“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said at that literary tea party. Alice and her chums enjoyed a tea time that was riddled with puns, good butter and the illogical chaos of Wonderland. More tea was taken, and hurled overboard in Boston in December of 1773, when the Sons of Liberty, in disguise and under cover of night, tired of excessive taxation without representation, tipped a fortune of imported British tea into the wintery water of Boston Harbor.

Wikipedia says the British tax would have “force(d) the colonists to pay a tax of 3 pennies on every pound of tea” about $31.78 in today’s money.

On May 13, 1774, in broad daylight, citizens of Chester Town, Maryland, boarded the brigantine Geddes at the town wharf and dumped its tea cargo into the Chester River. These local Sons of Liberty listed their grievances, which became known as the Chestertown Resolves: it became illegal to buy, sell or drink tea that had been shipped from England. The Revolutionary War came to the Eastern Shore.

The Chestertown Spy’s records don’t go back as far as 1774, so we can’t confirm all the historical details, but we do like a good tale with feats of derring-do. We plan to enjoy the 250th anniversary of the Chestertown Tea Party that is being celebrated this weekend. The Chestertown Tea Festival is an annual gala with a parade, marching bands, tea party re-enactors, art, history, music, crafts and food. Grab your mob cap, don your tricorn, and polish your shoe buckles and let’s march downtown. Let’s wave at the Sultana. Do you hear the fife and drum? It’s tea time.

We don’t have to pay excise taxes on tea these days, so it’s not just the Brits who enjoy tea. Tea can be a sweet, milky, strong and dark, or mild and pale. It can be a bracing brew in a mug, a translucent teacup, or a tall glass with ice and lemons. Tea can be accompanied by hot, buttered crumpets, or fresh scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream (divine), or with cunning little crustless cucumber or watercress sandwiches, or even a light supper. Also perfect: a cup of scalding tea and a plate of buttered toast. Tea is the omnibus term, and this weekend we will embrace it. We might even find time for a Pimm’s Cup.

NPR is happy to explain the different categories of tea: high tea, afternoon tea, cream tea, elevenses. Tea Categories as Explained by NPR

I’m more interested in tiny elaborate layered tea sandwiches that take hours to assemble, and disappear in a flash. Give me cukes!

CUCUMBER SANDWICHES (for a party)
(For yourself, 4 slices of bread should do it.)
1 English cucumber, peeled and sliced
Maldon Salt, for extra crunch
32 slices soft white sandwich bread
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
Freshly ground black pepper

Stack the slices of bread and cut off the offending crusts. Spread each slice with softened butter, evenly. Put the cucumber rounds on half the slices of bread, overlapping the rounds slightly. Sprinkle salt and pepper and top with the remaining bread slices. Cut into triangles. Devour.

These are totally adorable sandwiches, and what a genius move to use cookie cutters! Tea Sandwiches

These scones are extremely popular at Claridge’s in London. They are equally tasty if baked at home: Scones

Tea doesn’t have to be a fusty or class-conscious ritual. It does require a little planning, a little shopping, a little ahead-of-time-prep. You don’t need to stick your pinky out – we are proud Americans. No pretense is necessary or tolerated. This is the perfect weekend to celebrate the American Revolutionary spirit. Nothing says radical, anti-monarchist thinking more than a tray crowded with a platter of beautiful, crustless sandwiches and tiny cakes, some delicate bone china, and gleaming, well-polished, ancestral silver!

“If you are ever passing my way, don’t wait to knock! Tea is at four, but any of you are welcome at any time!”
– Bilbo Baggins

Tomorrow is Saturday, a day chock-a-block with adventure potential. Who wants to sleep late when the farmers’ markets are open and the fresh produce is gleaming? Or because Luke the wonder dog is wriggling and curvetting at the first sign of the rosy-fingered dawn? It’s not even six o’clock, and we are stumbling through the house, making coffee, making plans.

