Today I harvested the first bouquet of kale this year. I roasted the kale Melissa Clark style, at 450 degrees with lots of olive oil and tossed it with a Melissa Clark-inspired yogurt-garlic-lemon juice dressing. Topped with toasted walnuts, half an avocado and fresh chives from the garden, it was fabulous.

“Dinner: Changing the Game” is my current favourite cookbook and features Melissa Clark’s fast (less than 45 minutes), tasty and adaptable recipes. I was introduced to the book through a cookbook club (cook bookclub? cookbook bookclub?) started by my friend Sarah. I am already part way through our next book, “Salt Fat Acid Heat” by Samin Nosrat. Although Melissa’s book has changed how I cook, Samin’s book takes things to a whole new level. She breaks down and describes each of the elements of cooking (as per the title) and teaches the reader how to improvise. Kitchen improv skills are essential for adapting to the sometimes unexpected combinations and quantities of fresh garden produce.

Garden update

Vancouver is still unseasonably cold, but things are growing. The peas and radishes that I planted three weeks ago are sprouting, so yesterday I planted a few more rows of each. I surrounded the pea bed with my new slug-repelling copper ribbon from West Coast Seeds and covered the bed with a frame to hopefully keep the birds from plucking up the sprouts. Still no sign of the fava beans.

Raspberry propagation: advice from the master gardener

One of my largest raspberry canes snapped off after getting weighted down by heavy snow last month. I asked one of my friends (who may or may not be a master gardener*) what I should do and she directed me to this website:   http://homeguides.sfgate.com/replant-broken-raspberry-plant-54577.html

I won’t reproduce the instructions here, except to emphasize that I washed the pots with soap and water and made up the potting mixture exactly as they advised. Each piece had about six leaf nodes, and the plants that I am trying to propagate vary in size depending on how high up the cane that they came from. At this point each of the plants has started to leaf and even flower; I am not sure if I should let them continue leafing or if I should pinch off the leaves. More research required.

*Apparently, being a Master Gardener is like being in Fight Club: the first rule of being a Master Gardener is that you do not talk about being a Master Gardener. Or something like that.