Here it is the last day of
May already. It’s been difficult to remember which month we’re in, for we’ve
had everything from balmy heat to thunderstorms to snow and frost, all in the
flowering month of May. Today we’re back at balmy, almost tropical, with soft
humid air and a weighty heat promised.
It’s also the day, as I sit
here waiting for the kettle to boil, that I say farewell to one of the treats I
brought back from Georgia (yes I declared them at customs!!). It’s a “moraba”
of carnelian cherries, given to me, and made by, Elena’s ninety-year-old grandmother
in Kutaisi. Carnelian cherries are tart, elongated slender fruits, a strong
red, brighter than most “regular” cherries. And moraba is the Georgian word for
a way of preserving fruit in sugar syrup. The point to a moraba is the fruit,
yes, but also the syrup, flavoured by the fruit over the months since it was
put up, which is delectable. A spoonful is enough, a taste hit, that in this
case has tartness from the cherries and sweetness too from the sugar in the
syrup they were preserved in.
So as I say, I have come to
the bottom of the moraba jar: there’s about a tablespoon, perhaps a little
more, of syrup left, and I’ll use it, as I have used the rest of the jar every
morning this month, to make my morning hot drink, by putting it in my big mug
and filling it with boiling water. The aroma of cherry will come wafting up in
the steam. The trick will be to enjoy it without regret for its passing…
Time for me to get hold of enough
canning jars so that I can make cherry moraba when they come into season. How
to find carnelian cherries? If I get lucky, I will, otherwise some kind of tart
cherry will be a good substitute.
The wisteria vine which has
been twining along the fence, pulling at it and being pruned back by me, had a
generous flowering this year of long draping aromatic white flowers. They’re
pretty well over too. Meantime the columbines, of many colours, are dotted
around the back garden, self-seeded (though I help them along by scattering
seeds from the pods after flowering), the irises are out, and the peonies, two
ancient bushes side-by-side, are rounding into fat buds and showing a little
pink.
I’d like a little cool
weather to slow things down, so that the peonies are fresh and full next
weekend. That’s when our wonderful friend Kaya is being feted here by friends
and family, and somehow full-bloom peonies seem like the perfect festive
early-June touch.
Meantime, after flooding
rain earlier in the week, the city is looking green and fertile. Cool bowers of
shade on the treed streets in the downtown neighbourhoods make me grateful to
those who planted the trees decades ago.
I was out early this
morning, before the heat, trying to clean up the small back garden. The
flagstone path that winds through it is very overgrown with clover and also
with young garlics. I usually go along and grab handfuls of the garlic greens
to cook up with dandelion greens as part of breakfast. But now some of them
have to go. I’ve pulled them up and plan to grill the tender garlics and their
long greens this evening at a friend’s place. And why? It goes back to the
party for Kaya.
As parties often do, it is
prompting me to take hold of things a little, never a bad plan! And so the
garden should look a little more orderly, or perhaps I should say a little less
disorderly. And the ground floor too will get itself cleared for dancing.
That’s what I have on my to-do list for tomorrow, to try to knock off most of
the decision-making and rearranging and stashing of things, so that it’s not
all left to the last minute.
It’s an interesting
process, this getting ready for a party that someone else is having in my
house. My mind keeps wandering to questions about food and other logistics, and
then I bring myself up short and remember that none of those things are my
responsibility. I’m looking forward to being a guest at the party…
Meantime I’ve been reading
widely about Akkadians, Medes, Persians, that whole complicated history and
geography of the region I’m now obsessed with. The tarragon in my garden came
back green and lush and that’s a good thing, for Georgia re-imprinted me with a
yearning for it, fresh, with everything! I wish I had a walnut tree, and a
hazelnut, and what about persimmons, figs, cherries, apricots? They all grow
happily in much of Georgia, and are the backdrop to a lot of the food in the
region, Armenian, Georgian, and Azeri, as well as Persian, Kurdish, etc.
How lucky I feel, that
these distinctive patterns of cooking and gardening and farming and preserving
should be such a fascinating and informative entryway into other places, other
peoples. So much to learn. Life is way too short, don’t you think?
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