Our local farmers’ market is downtown, about a ten-minute drive away. Some of you might be lucky enough to live just a stroll or a bike ride away from the market. We bid a fond adieu to Mr. Wiggles, who is suddenly overcome with the need for a morning nap. We climb into the car, clutching our souvenir Trader Joe’s tote bags, and head out to hunt and gather fruit and vegetables for the week ahead.

After parking, we walk around a couple of dozen stalls of tempting seasonal fruits, vegetables, flowers, crafts, organic eggs, jewelry, seafood, soaps, and coffees. The people were just as varied: yoga pants people, plump; madras shorts-wearing folks; a young pastel-y Lilly Pulitzer family; some earnest old folks striding around in their Hokas and athleisure-wear, fresh from the Y. Poor Luke. Don’t tell him what he missed. There were all sorts of foods that he would have enjoyed: kettle corn, sausage biscuits, a fallen scoop of ice cream…

We stood in one line for some ears of local blueberries – it’s blueberry season here. Then we found another line for some new potatoes. The farmer told us as he manipulated the digital scale that he had dug the potatoes on Thursday afternoon. We love a good backstory. And then we got in the car, hoping that it was time for Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, as we turned towards Luke and home. We could have saved time and just buzzed over to the grocery store to make our produce purchases, but it was a worthwhile adventure to get out and meet the folks who raise, grow, and dig our food. It is a sunny beginning to summer.

Now it’s your turn. Go out to your farmers’ market tomorrow and buy some kettle corn, and eat an ice cream cone. Buy some jewel-like radishes and a pint or two of blueberries. Pat some dogs. And maybe you’ll bake some Blueberry Breakfast Cake for tomorrow morning.

The Preakness is being run this weekend at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Do you have all the makings for The Black-Eyed Susan at home? It is a heady mix of vodka and bourbon, shaken with peach schnapps, orange juice, and sour mix.

Cambridge Farmers Market
May – October – Thursdays, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Farmers’ Market at Long Wharf

Chestertown Farmers’ Market

Saturdays, 8:00 AM to Noon
High & Cross Streets & Fountain Park

St. Michaels Farmers’ Market

Saturdays, 8:30 AM-11:30 AM
206 S. Talbot St., St. Michaels, MD, 21663
The St. Michaels Farmers’ Market is closed this week, due to the annual Running Festival, but you should go next week.

Easton Farm Market

Saturdays, 8:00 AM-1:00 PM, Rain or Shine
100 Block of North Harrison Street, in the municipal parking lot

Kent Island Farmers’ Market

Thursdays, 3:30 PM-6:30 PM, year-round
Cult Classic Brewery, 1169 Shopping Center Rd. in Stevensville

Centreville Farmers’ Market
Sundays, 9 AM – 1 PM
Town Hall, 101 Lawyer’s Row, Centreville, MD 21617

“We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and then we eat it.”
― Shirley Jackson

This year, Cinco de Mayo is over the weekend. It is going to be a balmy Sunday, when we can throw open the windows, and notice all the new weeds that sprang up overnight in the garden. Mr. Sanders has spotted a proliferation of bunnies in the neighborhood this week while taking Luke the wonder dog out for their morning walk – they are probably gearing up for a festive weekend in our back yard, avoiding the weeds and directing their attention to the tender shoots of basil, and the quivering young, tomato plants.

For your continuing edification, Cinco de Mayo is the annual celebration of the victory of Mexico over France in 1862, at the Battle of Puebla. It is not Mexico’s Independence Day. There is much food, for which we are truly happy. Here is a quick, informative video:
Cinco de Mayo

Bon Appétit is quick to point out that there are many recipes for Mexican foods which are not tacos, but I am sure you can enjoy as many tacos as you wish. Because we are all about food, travel and celebrations:
Mexican Foods That Aren’t Tacos

