it grows

You know that feeling the day after the day after. No more seediness, and the sun's shining. You come home and there's time to play in the garden, to transplant little lettuces and not worry about if they'll get torn up by marauding chickens. The shit that ate your head up last week seems to have scampered somewhere on the dancefloor and you don't feel the need to worry about if it'll come back.

The plants are in so you wash the dirt off your hands and pick the leaves off the radishes, and the young shoots from the pea straw. The nettles you rescued from another garden are growing faster than myspace and you manage to pick a handful without any prickles. So it's into the kitchen..

The greens are washed and wilted in the water that clings to them. They're tossed with chickpea sprouts* and a diced radish. There's lemon juice, balsamic and some of the really good olive oil mum passed onto me. Oh and sesame seeds.

You know the feeling when you're cooking something really good from things you've grown yourself? When you've done unhealthy things to your body all weekend and no matter how hypocritical you just love the feeling of looking after yourself with vegetables and sunshine and maybe a kick of the footy after?

Well maybe it's just me, I shouldn't try and universalise... but I hope you have some similar feeling.

*Chickpea sprouts are so easy and good I can't believe I never ate them until this year. These ones were made when I soaked chickpeas and never got around to cooking them. Instead of leaving them in water to go fetid just drain the water off and then rinse once a day or so.