Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

edible flowers

– Me thinks foraging for edible flowers is the next locavore food trend. Jakesg:

I was camping out at a friend’s farm near La Center, Washington (State) earlier this summer and when we all awoke he had prepared a breakfast of squash flowers. They were breaded and stuffed with an amazing omelet. Uneffinreal.

erica:

i don’t know about marigolds, but i freaking love nasturtiums.

– Are rice cookers cheating? ES readers say no way. Summer:

Using a rice cooker can’t possibly be considered cheating! Rice cookers are standard equipment in Asian kitchens, so in my opinion, it’s not cheating any more than it would be cheating to use an electric stove to boil water for pasta. I dearly love my rice cooker, and use it several times a week.

– And of course every ESer has their own theory about who got Padma Knocked up:

Read More

Flowering Ideas

flowers-1-398-x-600

When I was home for Rosh Hashana last weekend I climbed into DAD GANSIE’s garden and captured a bagful of tomaotes. Some green, some greenish red, some bursting red.

The cucumbers had long been pickled. The carrots weren’t ready to be plucked.

But I wanted more to take home.

And then all of a sudden, I started talking about my mom’s flowers. And how they looked delicious. I’ve seen edible flowers on menus before. I didn’t know much about them. Like all things in life, a quick google search showed me what flowers I could munch on. Luckily, marigolds fit into that category.

We performed some taste tests before I made my mom mine her entire plot. My mom, dad and I (my sister refused) each tried a bite. It was bitter, but not terrible. I went in for a second taste, this time with a petal dipped in salt. Like all things dipped in salt, it became much more enjoyable to eat.

With my mom hysterically laughing, clipping flowers from the backyard, I am now in possession of some seriously beautiful marigolds. Currently, the stems lay in water, in a proper vase, pretending they’ll wilt to their death right there. But my stomach knows better.

I will eat these little bursts of orange. Of course, I have no idea how to incorporate them into a meal. And I refuse to wuss out of this and toss them with greens.

Perhaps in a pasta salad with herbs and feta?
Baked into an egg dish?
Stirred into guacamole?

Ideas please!