There will be no mariachi bands entertaining at our house on Cinco de Mayo, but there will be tacos, and maybe some good Mexican beer. And I have to confess that I came to the taco party late. When I was growing up, our spices were limited to Christmas nutmeg, cinnamon for cinnamon toast, black pepper and baking powder. Garlic was an exotic commodity. Red pepper was on the tables at Italian restaurants. I doubt if my mother was acquainted with cumin. We never had Mexican food. My mother’s idea of adventurous ethnic cooking was preparing the annual corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. And so my international food indoctrination came from my peers, as do so many of our seminal experiences

The first tacos I ever had were at my friend Sheila’s older sister’s apartment. Margo was oh, so sophisticated. She was in college, and we adored her and the string of characters who wandered through her tiny beach house. She made tacos regularly, and we mooched often. I learned how to grate the cheese, shred the lettuce, and chop the onions and peppers that went on top of the taco meat, which we browned in a frying pan and then covered with a packet of Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix with a cup of water. I thought fine dining couldn’t get any better than that.

Sheila and I graduated to the scalding hot pewter platters of searing nachos chips and oozy beans at the Viva Zapata restaurant. (I think we were actually more attracted to the cheap pitchers of fruity, blood red sangria, which we drank, sitting outside in dappled shade, under the leafy trees, enjoying watching the colorful parade of amusing passersby.) Gradually we drifted over to Mama Vicky’s Old Acapulco Restaurant, with its dodgy sanitation, and her exquisitely flaming jalapeños hovering on the lard-infused refried beans, in pools of greasy melted yellow cheese. Ah, youth.

We are older now, and take a more sophisticated approach, by following these ideas from World Food and Wine: Sophisticated Ideas for Cinco de Mayo

With winter barely behind us, let’s get ready for summer, with these ears of corn:
Mexican Street Corn

The good folks at Food52, never at a loss for recipes and great ideas, has a page of fantastic drinks, salsas, and guac:
Food52 Cinco de Mayo

We will carve up the season’s first watermelon so we can enjoy the sweet goodness of Merrill Stubbs’ Watermelon Paloma. Yumsters.
Watermelon Paloma

Enjoy yourself. May is truly here.

“It’s spring fever…. You don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”
– Mark Twain

We have had just enough warm weather this month to get us acclimated to the notion of summer, and now it is about to get cooler, but in a zesty, spring-y fashion. (We can wear cotton sweaters – and we won’t have to break out our heavy Icelandic wools.) We know that hot weather will be oppressing us soon enough, but we are still giddy at the prospect of being outside again, getting rosy cheeks and feeling the wind in our hair. Wearing jackets again for a week isn’t too great a set back. By golly, it’s almost picnic weather! It’s almost time to plan going to the beach! Take me out to the ball game!

In a couple of weeks I will be meeting up with some old college chums. We know from experience that it takes too much time to herd us all into a car, agree upon a restaurant, and then drive off to it. It is easier to plan a few meals ahead of time, and have elements of them packed away tidily in orderly Tupperware stacks in the fridge, alongside the beer, cheap white wine and packages of Berger cookies. A certain amount of salad will be necessary to counteract our predictable, massive consumption of Doritos, and the onslaught of Utz sour cream and onion potato chips. We know how to wield our expensive liberal arts degrees for the greater good; the survival of the vaguely fit. We will eat our vegetables.

As a group we will traipse down a small hill, laughing, across the grassy lawn, to a wood picnic table on a floating dock on the glossy Chester River for some of our evening picnic meals. Everyone will carry a dish, or a container, a tablecloth and the wine bottles, down to the dock, where we can sit and watch the birds come home from work, just before sunset. There will be cocktails. And laughter.

These veggie delights are easily prepared, fresh and delicious, loaded with nutrients and anti-oxidants. We will merrily enjoy waterside al fresco interludes before we get down to the evening business of frying up crab cakes and talking. Another night will require steamed crabs. Last night lobsters? Sure thing! And once we have laid waste to the food supplies, like so many locust, we will depart. A good time will be had by all.

