The Bounty

text and recipe: dina weiss photography: whitney johnson

Financial advisor by day and certified holistic nutritionist by night, Dina Weiss, shares her love for gardening and the family history that inspires her to pass along the age old tradition of growing what you eat.

As the weather has warmed unseasonably over these last few weeks, I have found myself outdoors on a daily basis, not only to breathe in the first hints at the sweet, damp air of spring, but also to check the raw earth that will be this year’s vegetable garden. In all honesty, I have been out there in the garden peeling back the dry tops of my asparagus plants, hoping to find the buds of the year’s earliest crop peeking purple-tinged heads out of the ground. Virtually the minute they rear those heads, which I am expecting any day now, I will take that as a sign from Mother Nature that it is time to plant my tomato and pepper seedlings and get those “cooking” in my new greenhouse.

Now before you envision a masterpiece of artfully angled metal framing, fitted with all manner of beveled glass and built-in fans and radiant-heat flooring, please understand that my greenhouse is rather bare bones. It is smallish, at six feet wide, seven feet high and eight feet deep, and consists of a sturdy metal, powder-coated frame and translucent, weather-resistant fabric, but to me it is the Taj Mahal of all vegetable-growing encasements. For the first year in all my years of gardening, my little seedlings will no longer line the northern interior windows of my house –which means no more eating in the dining room while smelling the naturally fertilized cups of dirt…no more moving flat after flat of tiny green plants in order to simply let the dog out…and most importantly, no more worrying about my plantings sitting on or near the heating vents growing the very mold that often leads to the death of my young plants mere days before they were slated for planting. Indeed our household has seen many a sad beginning to the planting season – one that started with such high hopes and excitement, only to end in the death of so many promising tomatoes and peppers. This will not be that year!

I may not have the most high tech equipment or be the most talented gardener around, but I am dedicated. Even with our unconventional methods a good number of our seedlings do, indeed, survive all the way up through Mother’s Day, which is typically when I like to get my plants into the ground. Mother’s Day is ideal for planting actually (at least in northern

Illinois), not only because the risk of a hard frost has generally passed, but also because it is a day of service dedicated to mom. For me, that means that my kids get to haul out the dungarees, don their work gloves, grab a shovel, and meet me in the back yard with a Happy Mother’s Day smile and attitude. Actually, my kids have always enjoyed digging in the dirt, so this is not as much forced labor as I might make it seem.

I am just one generation off the farm and off of plank-over-dirt flooring, so I guess it is fair to say that gardening is still very much in my blood, and this is truly a legacy I want to pass onto my young daughters. I feel that no matter how urban and perhaps posh their lives may one day become, it is essential that they know and understand where good, healthy food comes from. I know I channel my mom’s mom when I work the soil (she was much more powerful a spitfire than I ever hope to be, despite her mere 4’11” stature) and I would love it if my girls one day channel my own energy in much the same way. Again, could Mother’s Day be a more fitting time for gardening – with each of us novice to expert gardeners outdoors, digging the earth, in homage to our foremothers?

On our little plot of earth this year, we will be planting all heirloom varieties of tomatoes and peppers, as well as zucchini, summer squash, butternut and acorn squash, carrots, Asian radishes, beets, turnips, cucumbers, sweet peas, green beans, sweet and white potatoes, basil, and of course, the early-up asparagus, which is our trouble-free perennial. Our wonderful neighbors, a few years back, asked for advice on planting their own garden, and we were more than happy to help them plot out twelve-inch squares of planting paradise. At that time, we decided collectively that it might make sense to overlap as few plants as possible and to instead share each of our bounties throughout the season. They plant onions, garlic, various lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, and of course tomatoes and peppers – because you can never have enough tomatoes and peppers!

Gardening has not only brought our family closer to our heritage and closer to the earth

Turn to page 71 for the recipe!

and the origins of our food, but it has also brought us closer to our neighbors, providing us with what seems to be the long-lost concept of a sharing community. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to work side-by-side with our neighbors and their young daughter, all of us talking about our lives and our plans and our work. At the end of a long weekend of planting, when the seedlings are all in, and the earth is tamped down and watered, we all get together for a refreshing drink and toast our earthly success, kicking off the growing season with a sense of camaraderie.

We each pick our bounties as they ripen, taking in what our family will eat, and then we take the balance and hang it on the neighbor’s door for them to enjoy. When there is too much for both our families, we pass our veggies down the lane as gifts to our other neighbors.

At the end of the season, which I cannot even contemplate right now with the birth of the season upon us, I like to pick up a few ingredients I do not grow in my garden and make a special End of Garden Gazpacho. In Spain, this cold, healthful beverage is enjoyed not as a soup, as it has come to be eaten here in the States, but as a refreshing drink, much like iced tea. There is no need to wait until the end of the veggie-growing season to enjoy it, however, as it is wonderful anytime. My suggestion is to whip up a batch and sit down to watch Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which is a fantastic Almodóvar film (Spanish language with English subtitles) from 1988 that features Gazpacho throughout.

My recipe does not call for the traditional bread crumbs, as I have modified this to be grain-free. The avocado definitely gives it a heartiness that would otherwise be lost without the bread crumbs. I hope the flavor makes you think of spring, summer, and the beginnings of fall, and that it brings your thoughts of food back to the earth.