During the growing season, from early in the spring until late in the fall, Bette and I get a good deal of the food from Bette’s garden.  Bette’s the principal grower and I am the principal “cook,” if you call cutting salad greens out of the garden and mixing them with vinegar and oil, “cooking.”

In Portland, you can find “local eats” at some restaurants, too.  Not quite as local as Bette’s garden, just outside our office door, but pretty local.  One of the reasons we keep going back to Meriwether’s Restaurant in Portland is the local veggies.  It isn’t just that they serve them; it’s that they pitch them.

Here’s a section from the menu:

This spring has been a little dry for our taste, so the rain we got mid-week was mighty welcome!  The plants we have planted out in the field are now chard, lettuce, kale, and cabbage.  It is exciting to think that by May or June, the kale will be ready for harvest.  Until then, we have overwintered kale to harvest..

This notice comes, it says at the bottom of the page, from Caitlin Blood, Farm Hand.

You could say that is just marketing, but I don’t think it is “just” marketing.  Bette ordered pasta primavera, which means pasta with “first greens” and first greens is what came with the pasta—little leaves of kale and some raab.[1]

According to the menu, this week they are harvesting: collard greens, kale raab, thyme, leeks, fingerling potatoes, cabbage raab, salad greens, tatsoi raab, and chives.  It’s enough to keep us going back at least until Bette’s garden starts to kick in.