Showbags of beans

Above is a moment I love; opening a dirty brown wet bean pod without knowing what's in it (yes, I forgot which bean I planted where, classic) and in it a perfect little bean, red, white, lemony, speckled or brown (above you see Canadian Wonder, which alas had interbean-intercourse with, I assume, the originally rather brown Lazy Housewife, now their children are either faintly rosé or kidneybeancolour with white speckles. No seedsaving this year). The borlotti on the right found a home way above the Danish yellow pumpkin and still take a while to have seeds that can be dried for next year's garden. Now all of the beans (Dutch brown and lemon bean, besides the two sorts that had too close an affair) dry on a sheet besides the laptop fan.
As the bean weevil had a great summer vacation and ate through pretty much every single of the hundreds of John's holy beans in my room and then expanded himself into every corner and bedsheet wrinkle of my bedsheet, I'll try the freezing thing this year: dry the beans until really really dry (somebody suggested the hammer test: crush one with a hammer. If it cracks it's dry. It's still too wet when it just crushes gently, well). Then freeze at least 8 days and dry again, put them in glass jars after and hope the weevils pack their traps and leave to other far away beans.

Elderflower goodness

Lately I went to Romania for an excursion, and met, amongst others, people from Slow Food who set up processing facilities for fruit in order to allow the local women to process their harvest and market it better. The day we came they had just finished making elderberry sirup and proudly handed out glasses of the wonderfully flowery drink. My Canadian friend had never tasted such and so the plan was born to make some at home. Today it happened. The eldertree in John's garden already showed signs of the coming fruit, but still boasted lots of white flowerheads. I worked them into the basic cordial recipe, for which you need 4kgs of sugar, 2 litres of boiled water, about 30 heads of elderflower (as I learned too late, try to get off as much of the stems and twigs as possible, they might end up making your cordial taste bitter) and 4 sliced lemons. Bring it all together, let it rest (with the occasional stir, once or twice a day) for 3-5 days and then pour through a cloth. Bring to the boil again, then fill into sterilized glasses or bottles and it will last months. The uses are endless ... But apparently, the classic mixture with water has been the thing to do in Victorian times. Icecream, Prosecco or pancakes are equally good friends with it.

If sirup is not your thing, check out the Bavarian Hollerküchln; fried elderflowers! Beautifully set in scene by Nicky from delicious days.

Asparagus rise

A German asparagus memorial (yes, we like them white and earth them up for that purpose. I'm all for the green ones though)

The asparagus in the allotment plot that I'm taking care of for my travelling housemate behaves a bit like a chamaleon. It has spring colors and fits perfectly into the shades of green and yellow all around it. I always have to squat in different angles to spot all the little upcoming stalks. And only once I thought I have them all in my bag ready to come home with me, there is the most beautiful one standing upright under the elderberry tree, like it wonders why I didn't put it with its buddies yet. So I take it home, too, and they all rejoin in a dish which originates from Nigel Slater's wonderful book "Tender". Straight-forward, grounded cooking (although admittedly a bit towards the fatty side at times, you have to like that British way of adding lots of flavor). His idea of joining asparagus with cardamom, a bit of cinnamon, thyme and cumin into a pilaf, joined by fava beans and a mint joghurt made my belly really happy.