a bit of bounty

Last weekend, my sister let me take a bit of bounty from the garden she planted with her three friends. I got some broccoli and an onion. Lots of basil for pesto and I snuck a few apples from one of the trees. But it was the dill and a few plums that really had me inspired! The next day I was eager to photograph them.

Looking at the pictures now, especially the one above, I can't help but feel like dill is kind of a lonely herb. The last kid picked for the team. Forgotten. Maybe I relate to it a little in that way. Or maybe it's just how I shot it - isolated and in a little pile - but I can't help but feel like I want to cheer it up. Let it know that it has always been my favorite herb. And I'm not just saying that! {I had a bit of a panic when I lived in Brooklyn and couldn't find it anywhere. For days I wondered whether tuna would ever be the same....or....potatoes, oh potatoes. I know I wasn't looking very hard, but ultimately I discovered Whole Foods and things eventually returned to normal. But Oh! did I cherish that bottle of dill! }

I would also let it know that like any perfect food it's smell has the power to take me back in time to meals my grandmother made. Lovely Norwegian food - simple (always with potatoes!), unpretentious, satisfying, and always colored with a bit of dill. Plus, I always feel like I'm being a good Norwegian every time I shake a little dill on my food. Like I'm doing my part. Expressing a little Norge pride.

These plums take me back as well - to the same chef, my Beste - they had plum trees outside their home in Seattle and they would inevitably have more than they bargained for. Thankfully, she would use them to make this wonderful plum sauce/pudding/compote, similar to applesauce but with plums. Pour a little cream over it while it was hot and you were in business! So good. I'll try to find the recipe and post in here in the future.

I guess when it's all said and done, in the process of taking these photos I realized that it wasn't a coincidence that I happened to choose these foods to photograph. Both are deeply tied to memories of my grandmother's Norwegian cooking - recipes I know she has only in her head. Recipes and memories I would love to learn from her, maybe even write them down, photograph the process. So that if I am ever a mother, they too, can have similar memories tied to dill...and plums.