The idiomatic expression Salad Days was coined in 1606 by William Shakespeare – the phrase first appeared in his play Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra disclaims: “My salad days, When I was green in judgement: cold in blood, to say as I said then!”
“Salad Days” refers to a distant time of youthful naivety and innocence. The word “green in judgement” is a deliberate play on words, it explains the phrase’s meaning: salads are green, and “green” is often used in the English language to denote someone who is enthusiastically inexperienced.
With summer on our doorstop, this is the month for going green (and dusty pink, aubergine and avocado). I’m simply mad for this range of soothing and peaceful colours, with their earthy natural warmth, they simultaneously and immediately exude a sense of calm as well as carefree country days.
“To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know how much oil, one must mix with one’s vinegar.”
– Oscar Wilde
I’ve picked a harvest of hue-coloured freshness to create a table that breathes a feeling of casual abundance and a sense of summer – I’ve drawn inspiration directly from my budding herb bushes, already heavy with the aroma of mint, rosemary and basil. I wanted to encapsulate salad days and summer ways into a table of garden-freshness and fragrance.
While summer creeps towards us in its infancy, its shower of sunshine and scatter rains have given birth to a freshness, a greenness and seasonal ripeness of new life. At Sandy’s Kitchen, I believe as much as possible to eat local and seasonal – avoid buying out of season fruits and veg, and definitely avoid imported ones, we have our own homegrown variety of choice when it comes to our pick of the crop.
The backdrop for my table setting is a plain timeless Teal Green, the perfect shade up from Duck Egg Green – a neutral and gentle starting point on which to build. You can always substitute for a soft Mint Green, Pale Turquoise or Aquamarine. Next comes my favourite washed Bright Green plates, simply placed atop the tablecloth – they are clothed in three sets of coloured linens, Dusty Pink, Denim Blue and a Floral Lavender Pink coloured print. This trio of colour adds a blush of pink and paints the perfect contrast to the flush of summer green. The silver cutlery causally placed on the napkins is a reminder of the comfortable meal to come, while the single Endive head acts as both the full stop to the place setting and the capital letter to the start of lunchtime conversation – a perfect combo of colour and co-ordination. I have built a centrepiece around a series of layered green textures, colours, hues, shades and shapes to create a garden of homegrown bounty. With a jumble of small oily green, deep red-purpled veined, soft satiny, curly tinged with yellow, fibrous and crunchy stemmed, oval and upright, jagged edged or simply bunches of loose leaves, I have transformed my table into a visually striking garden of glorious summer green.
A profusion of cabbages, red and green, are interspaced with bunches of asparagus, artichokes, broccoli, fennel, chives and potted pansies – heads and bunches of lettuce fill the gaps and overflow from bowls and vases.
Finally, the glassware pulls the tablescape together, each setting headed by a motley band of three, three different coloured, textured and shaped glassware adds a splash of summer setting and flavour to the scene.
Remember this is the season for your freshest and widest variety of veggies, so the choice is yours – you can substitute beans for broccoli, radishes for red cabbage, beetroots for butter lettuce, but always go for a diversity of colour, texture and shape to ensure and maintain a point of interest. Happy harvesting!
“It takes four men to dress a salad: a wise man for the salt, a mad man for the pepper, a miser for the vinegar, and a spendthrift for the oil.”
– Anonymous
This month’s floral design is a continuation of our summer ripened harvest table. Inspired by our local farmers’ market of overflowing baskets of fruit and veggies – I’ve decided that greens not only belong on a plate, but when bunched together make the most spectacular bold bouquet. I have chosen a glass vase to create a sense of continued and airy green, from here I have used structure and height with the larger more solid veggies, the cabbage, kale and spinach, all bunched tightly together before placing them in the vase. The inclusion of green and pink-hued, tight-budded artichokes in the foreground are a fabulously fun inclusion of summer veggie ‘flowers’ – they draw the structure and formality of the arrangement to the foreground. While the whispy sprays of sweet peas and spinach leaves that haphazardly spill from the corners of the vase offer a contrast of soft breezy comfortableness.
Although the arrangement is loose, remember to always create form, working from a high point out to softer edges – developing the arrangement around a subtle triangular shape to create transitions between the ‘foilage.’
Salads are my summer way of life. No longer reduced to lettuce, cucumber and tomato, the salad ‘re’volution has changed the shape of salads from boring to mouth-watering extraordinary. Not too long-ago lettuce comprised of your bog-standard Iceberg, now with a move towards homegrown varieties and combos of herbs and veggies, we have access to a world of beautiful basil, butter lettuce, spinach, dandelion greens and more. With this in mind, I’m dying to share with you some of my favourite freshest salad recipes.
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I use Absolute Organix’s Organic Fruit & Veg Spray religiously. Sadly, most of our store brought ‘fresh’ fruit and veggies are full of pesticide residues and a quick and easy spritz of this new powerful, all-natural organic spray is the best way to safely eliminate harmful microbes from fresh produce. It also extends freshness. Simply spray, rinse and eat (or leave on to extend freshness).
With the rise of healthy conscious eating, the farmer’s market has sprouted and can even be found weekly in most small towns and villages. The organic street cred of ethically farmed fruit and veggie produce is growing rapidly in popularity – with their policies of no synthetic fertilisers, herbicides and or pesticides it’s really a no brainer for a healthier lifestyle.
