Spring

Posted: 26/08/2010 10:34:42 a.m.

Spring is the time of year that so many of us look forward to. For those, like me, that aren’t motivated by the idea of sliding down slopes of iced water with a couple of planks strapped to your feet, winter in Christchurch can be a bit of a drag. The promise of spring is often the only thing that gets us through the sometimes dreary Christchurch winter. As we head into Spring I am reminded that I have spent too many months in the clutches of a season where nothing grows and the weeping willows lining the Avon stand like unwanted extras from a Tim Burton movie. For months our garden has looked like a bit of a waste land. The frosted morning soil resembles a huge piece of chocolate cake dusted with icing sugar but beneath the frosty exterior change is brewing, a change of season and the promise of the flavour and deliciousness of spring. I’m looking forward to my first slow drive through Hagley Park in the early weeks of September. It is one of the simple things that makes me proud to live in this vibrant city and will bring a wry smile to the face of even the most cynical city dweller.

Without doubt my favourite time to cook, spring offers the novice a bit of a culinary helping hand buy providing you with the smallest, sweetest edibles from the earth. If winter is the time where we try to extract flavour from the hearty tubers and tough guy greens that handle anything thrown at them, then spring is a chance to truly showcase the ingredient and as a respectful cook, its a time to ease up on the technique and a let the ingredient do the talking. Good cooks often wax lyrical about letting the ingredient speak and spring is the time when there is a choir in the garden and we are just members of the audience, transfixed by their performance.

Some of the soloist I’m letting doing the singing in our kitchen this month;

Spring chickens from the team at Westwood Organic Chicken, a proper chicken texture from people that care about their birds and let them have a good, natural life.

I’m patiently waiting for the first cut of naturally grown outdoor asparagus to be topped off by a poached Humphrey Doodle egg from the Cheesemonger.

Silverbeet, rainbow chard or bright lights, great colour from this late winter bloomer. With its traffic light colour palate, it like the ugly cousin of spinach with an extreme makeover. We serve it raw with local hazelnuts, good olive oil and a generous grate of aged Cheddar from Barry’s Bay.

Spring carrots from our own garden. We have seven different varieties planted and will be featuring them on our new vegetarian spring tasting menus.