Losing an Hour, Gaining Wild Garlic Breath

The morning when the clocks go forward is possibly my least favourite morning of the year. I wake up already an hour behind, those sixty minutes cruelly stolen. It makes no difference that I gain it again in the fall. I couldn't care less about the extra daylight that evening. At that moment I really feel that missing hour and all of the activities that could have filled it up. This evil, short day just dares me to try and get anything accomplished in 23 hours. Clearly impossible. Plus it always happens on a Sunday, the day of the week forever fraught with latent homework-related fears and other phantom anxieties.

After (a ridiculously late) breakfast Sunday morning, I flopped myself on my bed. J asked what I was going to do that day before our dinner plans later on in the evening.

K: I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I don't have time to do anything. I guess I should go into my studio.

J: That sounds like a good idea.

K: Except I don't have any good ideas for art anymore cause I'm stupid.

J: Oh, don't worry, I don't think the world actually has any new ideas to offer.

K: Maybe I'll go for a bike ride.

J: Sure. Where would you go?

K: I don't know. Around the parks. Maybe not. All the trails are stupid. (pout.pout.pout)

J: (casting an appraising glance around my less-than-tidy room): You could do laundry.

K: Stop trying to find activities for me.

J: Do you feel like your life is a bit pointless right now?

K: Yes! Everything is stupid and I never get anything done.

J: OK. Good. Well, I'm going home now. Let me know what time we're having dinner.

K: (Dives under the duvet. Pout. Pout. Pout)

The lack of an hour had triggered an existential crisis and my response to it was decidedly shallow. The train of thought went something like this:

"My life is currently stupid and I don't have any new projects that I find exciting and the books that I'm reading are fine but not exceptional. How can this be solved? Well, it can't be. Nothing will ever be exciting again. I ate all of my fantastic fruit compote and I miss it already and I want to eat it forever and ever. I'm dead without it. And I'm excited to wear my new shoes (thanks Mom!) to dinner tonight and it's really stupid that I have to wait seven hours to do that. I will never have another fulfilling activity again so I have to console myself with compote and shoes but I can't, so I'll just lie on my bed and pout."

Seriously. Anxiety-driven pouting is one of my fortes. It was definitely time to kick my ass into shape.

Not wanting to face my studio, I opted for a bike ride. I would try and find new bike trails and go up some steep hills and try my hand at a bit of early spring foraging. I like the idea of foraging. You get fresh, sometimes tasty and sometimes weird stuff for free. It's a skill you can use in the post-oil age. That's what I'll be doing when I'm not darning your socks. You can forage during bike rides, too. And it's free. J says that foraging makes us horribly cliched Guardian readers, led by Hugh to go trample in the fields and hedgerows looking for dinner, convinced that we're saving the world. But I don't care. I am willing to let Hugh lead me. Plus, secretly J likes foraging for all the reasons I do (especially the free part). So equipped with a map, my copy of Food for Free and having memorized this weekend's Guardian article on collecting wild garlic, I set off.

My book and the article said that this wild garlic was plentiful right now. That it's an easy thing for the novice forager to find. My thoughts upon entering the large country park near my house were not optimistic though: I didn't see any of this stupid garlic anywhere. It was supposed to look like lily of the valley leaves, but all I saw were rhododendrons. So I kept on riding, long enough for my legs to start aching a bit as I wove through the hilly trails, trying valiantly to not hit the pedestrians and their dogs.

Eventually I got to the river. I had never been down this path before, and although it was pretty packed with Sunday strollers, the banks of the river were thick with bright green leaves. Some would say they looked like lily of the valley, I would say tulips. Propping my bike against a tree, I picked one of these leaves, broke it in two and took a whiff. Garlic! Really green and fresh smelling garlic. Loads of it! This stuff is so easy to find that even a whiny brat in the throes of an imaginary life crisis can stumble across it!

I continued down the path now completely at peace with my place on the earth. I climbed more hills, refrained from mowing down toddlers, gazed at the fat pussy willows that were dotting the riverbanks and spotted some tiny and angry and prickly shoots of rhubarb, remembering their location for another forage a little later on. Ahh! Look at all the things I accomplished. If I had had a to-do list for this bike ride, I would have managed to cross everything off it, I bet. What a lovely ending to my too-short afternoon.

Of course, then the hail started, so I had to rush back, grab some of those garlicky leaves, squash them into my bag and race home. And what did I do with the wild garlic? Well, once again I deferred to Hugh's article and made myself wild garlic scrambled eggs on toast. Eggs may be the most accommodating way to try out a new soft herb. So I whisked two nice fresh, free-range ones in a bowls with s&p, and a dozen tiny cubes of butter. The toast went in at the same time as a blob of butter landed in the saucepan. After it melted, the eggs slipped in too and were quickly worked into soft and pillowy folds. I never used to put butter into the raw egg mixture, but it makes the scramble really delicious and never rubbery. Toast pops, eggs are done and the two are joined together in my stomach.

Next up, a fresh mayo for the dinner that night and some loaves of white bread to dip into it. Now that my legs were all sore and tight from biking, it was time to exhaust my arms. There was a lot of kneading first, and then a lot of whisking while the dough got fat. Sure you could use a food processor to make mayonnaise, but I don't have one and along with foraging and darning, intensive whisking is another useful skill that you'll be really happy I have post-oil. I took four egg yolks and sprinkled them with salt and started to whisk. I wrapped a tea towel around the base of my bowl to stop it moving around so I could continue to whisk and start to add a teensy stream of oil into the mix with my other hand. A tiny thread of oil, really. You have to be so delicate in the beginning, but then you can get a bit rougher later on. I used half sunflower oil and half olive and added it until I liked the consistency of the mayonnaise. And I couldn't stand the burning feeling in my arms anymore. Then I added more salt and about eight chopped leaves of the wild garlic. Lovely. Perfect with the fresh bread. Again, a fresh mayonnaise is a reliable buddy for almost any kind of soft fresh herb. And the bonus about using wild garlic leaves is that the garlic flavour, unlike a normal aioli that can become really overpoweringly if left for a while, is a much more subtle and bright. Although it will intensify after a couple of hours, it won't take over.

So, a couple of hours after thrashing around my bed in a panic of uselessness I had discovered a new bike path, found and experimented with a new plant, exercised all my limbs to the point of collapse, baked bread, made a mayonnaise and a tasty lunch. And it was still light outside. And it was finally time for me to put on my new shoes. 

Comments

[Katie]

Yup, it was a 1" button kind of day. P.S. I'm excited about your magazine finally launching. I'm sure it's not stupid and it's almost done. xxxxxxxk

[JEREMY McCormick]

"Everything is stupid and I never get anything done." i might have to make that into a 1" button

[Katie]

Don't toy with my emotions, cruel comment-leaver. Not a funny April Fool's. Well, a bit, I guess.

[Hugh]

Have you tried sorrel? Its in season now and its great in salads, soups or blended into a drink..I'm writing about it in next weeks Guardian