Author Archives for Ellen

Wild garlic soup

Tonight, the last Sunday night of March, there is another Pot Luck evening at the garden. I’m making soup. Last Wednesday i picked a whole bag full of wild garlic (daslook in Dutch). I love it. The oniony garlicky taste. The fact it only grows in spring. The way it looks, the beautiful green leaves. Soon the white flowers will pop up, now you can only see the buds coming up.

This is a basic soup. First i had the idea of making it with nettles and wild garlic. I found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website. It turned out i had picked more than 500 grams of wild garlic, so i’m settling for a wild garlic soup. Just leaving out the nettles.

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 2 onion
  • 1 fat leek
  • 4 celery sticks
  • 1 large winter carrot
  • 2 potatoes
  • 2,5l good-quality vegetable stock
  • salt and pepper, fennel seeds
  • 2,5 vegetable broth cubes
  • 500g wild garlic leaves (keep any flowers if you have them)
  • 200 ml milk – i used oat milk

I took spring onions with me to the garden, to slice them up finely and put on the soup once it was served.

Method

  1. Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion, leek, celery, carrot, potato and a good pinch of salt, and stir until everything is well coated. Cover and sweat gently for 15-20 mins, stirring every so often to make sure that the vegetables don’t catch on the bottom of the pan.
  2. Pour in the stock and simmer for 10 mins. Add the wild garlic leaves and simmer for 2 mins.
  3. Remove from the heat and blend using a stick blender or tip into a blender. Return to the heat and stir through the milk, then taste for seasoning. Ladle into bowls and drizzle over a little extra oil, then top with a few wild garlic flowers, if you have them.
The onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and leek are first simmered for around 20 minutes.
I added salt and pepper, fennel seeds and the water with two and a half vegetable broth cubes.
I had washed the wild garlic, sliced it in small sections and put it in the soup. Left it simmering for 10 minutes.
The soup after it has been pureed with a stick blender.
Published on April 1, 2019 at 6:00 by
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Yes or no?

I had previous posts, asking myself this question: yes or no? Up until now I thought the answer would be yes. But there is a hesitation. There is a fear of showing myself completely. A fear of the nakedness, the utter exposure of me.

It is getting less. One step at a time. One day at a time.

So the answer is still yes. I hope i can find the courage to go ahead. The will to show myself. To sing and dance and smile and laugh. Be happy! Gloriously happy.

I hope.

Published on March 26, 2019 at 6:00 by
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Springtime

Magnolia Stellata
Grape hyacinth
Early leaves
Not sure, cherry blossom maybe?
Again, cherry blossom?
Orange violets
Cornflower?
Early deep red leaves
A tree
Yellow!
Almond flower
Almond flower
Almond flower
Blackthorn flowers
A small white flower
More small white flowers, apple or prune?
Bok choy flowers
Dead-nettle flower
Primrose
Pear tree flower?
The harvest
Published on March 25, 2019 at 6:00 by
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Where it all began

It is hard to write an introduction for pages which do not exist yet. Usually these pages of a book are written last, when the contents of the book are known. It is the place where the reader is given an clue of what to expect, the place where acknowledgements are made. Only rarely do i read those pages thoroughly myself. I skip to the contents, the index and the bibliography. You might wanna do the same thing, so i can indulge myself here a little further.

It is hard to write an introduction to pages which do not yet exist. I did set out some guidelines for myself though. I will try to think of these pages as a public diary, a sketchbook. This will give me some freedom, not everything i do needs to be ‘perfect’ and ‘planned’. Ofcourse this is only to help myself, i am a terrible control freak, often prone to a paralysing doubt about what i do and its value. I actually thought i had given up my work for good; i had found a nice job where i feel happy enough, but quite suddenly i felt the need to rethink my old work, which i made when i was at artschool (’86-’91). The idea of combining my old work and the internet breathed new life in it. For a couple of months i was thinking about this new work. The main reason i would like this to be a sketchbook is that i realise i have to start making things. Its been quite some time since i’ve really worked and i know i have to go through the first disasters before i can come up with some quality – i hope. The internet is a nice fluid medium, where pages can appear and disappear in no time.

I am not sure how these pages will develop, i don’t know how frequent the updates will be. It might be less than i anticipate at this moment. Maybe, when you read this somewhere in the future, you will know more than i do now. Maybe than, where there is nothing now, there will be something for you to discover.

From here to you:

Bon voyage.

Source: 1 July 1997

Published on March 22, 2019 at 6:00 by
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