MAY MUSINGS
Seasonal stories and notable happenings from the team behind Ochre Botanical Studios.
Thank you for joining us here!
For the coming weeks and hopefully months you’ll find us happily face-deep in ambrosial handfuls of delicious sweet peas. And so this month our musings have been given over, completely and utterly, to those very flowers. A little gathering of words and pictures fully dedicated to Lathyrus odoratus, fluttering heartbreakers of the summer garden.
“Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.”
– John Keats, 1817
Since forever, sweet peas have been beguiling anyone who has even ever so slightly brushed past one, daring them to resist their heavy honeyed scent and decadent, quivering ruffles. Here we have Keats loving them over two hundred years ago, likening them to dancing butterflies. And it’s a perfect analogy. Synonymous with warmer weather coming in and with an ethereal beauty that catches everyone’s attention.
It’s said that Victorians looked upon sweet peas as a symbol of blissful experience, and even today talk of sweet peas often tips one head over heels into delicious nostalgia. There’s something about them that takes you deep, back to playing and laughing in summer gardens heavy with the warmth of afternoon sun and to the dusky vintage powder puffs of your grandmother’s dressing table. It’s testament to the real strength of these flowers (despite how flimsy they might look) that although these rosy-tinted memories might never have belonged to you, sweet peas will sure make you think that they did. Gentle and kindly temptresses that they are.
Earlier this week, knowing that this month’s musings would hopefully end up being an ode to one of our collective favourite flowers, I ventured to the Ochre garden and cut a few stems and tendrils from the peas that have recently unfurled in our polytunnel. The Scottish summer so far hasn’t warmed the earth quite enough to get the outdoor plants romping, but we know that they won’t be far behind (we hope that they won’t be too far behind). Gathered together in a little glass milk bottle, these jewel-like treasures came home with me, dare I say capturing the hearts of almost all of my fellow bus travellers along the way.
Once home and when offered a really perfectly formed little bowl made by Blanc Ceramics to climb into, my tangle of tendrils with a scattering of butterfly winged blooms pretty much arranged themselves. The arabesque line of a sweet pea tendril really needs little intervention.
My only real job was to find some books to perch the bowl on, and I selected the following: From Seed to Bloom by Milli Proust because setting an alarm to buy Alma Proust sweet peas is an annual event; The Frozen Pea Cookbook by Samuel Goldsmith because, well just because; Midweek Recipes by Jess Elliot Dennison because it was the one open on my cookbook stand; and Something from Nothing by Alison Roman not only because the recipes are seductive yet ever so simple and down to earth (not unlike our friend the sweet pea) but also due to its cover being a very, very enjoyable shade of green.
A few photographs, and there it is. A short but very sweet Ode to Sweet Peas.
Reading Corner
Samuel Goldsmith
This book was bought last Christmas for my husband – a fine grower of vegetables – because he has a proper soft spot for frozen peas. And there’s even a whole section devoted to sweet peas – of the cake variety, but still….
MIDWEEK RECIPES
Jess Elliott Dennison
We love Jess. And we love Jess’ recipes too. More recently she has added Weekend Recipes to her bookshelves too. All meals and all days covered.
Staying on theme, there is a very excellent fennel and pea pie recipe in Midweek Recipes that has become a regular go-to in a couple of Ochre households.
Buy both of these books – plus many other delightful things – via the Elliot’s Studio website.
Cynthia Fan
Not a cook book. And with very little to do with peas. But beautifully written and complied by our very own and dearest Cynthia. You’ll likely spot a fair few of the Ochre crew smiling in the audience when Cynthia comes to Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh for an in conversation event with art historian Anne Daffertshofer next month (Wednesday 10th June).
Tickets available here.
Until next time...
