Sharing in the Garden

People share a lot in the community garden where I have my plot. It is probably just a part of the DNA of a place like that. Advice, seeds, watering help, and surplus produce all pass from one person to the next. Oh, there are also petty conflicts, territorial disputes, and grumpiness about weeds that are allowed to thrive, but the level of communitarian spirit is pretty high.

I have the good fortune to have the same neighbor at home and in the garden. Last year I gave her some surplus onion plants that I had left over, and she put them in her plot. I was a little puzzled when she didn't harvest the onions after they were ready, but they came up again this year and produced the flowers that my neighbor had been hoping for all along. Onions are biennial, meaning that they flower and produce seed in the second year of their lives. The flowers are beautiful, and she has a nice group of them that stand guard over my beets.

I, however, always harvest my onions, so I doubt that I will ever have onion flowers to show off. Tonight I grilled a couple, dressed them with a balsamic vinaigrette, and had them with a delicious New York strip steak. I also prepared some packets of little red potatoes for the grill; I boiled them for 15 minutes and then placed them in foil packets with rosemary sprigs, olive oil, some butter, and some seasoned salt from the Spice House, and then I put them on the grill with the rest of the food. We ended with an arugula and red lettuce salad, also dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette, but I used the really good vinegar for the salad. It almost seems obligatory to have some red wine with a dinner like that, so we had a Malbec from Argentina.

I had initially thought that I would make some kind of biryani tonight, to try something new. That would have been a real project, with a long list of ingredients and a melange of subtle flavors. The meal we actually had was nothing like that. In fact, it was pretty basic cooking, but it was probably just as satisfying.