent at that time of night, not only from whatever happens to be in bloom, but an overwhelming clear “greenness” to it all.  Something in that magical smell combination calms me and returns me to the simple times of boyhood.

Walking near the river this morning I had yet another smell related memory.  There is of course the fresh fish smell coming off the Hudson River but there are certain grasses or weeds on the land near by with a strong sweet fragrance recalling un-mown hillsides near a waterslide I liked to go to as a kid with my dad.  I was instantly thrown back to fun times precariously heading down a slide, a strong whiff of chlorine pungently passing through my nostrils as I swiftly approached the pool below, waiting to be embraced by the sun warmed water.

Today is a day for that sort of activity…water slides and beaches.  I had a fantasy of playing hooky and taking the family to the beach, putting Siena in a cute little bathing suit and seeing what she might make of sand.  She would probably try and eat it like everything else these days.  It’s as if her mouth has become a third hand (when her other two hands aren’t in her mouth) tasting everything to confirm its solidity and realness.  I don’t know if it’s all the rain, but she too is growing at a rapid pace.  The doctor tells us we can start her on rice cereal and she turned over for the first time…a really big week for she and us.  I still haven’t managed to get her help out in the garden, but she does sit patiently in her Bumbo seat and overalls acting as if she might go find a shovel and start digging very soon.

As Siena continues to develop into a little live wire, Brian and I continue to develop into dads.  I was telling a friend of mine that I had never felt like an adult until Siena came along.  The strange thing about it is I don’t seem to mind.  I’m conscious of the fact I’ve been an adult for quite some time, and my list of commitments, responsibilities and a busy schedule attest to the fact, but I didn’t feel like an adult.  I’ve suffered from Peter Pan syndrome much of my life, and luckily for me it’s worked out okay and been an asset to my commercial career.  Siena has made it okay for me to grow up.

As I continue to reflect on the growth (particularly in my last posting) I had a small revelation:  Alice in Wonderland…and even more specific the second book, Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.  Growing up, Alice in Wonderland was one of my favorite books.  I loved the whimsy, the imagery, the craziness of it all and how the story richly brought characters to life in both a psychotic and scary way.  It’s like reading about a colorful mental hospital where everything is contradictory and nonsense makes the most sense of all…a perfect thing for an imaginative child.

In spite of the richly written books, the Walt Disney Company has burned much of the colorful imagery into my brain.  The movie is a splicing together of both famous Alice books, and the colors used are so fresh and vibrant with a bent toward the pinks and greens of springtime in May.  Several things struck particular chords with me: the first being all the eating and drinking going on.  Every time Alice has to do something major she needs to change her size.  This size/state change is achieved through eating magic mushrooms and drinking strange liquids solemnly perched on a glass table.  Up and down she goes trying to get to be just the right size for the occasion…something I think many children aspire to…trying to grow up enough to fit in or hide away someplace tiny, secret and safe.

The second has to be the tarts. 

“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

All on a summer day;

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts

And took them quite away!”

Well, we know I love a good tart now don’t we?  The queen’s tarts have to be the most romanticized pastries in children’s literature.  I wanted to know what kind of tarts they were as I thought it would be a fun thing to make in homage to the Queen, but of an ingredients list all I could discover was a passage from the cross examination of the Duchess’s cook (during the trial to find out the knave’s innocence or guilt…an answer we never get because Alice grows “two miles high “and upsets the court room.).  When asked what was in the tarts, the Duchess’s cook curtly replied, “Pepper, mostly”.  Well, I’m certainly into pepper in my desserts, but a pepper tart is hardly something that sounds appealing.  My guess is the tarts were more of a red summer berry sort and the Duchess’s cook has a fondness for all things pepper so she would never give the correct answer in the first place.  No one in Wonderland likes to give straight answers.

The third and somewhat more iconic part of my childhood affinity for Alice and her world has to be The Garden of Live Flowers, the title of the second chapter in Through the Looking Glass.  Because of the Disney film the small sequence of events of Alice finding a garden full of talking flowers took on iconic status.  In the book, Alice only spends a few pages with the flowers on her way to meeting the Red Queen and further explorations.  Most of the flowers are quite mean to Alice; only the Tiger Lily is friendly to her while the Rose looks down on her somewhat lifeless petals.  The daisies are gossips and the violets don’t have anything nice to say either.  Rereading the chapter I found it to be rather anti-climactic.

In the film version the flowers are still rather unkind, but Miss Rose comes off seeming much more kind and it is the Iris who has her nose up in the air referring to Alice as a weed to frighten all the other plants…because of course “we don’t want weeds in our beds”, reply the shy little violets.  The tiger lily and daisy also feature in the film along with bread and butterflies and rocking-horse flies.  The Iris is the one flower who maintained iconic status in my brain, maybe because of her beautiful appearance paired with a cruel nature…the ideal combination for any good female villain, plus I grew up loving those faintly grape smelling flowers.  Today I still love all flowers but am always admiring of the sensuous yet cold beauty of irises in the garden.  There is something so delicate and soft about them paired with long stems and spiked leaves…pretty but with an attitude.  I do like my divas, and the iris is the diva of my garden.

Whether or not the actual written material of Carroll’s story was long, Disney and in turn a generation of kids fell in love with talking flowers.  Apparently all flowers can talk if there is “anyone worth talking to or about” if their beds are hard.  The reason most flowers don’t speak is because their beds are too soft and they spend all their time sleeping, this according to Tiger Lily.  It’s the enchantment of talking flowers I find inspiring.  My Peter Pan self would love to believe the flowers in my garden can speak and think…they certainly have attitudes depending on weather and watering schedules, but that little boy in me, the one who liked to play with action figures out in the grass (or forest if you are the size of a G.I. Joe character or Alice after shrinking) still finds joy in the thought. 