For your own picnic season, consider the following:

Go for some fresh, sweet peas, radishes and mint leaves – pink and green for springtime!
Pea Salad with Radishes

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Berry Salad – good for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or at midnight when you just can’t sleep yet

Here is a chickpea salad that gets more deelish in the fridge. Perfect to take down to the dock, and easy to make ahead: Chickpea Salad

We should have this on our first night, since we don’t know when everyone will be getting in, and then no one needs to hover over a stove, missing out on our endless hilarious recollections: Avocado Chicken Salad
Add a dash of giggles, some wine, and be thankful that we outgrew our impecunious penchants for Old Milwaukee and Gallo French Columbard.

Pizza was vital in college. We certainly haven’t outgrown it, thank goodness, but we don’t live on it anymore. Maybe a sophisticated spinach salad with mozzarella and pepperoni will scratch that Memory Lane itch:
Pizza Salad

Martha always has the answer. Here is her daughter’s chopped salad recipe that she enjoys feeding to her children. We will have regressed to giddy young things, so it is entirely perfect: Alexis’s Chopped Salad

TikTok Summer Salads are very trendy! No one sends me free samples of Chili Crunch, but I did spend a lot on the same jar of Momofuko Chili Crunch in a chichi wine shop last week. It is overpriced, but not over-hyped.
TikTok Pepper Salad

Next week Food Friday will be a repeat of a previous cooking experience while I am off searching for my lost youth. Enjoy the beginning of picnic season, and lacrosse season, and baseball, and going to the beach. Keep some Tupperware salads handy in case of adventure!

“Never plan a picnic’ Father said. ‘Plan a dinner, yes, or a house, or a budget, or an appointment with the dentist, but never, never plan a picnic.”
― Elizabeth Enright

Ah, spring! Yesterday it was warm and sunny, with gentle zephyr breezes, and drifts of swirling white dogwood petals. Luke the wonder dog and I sunned ourselves on the back porch, placidly watching as the crazy robins bobbed and weaved at the birdbath, while the territorial mockingbirds and the alarmist wrens shouted from the sidelines. Today it is raining, with spewing wind gusts, and the new, minute chartreuse leaves on the pecan trees are whipping back and forth in the wet. Not a good day for walking a dog who does not like to get his feet wet, but an excellent day for the nascent basil farm we planted this weekend.

Mr. Sanders and I generally keep a basil plant on the windowsill by the kitchen sink. One of us will remember to water it, usually. I like to take cuttings and root them in small clear glass bottles alongside the mothership basil plant, just to give the cuttings a clear, aspirational example of what we expect from them. That way we will always have a bounty of basil for our insatiable summer pesto appetites. This weekend I planted a batch of rooted cuttings in the new planter we made by the front door. The basil leaves are already adding bright green to the re-purposed copper fire bowl that we filled with Martha-approved dirt, and planted with candy tuft, alyssum, pink petunias, nasturtium seeds, some trailing variegated vincas and electric blue lobelia. Beautiful, and practical: our own tiny victory garden. Maybe this weekend we will get around to planting some tomatoes in the raised bed out back, though first I need to redistribute the tulip and daffodil bulbs, now that they have blazed through their springtime beauty.

Mr. Sanders introduced me to pesto back in our courting days. He was so sophisticated, with a knotty pine shelf of spiral-bound Time/Life Foods of the World cookbooks. Obviously, I was easily impressed. We still have the Italian cookbook – the other books have been lost over time, and this is the recipe that we continue to follow.

Pesto alla Genovese

Makes about 1-1/2 to 2 cups

2 cups fresh basil leaves, stripped from their stems, coarsely chopped and tightly packed
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons finely chopped pine nuts or walnuts
1 to 1-1/2 cups olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated imported sardo, romano, or Parmesan cheese

Combine the coarsely chopped fresh basil, salt, pepper, garlic, nuts, and 1 cup of olive oil in the blender jar. Blend them at high speed until the ingredients are smooth, stopping the blender every 5 or 6 seconds to push the herbs down with a rubber spatula.

