Summer pickings
Snip, pinch, pluck. Is there anything better than summer pickings?
Snip, pinch, pluck.
Crunching, roasting, drying, jamming.
It seems incredible that I never did any of this in Italy, because is there a European country with better fresh produce than Italy?
A north-facing flat, 8 floors above a clattering road and permanently covered in smoggy soot did not lend itself to home growing. And why bother, anyway, when going down to the weekly market and arguing with the traders about how many lemons one small family could feasibly get through in a week (tantissimi, signora, sono stupendi) was such a rite of passage?
Not here; The Swedes have an enthusiasm for the foraged, the lovingly coaxed out of the ground in the short but intense growing seasons. We live in a garden-less flat now too, but its balcony is my solace. I promise you, there's little you can't grow in pots these days. Cucumbers, strawberries, all manner of salad leaves, herbs, green beans, chillies, and these dinky little round carrots not even the vegetable-averse Bean could resist.
Yes, I have hit middle-age as well as middle-class, I think, taking pictures of my haul. And what I can't grow myself but am able to pick by the crate-load from a local farm? Recruit the small person (who now mistakes cow parsley for elderflower!), jam it all and show it off to the world. There's nothing better than summer pickings, is there.
{The Ordinary Moments} #2 - Weekend Baking
Weekend Baking = an easy repertoire of cheese scones and muffins, made by a three-year-old who talks of ducks and diggers in the same sentence. The best kind of baking.
Let it be known that I am not a baker. I do cooking, yes, even if these days it's more functional than adventurous. But not baking. Apart from bread - I used to bake a loaf a week in the Days Before Parenthood. I've managed a shortcrust pie case or two. Okay, maybe I bake a little bit.
As long as there is no need for precision, and as long as I can change stuff in the recipe (an irresistible thing). I also need a Bean.
A Bean to sit on the kitchen counter and stuff his face with raisins or cereal, just like I used to do when I was little. To do a bit of weighing, lots of stirring, and OH MY, CAN WE WHISK?!
I love these little shared moments with him, because they usually happen early on a Saturday or Sunday morning, when His Non-Morningness, aka Mr E+L, is still fast asleep. There is not a whiff of witching hour yet, no rush to get out of the door, no need to even get dressed. On these mornings he's so essentially himself, so very Three. He'll talk about diggers and ducks in the same sentence, and I can sneak him knackebröd with REAL butter.
Our baking repertoire is pretty tame. Banana bread, cheese scones, blueberry muffins. Anything else stresses me out, quite frankly, and we don't need that. These mornings need an easy rhythm to them, and lots of comfort food. Comforting moments when he's all mine and our bellies are full of raisins.
Linking up with Katie for The Ordinary Moments
{The Ordinary Moments} #1 - Sand in my shoes
Sandpits. Essential to daily life with kids in Sweden. Sandpits at school, after school, at weekends. Sand everywhere.
Sand in shoes, pockets, backpack, hair. All over the hallway, in the bath, and somehow also always in the bed. My bed, even though I'm not the one who plays in the sandpit.
Multiple sandpits, Sweden is full of them - I don't think I could count the ones within a square mile of our new home on two hands.
They are both the best thing ever and the bane of my life. The Bean, unsurprisingly, adores them and will spend hours digging and shoveling and pushing the wheelbarrow around and around and around. People leave old toys behind in them for all the local kids to use, or you can bring your own shiny new Christmas Digger.
Italy doesn't have sandpits at playgrounds (so as not to encourage stray cats, apparently) so this is a pretty novel thing for us. A novelty that isn't wearing off; Even my Bean, once such a city boy who was afraid of getting his hands dirty, adores them.
No matter what the weather - thanks to the quintisentially Scandinavian water and windproof overalls neither sunshine nor warmth, nor even dry weather is a prerequisite for outdoor play here. (Although hot flasks of tea {or toddy, I won't judge} are advisable for the parents.)
So every day after preschool we go to one of the many little playgrounds nearby, and every morning after he's left: that woosh and clattering sound up the hoover, cleaning up the sand he tipped out of his shoes the day before.
I'm linking up with Katie at MummyDaddyMe for The Ordinary Moments