Preserved grape leaves are a standard ingredient in many Mediterranean cuisines.  Greek dolmathes, those tasty little bundles of rice, herbs and spices wrapped in grape leaves, are perhaps the recipe best known to Americans.  But they are also great for wrapping meat and fish for grilling or for wrapping goat cheeses during aging. A warm, wet spring here has meant that our grapes have gone crazy, sending out tons of  vines and leaves that needed to be trimmed back to favor the development of grapes.  Fortunately, preserving grape leaves is quick and easy.  I easily fit 80 leaves in one liter jar, which should be plenty for this summer’s cooking.
By the way, I always assumed that the lemony flavor of dolmathes came from lemon juice added to the filling. But while working this recipe, I tried one of the fresh grape leaves and found it to have a distinctly lemony flavor all its own.  I cant wait to wrap up a nice piece of merlu or cod for the barbecue this summer!

It’s been a funny year for the garden. Very wet in the spring through May, then very hot in June, and now milder in July and even rain as I write this – a nice change!  Our garlic and onions, planted in December of last year, have weathered it all pretty well and were ready for harvest in early July.  Here are the drying for a few days in the sun before going into the garage, where it is cool and dark, to rest until completely dry and ready to be stored for the fall and winter.

It should be noted that, having lived all my life in the city, I know next to nothing about gardening, so I am sure that you who are experts will wonder what I am on about.  Each season and each new year presents new opportunities to learn a little bit more, mainly through having things go wrong and trying to fix them.  Plus I spend a lot of time looking  for gardening advice on the site of the Royal Horticultural Society. 

Tomatoes from our garden, ready for roasting, to go into a soup made with roasted tomato and garlic, basil and a bit of crème fraîche.  If you are thinking “do we have to hear more about what Jim is growing in his garden?”, I can only ask for your indulgence.  I am a dyed-in-the-wool city boy, and the only serious gardening I have ever done has been since we arrived in France full time.  Our (very) modest harvests still seems at least a bit miraculous to me!

Here is a garland of fresh chili peppers ready for drying, hung on the front of our house in imitation of the method used for making Piment d’Espelette. Fresh hot peppers are not that easy to find in a Orthez, as the French taste in spicy food runs to the mild side.  So we decided to grow our own jalapeno and habanero chilies – these are the jalapenos. We tasted a slice of the first of each kind that we picked and they didn’t seem super hot. So I happily chopped up a whole one of each to add to a salsa.  Wow, they were a lot hotter than they seemed!  Anyway, we are now picking plenty for use fresh and some left to dry for later.

About a week ago, we planted one of our vegetable plots (we call them potager 1 and potager 2) with a few veggies that have a short time to harvest, hoping for a mild fall and a last harvest before winter.  We planted two kinds of radishes, turnips, scallions and mixed in a few wildflowers for good measure and bio-diversity.  This week, the sprouts are up and looking good, despite a very warm stretch of weather, with highs in the low 90’s!  We thinned the radish rows today, and washed the excess sprouts for use in salads and smoothies.  Clearly, our garden is 100% organic, as some little pest has gotten to a few of the leaves.