The sauce should be thin enough to run off the spatula easily. If it seems too thick, blend in as much as 1/2 cup more olive oil. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and stir in the grated cheese.

Nowadays they are many variations on the pesto theme. You can stick with the traditional basil pesto (and the mortar and pestle, although now we use a small food processor) or branch out to spinach pesto, even kale, or parsley, or arugula. Sometimes we skip the pine nuts, which can be expensive. But we never skimp on the garlic. Ever.

Non-Basil Pestos

Pesto Variations

When you get your bumper harvest and make huge batch of pesto sauce one evening, pour the rest in a jar, and stick it in the fridge for emergencies. You can add it to your Friday night pizza, or spread some on leftover bread with Monday night pasta. It even makes a deelish baked potato topping.

It might be a damp and rainy day today, but the basil is enjoying the rain, which means we can look forward to the first joyful summer meal. And then some.

“To share a table with someone is to share everything.”
― Paul Krueger

Spring has sprung, and one of the first harbingers of the joyous season of renewal is the deliciousness that is asparagus. Maybe you are the hardy sort who plants it, or you are like the rest of us, and you are a very loyal consumer. Either way, it’s time. Get out there and plant, or go out and buy a big, verdant bunch of super fresh asparagus.

Just to let you know what sort of household I live in – my children thought that pickles were green, leafy vegetables. It was difficult to get them to eat anything exotic (read: healthy) from the produce section. I have never been a big fan of stinky, cooked vegetables either, so they must come by it naturally. It wasn’t until I went to college that I finally ate a cooked pea. Mostly because there was no one in the dining hall who would accommodate my eating peccadillos. I drew the line at stewed Brussels sprouts that were served; talk about stinky!

I still don’t like vegetables that have been stewed beyond recognition. (As I also resist kale on principal. Along with tofu, veal, offal and tripe.) Aren’t we lucky there are so many ways to enjoy asparagus? Lightly roasted, gently steamed, broiled, wrapped with bacon, folded into pasta, trembling on the edge of ancestral china, lightly dusted with grated egg yolks, rolled in sesame seeds, on top of pizza, in a quiche… Asparagus might not be quite as versatile as the potato, but you can bake it, grill it, stir fry it, roast it, steam it, or toss it into a salad.

How about some tasty asparagus tips in your eggs on Sunday morning? Don’t feel like a big dinner production? Get out a baking sheet and fire up the broiler. In a few minutes, with a judicious drizzling of olive oil, a fistful of salt, and a quick squeeze of lemon, you have an elegant dish that you can eat with your fingers out on the back porch as you count the first fireflies of the season.

The Crown and Saltburn gave us glimpses of the posh life in Britain. Did you know that unless the asparagus is served with sauce, it is only polite to eat it with your fingers? Even King Charles eats it that way. According to the Times and Debrett’s: “Asparagus is always eaten with the left hand and never with a knife and fork.” It is a fun fact to know just when you are getting ready for the first picnic of the season. The Times on Asparagus

This might be too messy to eat with your fingers, but it is worth a try: Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Tarragon Tart I love the fact that there is no shame in using a store-bought puff pastry – life is short and pastry can be tricky.

Look at this lovely asparagus salad! It is a vision of springtime with radishes, peas, asparagus, spring onions, and mint leaves. Asparagus Salad

Here are three different ways to cook asparagus

Mass quantities of farm-fresh spring fruits and vegetables are ready for you to gobble up: The farmers’ market has been a delight! (The St. Michaels Farmers Market opens for the season next week: SMFM )

Have you seen the heaps of asparagus at the grocery store? Holy smokes. We need to have a spargelfest like they do in Germany. Spargelfest It sounds more crowded than visiting tulips in Holland, or braving the beer-loving folks in Germany at Oktoberfest.

