PASTA CON FUNGHI E AGLIO PRIMAVERA NELLA MODA BOB

Yeah, that's sort of the way it happened, I was the last one in on it. It started when I went out to dump some wood ash on the compost pile and I noticed the rampant billboard of new shiitake that had emerged since the weekend.

Whenever that happens out there under the spell of the garden I start thinking of plates full of shiitake in various arrangements but I'm a lover of cuisinal simplicity and it's not salad season so as my mind ground along it came up with a pleasing image, in this case spinning one out of the potato urgency now swelling the tool shed (see previous post), that fact prompting my mental mill to recall the baby garlic that was still standing in the way of complete tuberization, with a deep pause in there to ponder the impressive similarity of the mind's workings to those of Rube Goldberg...

Last year I had finished planting garlic and had the littler cloves left over, regarding which those in the know say Just eat them, but being a contrarian I wanted to learn what would happen if I planted them, in comparison to the larger cloves, so I planted the wee ones in a square meter or so left over from the onions. By the time Spring had rolled around they had come up much smaller than their bigger fellows, nor would they ever catch up and get as big-- no surprise there, upon reflection.

But instead of eating them back in the Autumn as little cloves, I'm eating them now as spritely spring garlic-- or better yet, aglio primavera (there's something Italian about Spring produce) and with a dual purpose (so I can plant those potatoes!). You see how everything ties together here in the mindgarden as in the universe at large, where the interconnections are often less obvious, but don't let that fool you.

So as my mind cuisined along I began to envision sliced aglio primavera sauteing lightly in olio d'oliva awaiting handfuls of thinly sliced, freshly harvested funghi shiitake, tutti nella moda Bob. Topped of course with grated pecorino romano, and an insalata di spinaci on the side, all the better to become yours truly.