Now a whole week of May has passed. The daffodils and forsythia are in full bloom, leaves are popping on the perennials and shrubs and the whole field is green. The cows are enjoying their time in the field. The greenhouse is bursting and the more hardy plants are in the big garden. I have been making garlic salt. Don peels the cloves and I process them and add the salt. The smell of them in the oven overnight is enough to almost make you sick- either that or want to get out of bed and cook something redolent of their powerful scent. Eggplant and tomatoes would be nice but it’s not time for them yet. After one day in the oven with the pilot light turns the mixture into a sheet of salt-garlic crystals. I scoop them back into the processor and chop them to fine granules and put them in the oven another night. If they remain fine they are ready to bottle and give to friends.
This week in cooking
Seafood Primavera
This dish is spectacular if made carefully at the last minute. Each part of the dish needs to be briefly cooked, not overcooked and added to the whole along with the cream, wine and lemon. You can use other fresh spring vegetables as well. Just be careful to choose ones that don’t overpower the delicate seafood flavors.
I was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey to Mildred Shropshire and Theodore Felsberg Jr. I was raised in Galloway Township and graduated from Oakcrest High School in southern New Jersey in the Sigma 67 Class in 1967. I attended Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and graduated from Stockton University in Galloway, NJ, in 1974 with degrees in Philosophy, English Literature, and (almost) music. After that, I taught piano to local children and adults in the 70s and 80s, had a catering business, "Jean's in the Kitchen," from 1980 to 1992, then went to graduate school at Rutgers Camden to obtain my Masters's Degree in Social Work. Since 1996 I have worked as a therapist and counselor, first in New Jersey for five years and then, when our family moved to Maine, in Augusta, Maine, for five years. For the past 17 years, I have had a private psychotherapy practice in Gardiner, Maine, During the pandemic, I packed up and moved my office home to Washington, Maine. On the year of my seventieth birthday, I decided to write and self-publish a memoir about our parents' World War II romance, Dear Milly. I began blogging on Medium in earnest in 2020 and have posted more than 265 stories, including a block of stories about my catering career which I hope to turn into a book in the next year. I have been writing and collecting poetry since childhood but never showed it to anyone. Recently, I learned how valuable it could be to join a group for feedback and support for my writing. I have taken several courses and written many poems, and recently had several poems accepted for publication. Off in a new direction, again.
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Jean Feldeisen 