My Not So Secret Garden

As a child, I remember reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and daydreaming of one day owning my very own key that would open the door to that magical place where you were surrounded by plants that towered you, birds that flew past your head and butterflies that landed on your hand. As I got older, I gave up the idea of an English Garden and settled for simply having a place to plant living things, watch them grow and sunbathe next to them with the grill on, tunes in the background and a place to hide and forget that I lived in a city.

 In the last year, Oriol and I (apparently he had the same fantasy too), have been gathering our favorite Mediterranean plants and upgrading our fantastic terrace to simply escape from our everyday lives without having to go far. Just a few months ago, we bought an authentic Weber grill, cleaned up the terrace, re-potted plants and brought life to a few square meters of space.

Then Oriol took it to a whole other level and decided to plant our very own urban vegetable garden! We took down some bookshelves we had in the studio, which has now turned into my creative room, his dad came over with some professional handyman tools and built miniature homes to house our veggies.

 These planters were made by Oriol's dad from Ikea shelves we recycled!

 It started with some seeds we had saved in the late winter from all those veggies we love to eat and spend money on regularly and it evolved into an array of packages that labeled seeds like: parsley, basil, tomatoes, peas, asparagus, strawberries, kale, onions, garlic, green peppers, lettuce and on and on. We even had to go back to Ikea and buy more shelves to create two more crates because all of our seeds have exploded and they need space!

 Cherry tomatoes, lettuce and our emergency box for added space...

Now we have a mini forest of asparagus (my favorite), strawberries we have to pick before the birds get to, tomatoes that are beginning to bloom and peas hanging off of a thin fragile vine. We ate our first salad with fresh lettuce last week (something tells me we will be eating a lot of salads this summer) and the speed of the garden doesn't cease to surprise us everyday that we go upstairs to check on it.

 The asparagus forest! Aren't they cute???

 A dangling pea pod, they sprout from their blossom...

 Strawberries, need I say more?

Oriol spends hours on his off time tending to the garden, rearranging plants, watering, sowing the soil and running downstairs with a handful of lettuce, excited that yet again something has sprouted, a plant has evolved, and more. According to Wikipedia, Burnett, when writing The Secret Garden, believed that a garden "had the healing power inherent in living things" and after starting our own garden, I understand why perhaps as a child we so longed for a secret place to play in and tend to. When you see a seed so small and fragile turn into a plant that you eat or admire for its beauty, you understand the power of life and you forget the fragility of failure.

 

Besides, there's nothing better than having a space to run to where the sun touches your toes and you can invite your closest friends to not just have a glass of wine or a cold beer, but to eat what you have grown. The plants might not tower above me, but the lemon tree has survived winter, the jasmine has bloomed, the birds come visit us and the brass key is hidden in an old hand painted box from Italy. How awesome is that? Your turn, go plant a garden!

La Mona Finds Her Eggs

 I continue to believe that one of the most magical things since I've moved here, and even further, since I immersed in the culture and became part of a Catalan family, is when your culture blends in with the festivities of your host country's cultures and you literally bring it to the table to share. Holidays, therefore, continue to bring in a newness that surprises me and those around me. Isn't it wonderful how by meshing two cultures you get one big one full of details and stories??

That is precisely what happened this Easter as we prepared La Mona, a traditional cake that the godparents give to their godchildren the day after Easter Sunday (Monday is a bank holiday here). You can either make a very long line Monday morning with all the other anxious parents and chocolate feigning children or you can decide to make it yourself, as long as it contains the typical characteristics of La Mona. Oriol has never doubted  to always make the Mona for Biel and Laia and I can assure you that not only does it beat the others (we don't have to stand in line) but it is absolutely better in taste than any industrial made cake.

Just so you get an idea, the cake is piled with chocolate, lots of chocolate, feathers, figurines, a smaller version of M&M's called Lacasitos, frosting, little chicks in baskets and nuts. Think of a big birthday cake gone wild! The main part for the kids is the surprise figurines that they collect year after year with their favorite characters and for the adults, the chocolate eggs and Cava (Catalan Sparkling Wine) to accompany.

You are allowed to improvise when you make your own Mona and that's when my little American Culture light came on and I exclaimed excitedly to Oriol, "We could paint Easter Eggs too and add them on the cake!!" He looked at me tentatively for a second and decided to let me participate, although he didn't have it very clear whether he should allow his Mona to be weighed down by my hard-boiled eggs. But I went out and found egg dye and explained to the kids they'd have to help dip, dye and draw and just their shrill screams were enough to make me giddy inside too.

Quite honestly, I can still "smell" Easter when I think of dying eggs. My mom would set up the table with newspaper, boil water and drop a spoonful of vinegar and prepare the dyes, a world of colors with strange looking wire spoons to dip the eggs in and create an array of freaky colored eggs. The smell of the sweet vinegar with the bowl of chocolate we could snack on next to us as we decorated, still lives inside me. Not to mention the over the top sweetness of the candies she would throw in our hay smelling baskets and the surprises we would find the next morning. The hunt for the hidden painted eggs, the overdose on sweets and the instinctive feeling that Spring was officially on its way. This last Easter brought back all those memories to me. Stickers, eggs and all. Our cake full of fertility and life was literally pumping with Spring.

After a very long lunch, lots of Cava and sun, and the biting into Oriol's Mona, we sat around and he played a few tunes he's perfected on his guitar. Little Laia sang along and played air guitar as well and I relished in that sweet moment in which two cultures become one and after years and years, you still smell home, your childhood and welcome those holidays that make you feel like a child again.

May the festivities roll on and I hope that you also make an effort to celebrate those days of childhood that sometimes we forget to do as adults. Paint an Easter egg, carve a pumpkin, light a Hanukkah candle, whatever takes you back to those days when all that mattered was if there was a surprise somewhere to make you giddy inside!