Enjoy springtime!

“Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?”
– Curly Howard

Last week I regaled you with tales of our family’s predilection for chocolate desserts. We find almost every occasion is perfect for celebration with a confection that is both sweet and chocolate-y. Converserly, in a parallel universe, we also find garlic the consummate accompaniment when eating savoury foods. As I type this I am thinking fondly of the garlic bread we had with dinner last night. (I walked through a cloud of garlic when I come in the front door a couple of hours ago – a good 14 hours after dinner.) At lunch today I will have a nice fat kosher dill pickle, that is redolent with garlic. There is fresh garlic in our salad dressing. Mr. Sanders rubs garlic on Saturday night steaks. Garlic is infused in many of our non-chocolate foodstuffs.

Years ago, when our children were young, I would be hard pressed to find an activity to occupy our younger child, while the elder was busily occupied at preschool for the morning. By the time we returned home from the pre-school drop-off run it would almost be time to turn around for the pre-school pick-up. So some bright sunny days we would drive into the little historic downtown to look for adventure. It was early enough in the day that the shops hadn’t opened, so we walked and explored, visiting favorite cat-sighting sites, looking into alleys, poking our noses around corners. We would visit the bakery, where Kim and Jim would delight us with warm loafs of fresh epi bread, and stickers from the flour sacks. The couple of restaurants would be prepping for dinner; the tiny French bistro and the neighborhood pizza joint (known primarily for its garlic knots), and we could smell browning onions and garlic, as we strolled to the riverwalk and a bench where we could watch the river traffic. We would hope for the exciting action of a railroad train slowly journeying past, à la Thomas the Tank Engine, his most current obsession. We sat in the sun, gnawing on warm, crusty bread, smelling garlic, kicking our heels against the hollow metal legs of the bench. We weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere. It was a slow morning of good smells, friendly folks, and the bright sun reflecting on the choppy river.

I find that much of my cooking experience is trying to recapture happy meals. Sometimes we try to reconstruct the taste of a childhood meal. Sometimes it is to copy a restaurant meal from a carefree vacation. We like the succor of the familiar. I will never get it just right, but every time I make a spaghetti sauce I am trying to recreate my mother’s – and my mother was not a fancy cook; she was trying to get food on the table every night, economically, using up leftovers, foregoing ultra-processed store-bought jar sauces, just like us. We are busy and harried and worn to a frazzle. Having a little time to make garlic bread, to release a cloud of garlic-y, homey aroma, is a small blessing.

I, little Miss Middle Class me, used to feel sad for the royal family, because the Queen would not allow garlic to be served at any meal. She was conscious of the lingering after-effect of garlic, and feared breathing odoriferous second-hand garlic into the faces of the many folks who came to meet her. So sad. My manners aren’t that good. If I shook your hand today you would know about my garlic consumption. Be warned!

The love of garlic might have by-passed the current King’s table, but Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, who married the Queen’s grandson, Prince Harry, is monetizing garlic. She has just announced a new brand she is launching: American Rivieria Orchards. One of the products she is rumored to be marketing is a prepared “garlic-based spread.” Take a page out of my mother’s book: save money – make memories! Meghan Debuts New Brand, American Riviera Orchard, Amid Royal Family Drama

We always look to our friends at Food52: Crispy Garlic Dip

If you want a garlic-y dip for your perfect pommes frites try Aioli

This is a good one to make in bulk and keep on hand for all sorts of garlic needs: Garlic Butter

PBS weighs in on Garlic Bread

Roasted Garlic Spread

In case you hunger for even more garlic, feel free to try:
Julia Child’s Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Or:37 Garlic Recipes for Those Who Think One Clove Is Never Enough

And you don’t need to take my word for it:

“Garlic is divine. Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.”
― Anthony Bourdain

“Disclaimer: there will be copious amounts of garlic in the sauces and dressings, and you will leave whiffy and unsnoggable.”
–Grace Dent, The Guardian