good cateress newsletter mar 07

good cateress, newsletter. March/April 07

Last year as I began to formulate the possibility of a newsletter in
my mind, I had always known that the topic for the March newsletter
would be my grandmothers Nettle Soup. It was part of our family lore.
In the early Spring we could not drive from Whippingham to Wootton on
the back road that ran through Brocks Copse without my mother looking
at the side of the road, where the new Stinging Nettles were about 4 -
6 inches high. Nettle Soup she would say with a shudder.

In the depression of the 30’s and then into the war years with its
rationing, each Spring, on Sunday afternoons after church, my
grandmother with her young family would head by bike to Brocks Copse
specifically for the young nettles.

Brocks Copse is a dark wooded area with the old road running through
it, so named for its badgers. However I always thought it was a foxy
place, dark and rather like the wood Beatrix Potter wrote her story of
the fox. I would go there to pick the pale yellow wild primrose, that
makes the nursery bred Primula seem such a tawdry upstart. The
hedgerows would be full of pussy willow and catkins, later in the
Spring there would be some of the few remaining wild daffodils. We
would never tell where these precious remnants of flowers that at one
point had been a carpet of bobbing yellow reminiscent of Wordworths
daffodils in the Lake District; people had dug up the bulbs for their
gardens, where they had for the most part died. On the bend of the
road there is a lone house, my aunt Janette had stayed with her
Grandmother here as a child, she remembered there being no electricity
and the house was lit by candles and paraffin lamps.

So, as a family they would head out to pick the dreaded nettles. My
grandmother made the soup as a Spring tonic to clean the blood of the
winters ailments. Apparently the soup was hugely cleansing and we
were always led to believe that we should be grateful that we were not
made to drink this awful concoction. Although my mother wanted us to
understand clearly that in case of the apocalypse and we survive this
was an easy source of nutrition.

Last summer while visiting dad he had given me my grandmothers recipe
book. I already had my mothers, in which at about the age of 10 I had
began to write my own recipes. There in Mahala’s book was the
infamous recipe for Nettle Soup, I read it, it seemed rather like
Spinach soup and I did wonder what all the fuss must have been about.
As I am rarely in England at this time of year, I have not tried the
recipe for lack of young stinging nettles. I have never seen them
growing here in the US as they do in England, where you cannot walk in
the Country without being stung around your ankles, and you pray for
the lowly Dock leaf to be somewhere nearby so you can rub the dock
leaf on the sting to ease the stinging rash.

So I was really surprised to open both Martha Stewart and Gourmet
magazine this month and find recipes for Nettle Soup. Clearly Carl
Jung's collective unconscious is much in play.

We are slowly inching our way towards my favourite time of year. I
have already began to prepare the soil for planting my garden here in
Harlem. There are signs of growth, although my first daffodils
bloomed on New years day and all through January and now look like a
mess, others are budding. The chives are up and the Clematis are
sending forth their first green shoots. My Basil and Tomato seeds are
in their peat pots on the windowsill.

Then there is the 127th Street Playlot. I have become involved with
the Playlot through the Block Association and working with the
Abyssinian Development Corp. The Playlot has a couple of childrens
play frames, empty planters and tree’s, the magnolia is getting ready
to bloom. We have just won a small but significant grant from
Citizens for NYC.

The award ceremony was one of my great moments in NYC. There were
awards large and small given to various groups from all five boroughs,
all made up of people from all walks of life and nationalities,
interested in improving their neighborhoods and exchanging information
abut where to get more help. Ranging from places like East New York
Farms, an amazing endeavour in Brooklyn that has rescued abandoned
lots and literally turned them into a neighborhood farm, to groups
like our Block Association who are just beginning to make that change.

We have a difficult time ahead of us. We began with a clean up day on
Saturday and we can now see what we need to do. We have a lot of
empty beds but hopefully with the help from various New York charities
we can get plants, tools, soil. In the summer we hope to have Yoga
and calisthenics, art and music classes.

I have heard it said many times that one person can make a difference
and for me, West 127th Street is where I would like to do that.

Happy Passover. Happy Easter
--