Spring walks

In the midst of this seemingly never-ending lockdown, finding motivation to get out and do stuff is getting harder, I find anyway I know I’m not the only one. There is a beautiful walk near to the house that is quite long and is tough going in parts, it’s a beautiful place to find peace and quiet away for the 4 walls that are closing in ever faster as the days go by in the mental countdown to get back to work, into a kitchen, back to the humm of the combi oven firing up. The whoof of the gas lighting on the ring the rattle and bang of a pot or a pan. The eternal “I busy” followed by laughter from the kitchen porter, even the sound of this rings in my head as I write this piece, brings a smile to a dull evening

Anyway, tangent and mental word soliloquy over (thanks Alexa). While wandering now through the forest I can’t help notice the herbs, flowers, catkins, mushrooms and shrubs all start to wake from their winter hibernation.
Every year around this time we begin to plan for a wild garlic forage, with a group in a forestry, I know it seems totally foreign at the moment, it’s not just wild garlic that’s coming up at the moment, there is a multitude of different greens, over the next few pieces I’ll be talking about different ones and their uses, not in a fancy manner just humble food, everything from wood sorrel to primroses, from chickweeds to nettles, yes you read that right nettles.
It is spring time and the vast majority of our natural mineral reserves are depleted after the winter, on a typically Irish food diet now we do have supplements and a wider variety of foods available to us than we ever had before, which has lessened the knowledge that we generally have about the world around us, people are often surprised when they see me in a ditch or of a beaten track picking stuff, I will nearly always get asked what have you got there, how will you use that now, I didn’t know you could eat that, or Ive got that near the house or in a flowerbed and never knew you could eat it and dismissed it as a weed.
I love this type of interaction, as I can see them smile and that makes me feel that little bit happier, whether or not they do anything with it, doesn’t faze me at all if they do, they do if they don’t well, they don’t I’m not going to force myself or my opinion on anyone, for some people its too far outside a comfort zone and that’s ok, for others they will give it a go and think yes, this is for me or no, not a hope thanks, but no thanks.
There is a book that we have put together for uses of wild garlic available from the website or Croi restaurant, follow the page on Facebook for updates on forages and little titbits of info on a variety of different subjects
As always follow along @chefpaulc