Local Ingredients Ripe For The Picking!

By Jan-Willem Stulp

Not to make it too obvious, but the seasons in Canada seem to be getting more volatile, as time goes on.

I can’t recall a year where, coast-tocoast, the country is getting hammered by tropical atorms and ice storms, cold-snaps and heatwaves in the same week, as well as massive flooding and wildfires.

It makes for a lot of uncertainty in the garden, that’s for sure.

Can you plant, or can’t you? What exactly is your planting zone now? And this is just at the beginning of the warm weather.

At the Grand Oak, we usually have our garden boxes planted and herbs getting picked for garnishing and seasoning.

At the time of this writing, we just had a frost warning, and I’m hoping to get things in the ground in a week or so.

That’s mostly tender herbs though; thankfully. The majority of our perennial garden is doing fine, cold weather notwithstanding.

When we were invited to come back on board for ClubWest Magazine, after a number of years on hiatus, we jumped at the chance, and, given the season, herbs will play a pivotal role this edition.

The trick is to intentionally devise meals or menus that feature what you have in your garden. As always, the closer we are to the source, the purer, more flavourful and nutritious our food can be. Fom your garden to plate is a good goal.

As I mentioned, it has been several years since we’ve connected in this way, so to quickly do a thumb-nail intro, I’m J.W. Stulp, Chef at Grand Oak Culinary Market in Vineland, which I coown with Jane, my wife of 29 years.

When I cook, I trend more towards art, (create as I go) than science (follow a recipe, see what comes out).

My recipes, therefore, are intentionally short, focusing on the core of the dish and encouraging you to modify and experiment to your own taste and sense of adventure.

I try to keep recipes to five ingredients or less, and assume all have salt, pepper, oils, lemons, herbs etc in their culinary repertoire.

Strolling through the garden, here’s what’s coming up: spring onions, lovage, rhubarb, garlic, asparagus, fiddle heads, thyme, lavender, cilantro (self seeded), mint (just invasive) lemon balm, chives, several salad greens, (also self seeded).

There’s probably some honey already, too, but the bees haven’t forgiven me for last fall’s harvest yet, so I’m giving them a few more week. So, that will be our ‘palette’, so to speak, of what we’re going to work with. I imagine you’ll have a variety of these also, perhaps others, but see what intrigues you and go from there. (Chef Stulp co-owns, along with his wife Jane, Grand Oak Culinary Market in Vineland.)