I designed my garden to have sections and a private area enshrouded by bushes, flowering plants and a carpet of grass in the middle, a space to get lost in even though our yard is quite tiny.  I imagine my childhood self-playing there, or hopefully Siena playing with whatever toys she’s fond of, imagining the plants to be a forest and rocks becoming mountains.  A simple bench can make an excellent fortress stronghold and a birdbath is the perfect lake.  To say that I’m looking forward to playing with Siena, her toys and imaginary rules, is an understatement.  It seems like Peter Pan might get to have his childhood all over again.

It is with all this in mind I found myself drawn to soft, or loud, pink baked goods, one in the shape of flowers no less.  The first dessert I made was lemon whoopie pies with raspberry cream.  I was thumbing through an old Everyday Food magazine from May of 2010 in an effort to find some quick weeknight meals with seasonal ingredients.  I always dog-ear the corners of pages with recipes I would like to make or come back to for some reason.  With time being a precious commodity, it was nice to find a magazine I had thoroughly examined (last year when I still had lazy, magazine thumbing-through time).  I never manage to make all the recipes I mark, there aren’t enough hours in the day, so when I saw the whoopee pie recipe and my mouth watered as much as it had this time last year, I decided it was time to give it a try.

The photo in the magazine was soft, golden cake filled with a pastel cream studded with raspberries.  I don’t think raspberries are in season quite yet, but according to the magazine they are.  I know I can get raspberries any time of the year, but it’s those delicious summer berries with the right amount of sweet and tart I crave.  The berries I found to use for the recipe were quite good, but I’m looking forward to the farmer’s market pints, which will be popping up soon.  Since this recipe is from a year ago, I was able to find the link online: 

Raspberry-Lemon Whoopie Pies

I love a good whoopee pie.  Though these are only the third variety I have ever made, I can find no fault with these dessert sandwiches.  Both the pumpkin and red velvet varieties I’ve made in the past had fillings with a cream cheese base, and something I adore.  These lemon cakes with the lighter than air raspberry cream were so delicate and moist, not heavy whatsoever as with the cream cheese fillings and we managed to plow through the dozen or so the recipe makes in no time.  I would suggest making a double batch if you are going to be sharing with friends, or if you are feeling like pigging out.  No judgment.

The second and directly floral inspired dessert was for a flakey and buttery little number full of ginger, vanilla and brown butter.  I came across the recipe for Ginger-Pear Hand Pies in the Martha Stewart’s New Pies and Tarts book.  As I mentioned before I had been thinking of the Queen of Hearts and her tarts and this seemed a logical place to look for new tart recipes.  As I flipped through the beautifully photographed pages nothing was connecting with my mood.  All the berry tarts I wanted to make had ingredients not yet in season, particularly blueberry and cherry, so I wasn’t sure what to do until I ran across the little pear pies.  Pears certainly aren’t “in season” right now, but it’s the shape that spoke to me.

In the recipe and photo the dough is shaped into cups in a muffin tin, resulting in pies with several large, scalloped edges.  Adjusting the technique slightly and adding a few more pinches and folds, I was able to shape the crusts to appear as five petaled flowers…. perfectly fitting in with my mood.  I like that the crust recipe is a little different too, incorporating both shortening and vinegar into the dough, giving a touch of something special.  I couldn’t help but add a little flair to these desserts by using 5-inch fluted tart molds to cut out the dough and also small petit fours pans/tins to cut the flower centers out of the remaining dough scraps.  All of this I painted with a hint of bright pink luster dust when the pies were out of the oven and cooled.  The recipe is as follows:

Ginger-Pear Hand Pies  (From Martha Stewarts Pies and Tarts, 2011)

For the crust:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1-teaspoon salt

3/4-cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/4-cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into small pieces

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

For the filling:

2 large eggs

2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4-teaspoon salt

2 ripe, firm pears, such as Bosc, peeled and chopped into 1/4-inch dice

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise and scraped

2 tablespoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Make the crust:  In a food processor, pulse flour, sugar, and salt until combined.  Add butter and shortening, pulse just until mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 times.  Combine vinegar and 1/4-cup ice water, and drizzle evenly over mixture; pulse just until dough comes together.  If dough is still crumbly, add up to 1/4 cup more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Pat dough into 2 disks, and wrap each in plastic.  Refrigerate until firm, 1 hour or up to 1 day.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough 1/4 inch thick.  Cut twelve 5-inch rounds from dough.  Gently press rounds into cups of a 12-cup standard muffin tin, making pleats around edges and gently pressing to seal.  Refrigerate or freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Make the filling:  In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and granulated sugar until thick and pale yellow.  Whisk in lemon juice, then flour and salt.  Place diced pears in a medium bowl.

In a small saucepan, heat butter, vanilla bean and seeds, and grated ginger over medium-high until butter foams and browns, about 5 minutes.  Pour mixture through a fine sieve over pears; discard solids. Stir egg mixture into pear mixture until combined.

Divide batter among chilled shells.  Bake pies until crusts and filling are golden brown, about 30 minutes.  Let cool in tins on a wire rack, 30 to 40 minutes.  Unmold; let cool completely on rack.  Just before serving, dust with confectioners’ sugar.

I am so happy for the return of summer after such a long winter, strangely wet spring and a year already full of dangerous and crazy weather.  I am longing for the days where I can spread a towel on the hot white sand of the nearest beach, listen to the crash of the waves and snack on seafood and seasonally appropriate desserts…like cold vanilla bean ice cream on top of a fresh blueberry pie.  The time is close at hand and I welcome it with open arms.  The garden too will change shape with a landscape of blooming roses, lilies and butterfly bushes, all my favorites because every new bloom (and recipe) is my favorite.  It’s just who I am.