Pink Eyed Jim’s Blog

In Eighth Grade, one of my teachers assigned Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine specifically to me to do a book report on. I didn’t quite appreciate it then, but I’ve since reread the book a few times, and it’s just gorgeous. Because of reading that book, I have a strong desire to make dandelion wine myself. I tried once a few years ago, but added too much sugar, and possibly too much yeast, as the brew turned out quite saccharine and potent. This year, I’m determined to try again, and hopefully succeed. So today, I went to Buccleuch Park in New Brunswick, which is only about an eighth of a mile from my house to pick some dandelion flowers. Unfortunately, I fear I was a bit early; most of the dandelions haven’t flowered yet. However, the clover and lilies (which for some reason always make me think of funeral flowers, I don’t know why) were blooming away happily.

All was not lost. Even though the dandelions weren’t flowering yet, there were plenty of nice, small, tender Dandelion Greens and the fields here are simply overrun with Wild Garlic. So I picked some of both and headed home.

Here are some pictures of Buccleuch Park and some pictures to help you identify dandelion greens and wild garlic.

Dandelion Greens.

Dandelion Greens 2

Wild Garlic Sprouting

Wild Garlic Sprouting

A little clearing in the woods along a creek. It’s hard to believe this is New Brunswick.

Vertical shot of the above clearing.

A long-disused stone staircase leading down to the creek in the above picture. It’s been nearly covered by trees and bushes.

Vertical shot of the staircase.

One more shot of the staircase.

I took my findings home and decided that I would prepare them with some salmon that I had in the freezer. I gave the salmon a nice Hungarian paprika crust (the hot stuff) and seasoned it with salt and pepper and grilled it on my George Foreman Grill. Meanwhile I heated some butter and olive oil in a pan, chopped up some of the shoots of the (washed) wild garlic. Once the butter and olive oil stopped foaming, I tossed in some of the chopped wild garlic, then added the (washed) dandelion greens, and immediately took the whole thing off the heat, and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Once the greens wilted in the pan, I plated the salmon, and topped it with the warm wilted greens. The recipe follows.
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