The grass is sometimes greener on the other side, with my recent visit to Cape Town, I made time to visit two talked about and very different markets. The first, is the twice weekly Earth Market in Tokai, (https://www.earthfairmarket.co.za) sandwiched between a parking lot and the back end of Builders Warehouse, it seems an odd destination for a touch of green, but the long-haired predominantly barefooted folk that frequent this market seem to be unaware or simply unphased by its surrounding concrete jungle. This Wednesday early evening and Saturday morning market is a favourite amongst locals – platters of oozy Greek Melanzane, lamb and lentil stuffed samoosa’s, freshly baked breads, flowers, fruit and veggies clutter up the stands – spoilt for choice with a selection of organic meats by artisan butcher, Meet the Butcher, a selection of chilled craft beer on tap, from biryani, to burgers, vegan to veggies this market is a winner for the unshowy, down-to-earth type, no posing, just honest good grub. (*All photos of Earth Market in Tokai are taken from their social media pages).
The second, the Orangezicht Saturday market (https://ozcf.co.za/market-day/) and more recently Sunday morning market – slightly more refined, and definitely in the showier category, this market ticks all the Conde Nast chic boxes – it emanates country charm, albeit slightly contrived and a lot more expensive, it’s a fabulous morning out with an array of delectables. From; local cheese and preserves, breads, cold meats, olives and a selection of garlicky dishes, creamy spreads, foraged and cultivated mushrooms, this market will have you salivating in seconds. It’s a difficult choice for breakfast, from pies to pastries to pancakes – there are eggs done every which way with everything in between. Just a tip, don’t go in a rush, this is a busy market and the queues are generally long, but friendly – so ensure you’ve had your caffeine intake before you get there. And once your appetite is sated, don’t forget to get your fill of handpicked and sorted veggies – the choice is large, fresh and seasonal.
With the markets behind me and still in Cape Town, I was on the hunt for the perfect veggie garden – and I wasn’t disappointed. I was simultaneously delighted and enthralled by two parallel veggie ‘gardens’ one in all its magnificent and grandiose splendour, the food gardens of Babylonstoren, and the other a haphazard, but equally loved and tended to garden of Willem – the 84 year old retired Estate agent who has turned his green fingers into a small but sustainable industry.
Babylonstoren is a place of dreams, of magic and wonder – it’s breathtakingly spectacular and requires a mandatory visit for all. With plenty of space and fresh air, this working farm is encouraged and cultivated to thrive and grow with a host of gardeners headed up by Liesl van der Walt. The garden is made up of over 300 varieties of plants, and all have either an edible or medicinal value – with “15 clusters spanning vegetable areas, stone and pome fruits, nuts, citrus, berries, bees, herbs, ducks and chickens, a prickly pear maze and more.” Natural streams and ponds feed this free-range life, keeping it ready for harvest all year long. The feathery friends of this farm live a genuinely free-range and happy life, waddling slowly between visitors for their daily plunge.
Visits to the gardens take place daily and start at 10h00 in front of the Farm Shop. Your guide is one of the many experienced gardeners who will leave you a lot more educated than before and with the touch, taste and smell of Babylonstoren on your fingertips.
For more details view the garden map see below https://babylonstoren.com/assets/pdf/Garden_Map.pdf
I came across Willem’s while meandering through the back roads of Somerset West – his crumbled down manor house still dustily reminiscent of its Cape Dutch vernacular, with a real-life living history barn that had housed the Voortrekkers oxwagen and cattle some 160 years before stood stoically in the foreground. However, it wasn’t the architecture of the property that gave in to my curiosity, but rather the enormous brightly painted sign that screamed “Willem’s fresh vegetables and herbs text 082 565 2098” – a somewhat serendipitous encounter seeing that this month’s lifestyle blog is all about green. I quickly manhandled my car to his front gate and after a few missed calls, and couple of hoots later, I emerged into a sprawling overgrowth of vegetable and herb heaven – not to mention avocado’s like I’ve never seen or tasted before. Willem initially kept shyly to himself, while we were greeted by June his 82-year-old wife, who ethereally emerged from the Manor house to welcome me. Walking around the grounds it was clear to see the ghostly resemblance of what would have once been gracious grounds and a stately home, now sadly encroached by development and urban decay. I slowly walked and talked to June in a mix of my broken Afrikaans and her broken English, she delighted me in the tales of the farm and then introduced me to the man of the manor – Willem.
Willem, is rather long than tall and a slightly bent gentleman of 84, retired as an Eiendomsagent (estate agent) some 4 years ago, he has since turned his hand to the soil, pulling weeds and brambles to transform his land into a sustainable way of living. He has ploughed and planted rows and rows of lettuces, spinach, beetroots, chives, rocket, cabbages and rows and rows of everything else. His citrus trees are swollen with the brightest, biggest lemons, while his avocado trees are weighted down with fat and fleshy avo’s. He sells plants that he has had propagated and reared, all flourishing and ready for a new home.
This organic farm holds all sorts of treasures, but my favourite was Willem closely followed by his side kick second-hand beat-up pitbull – which he rescued from a dog fighting set up, and since never left his side. This farm is a country jewel, not only for its organic fresh produce that it provides to the surrounding area but for its history, its heart-warming tale and most importantly its people.
Try your hand at your very own veggie garden with our top workshop pics for veggie gardens:
https://www.soilforlife.co.za/courses-and-workshops