7.5.24

in the soil

A brief visit in light rain which turns into heavier rain and dyes the world a deeper shade, greens more green, soil more soil. Everything is growing with the persistence of weeds, grass encroaching, nettles spreading from under the artichokes to take over the asparagus bed, bindweed shoots springing tall from the hedges, broad beans at a rustling height, chicory lengthening and poised to bolt, garlic swelling damp in the earth, summer’s fruit promised in full bright leaf – everything persists –

in the kitchen

My main artichoke plant (which I realise on closer inspection is at least three different plants) gives me eight little artichokes which only need their outer leaves peeling and their purpling tips trimming to be left entirely edible, unlike the gigantic globe artichokes we are delivered at work which must have about three-quarters of their mass hacked away to find their crisp hearts – so eight little artichokes give me enough stewed artichoke for two meals, the first a pasta sauce with tinned tuna (anchovy, salt cod, bottarga worth trying) to go with little saffron cavatelli I put on an album and make, tomorrow I think or the next day I will take the remaining half and make a risotto, perhaps.

on the page

Lacking the inclination to read anything new I reread several of the Inspector Montalbano books set in Sicily which do not make me miss the island particularly (although my partner is there for work) because the Sicily of the books is all sea, sand, fried fish, the bustle and traffic of a small Sicilian town, and the Sicily I miss is the dry heat of the hills, the way when it rains it rains, the blank light of the sun, the shadowed verdigris of the leaves of olive trees and of artichokes.