May Day and First Harvest Recipes

Anyone who lives in Minneapolis should know a thing or two about May Day, but for my far-flung friends who may be reading this, let me give you a brief description (I apologize - I didn't take any pictures this year). Every year around the first of May, 70,000 people from all walks of life turn out for the parade and festival in the Powderhorn neighborhood of South Minneapolis, which is put on by Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater. Heart of the Beast is well-known for their incredible floats and giant puppets constructed entirely from trash and reclaimed material, made by hundreds of volunteers. While they put on an AMAZING Halloween show every year, they're probably best-known for their May Day parade (the biggest in the country!), which involves an awe-inspiring number of people-powered floats, art bikes, masked children, and musicians. It's a spectacle that weaves threads of political activism, tolerance, and good old fashioned Pagan values into a cloth that any aging hippie would be happy to make a poncho out of. Sometimes the metaphors can be hard to decipher, but there's always a moment or two that manages to bring my heart into my throat. One year, it was a long-haired boy on stilts pouring a fistful of seeds into my hands. This year, it was the roar of the crowd building as they rowed a canoe with a giant, flaming sun to where we waited on the shore. Why, do you ask, would this mean so much to me?

May Day, or Beltane as it was traditionally known, is a Pagan celebration honoring the return of the fertile half of the year. In Ireland, this (warning, nudity and fire is involved) is what they do, which is considerably more exciting than anything we have here, but in Minneapolis, May Day has a special meaning - the parade is the first big, outdoor celebration that brings everyone out of the woodwork and into the streets, and there's always this sense of deep camaraderie that pervades over everything else. It's a sense of, "We put up with months of the nastiest weather seen in any American city for this -- good people, great events, amazing bike trails, and flowers everywhere!" When they carry that giant, papier mache sun across the lake in Powderhorn Park every year, it basically signals the triumph of light over dark and the passage of yet another winter.

Everything in the garden is growing well, in spite of a powerful little cold-snap that brought us sleety snow only a night ago. My tomatoes are outgrowing their setup in my kitchen and I'm anxiously awaiting a stretch of warm days so I can start to put them outside. After the purple leaf scare I repotted them and gave them a light feeding of some stinky organic stuff called "Mater Magic." They've since shot out in all directions and are full-fledged "plants" now rather than "seedlings." I'm preparing to give the peppers the same treatment and I'm hoping they'll thicken up a bit when they have more room to stretch their roots. My alpine strawberries are looking cute and are unstoppable now that they're potted up. During their hardening-off stage, they've taken considerable abuse from the wind and rain and rapid temperature changes, and I fully expect them to thrive when I can finally plant them out. I read that, having been started early, they might fruit the first year. Our standard-sized strawberries (purchased as plants from Home Depot) already have a few green fruits. It's been so long since I've had a fresh strawberry... I'm watching those little plants pretty closely!


Today we celebrated our first "harvest," working together to bake up a delicious rhubarb crisp (recipe courtesy of Penzey's Spices), boiled dandelion greens, some amazing tempeh burgers, and a single morel mushroom I found growing under the tree by my patio. We were so impressed by the size of the rhubarb leaves we decided they'd make lovely hats, which we wore throughout the entire cooking process!


The Leafy Bonnet Rhubarb Buckle Recipe

4 cups chopped rhubarb
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal (old-fashioned or quick, NOT instant)
1 generous tsp. cinnamon
1 stick butter, melted

1 cup white sugar
1 cup water
3 Tbls. cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350° F.
Grease an 8″x8″ baking pan or 9″ pie plate.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, oatmeal, cinnamon, and melted butter. Mix together with fork or fingers until it forms crumbs. Press half this mixture into the greased baking pan for the crust. Spread the chopped rhubarb evenly on top.

In a small saucepan, combine the white sugar, water and cornstarch. Cook over medium heat until it forms a clear syrup, stirring frequently, about 4-6 minutes. Add the vanilla, stir, then spread over the rhubarb and crust. Cover with the remaining oatmeal mixture.

Bake at 350° for 55 min. to 1 hour. (until rhubarb is bubbling and topping is nicely browned). Take it out of the oven and look as pleased with yourself as I do here.

Another great recipe that takes advantage of an early-maturing herb is chicken-in-a-biscuit -- vegetarian style, of course! My mother used to make this recipe when I was growing up and it's still a fun and easy comfort food.

Chickenless Chicken-in-a-Biscuit

2 packets neufchatel cheese, softened to room temperature
4 veggie chicken filets (I use Quorn naked cutlets) or 4 boiled chicken breasts, chopped
1 small bunch chives, minced (I usually use about the equivalent to 1/2 serving of spaghetti noodles - I have problem with measuring after they're all minced!)
2 tubes refrigerated crescent rolls
Salt and fresh-ground pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees or according to the directions on the crescent roll package.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine cheese, chicken, and chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Roll out the dough and separate into rectangles (2 crescent rolls), placing onto well-greased baking sheets and pinching together the perforations where necessary. Spoon filling evenly among the eight rectangles of dough and join the sides to form neat little pockets. Pinch the seams closed. They can also be frozen like this ahead of time to be baked when needed. If you want to add some extra calories, you can brush the tops with melted butter.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the outsides of the biscuits are golden brown and flaky.