Posted by on Apr 6, 2024 | 20 comments

 

A little Lunapic montage of some of the places I have…er…watered, which is why we have THIS:

But mama’s garden guru neighbor was showing her his broad bean crop that he planted in October (the best month to plant them) and mama was lamenting that she had only the little flowers because she planted in November, a bit late, and then she went out to see if our high, high winds had blown all the flowers off her broad bean stalks and lo and behold, whatever that means, THESE are what she found! And she’s picking more today:

So mama tied up the broad beans, (fava beans, feves) with raffia cords, whatever those are (in pink bag) and now the wind has stilled and is at bay and the new little beans can grow into biggies.

Mama and papa eat them raw with pecorino cheese, which is a combo eaten in the first days of spring in Italy. But they are delicious steamed and tossed with sautéed garlic and sage leaves. Drool…

BUT—there is an affliction called favismo, which is sometimes passed down to kids from the mama and causes terrible reactions similar to an allergic reaction to peanuts or shellfish, and is the lack of a certain enzyme, G6PD, so mama’s sweet stepson cannot eat the beans, alas. Or chick peas and some other specific foods.

In solidarity with him, his mama doesn’t eat fava beans either, but women do not get favismo so she could eat them if she sneaked in a few but what a good mama!

Hope spring is winging its way to you, wherever you are…uh…in the Northern hemisphere that is….

OH, and if you are in the path of the eclipe, PLEASE REPORT IN YOUR BLOG ABOUT WHAT IT WAS LIKE. Merci.