Chickens and Pickles

Formentera, December 2022

It suddenly came up from nowhere. My interest for cooking. I have spend 47 years without any interest at all in it. Absolutely zero. I was rather burning pots and pans when forgetting the boiling artichokes or potatos in them, because something much more interesting gained my attention. I remember once washing a pot with some brown unidentified liquid in it, thinking it was rubbish, and my ex-husband Tammi entering the kitchen with an unidentified expression in his face because I had chucked away his sauce for a „Schweinebraten“ he had been working on and reducing the entire day.

So, the other day I bought a book written by a friend who lives in Formentera, sharing her knowledge about the healthy mediterranean cuisine with all the local products on the island including algae, wild flowers and plants, basically all the flora I come across every day. I devoured every page of it started doing my first yummy dishes. Soups and salads. Deborah was really happy to finally be able to share her passion with me. She adores experimenting in the kitchen and teaches me lots of things. Like yesterday, when preparing pickles and antipasti in olive oil, to be kept in sterilized jars. Jars collected from the public rubbish bins. It is quite a lot of work and takes ages, in comparison to the outcome, but its fun.

The chickens run around the garden and pop by to pick on the beetroot leaves I left on the table, right next to the huge bowl of nettles I collected this morning. I am immun to their stings because, at the age of 5 and 6, my mom had thrown Deborah and me naked into a huge field of nettles to become stronger and fitter. The effect is obvious. I can collect and clean the leaves off the stems with ease for the dinner‘s soup. Soon after, a spectacular sunset finishes the day of labour. What a luxury.

Bon appetit!