My daughter had asked if I could give her a lift to school yesterday morning. She is really shattered at the moment, getting used to the two mile walk there and the two mile walk back. No doubt I will feel the same when I eventually return to face-to-face teaching!
Anyway, as I would be getting the car out, I decided to go on a little adventure. A few weeks previously, I’d got slightly lost and ended up driving through the main street of a small town called Garforth, just east of Leeds. Whilst the street looks a bit shabby, it did also have one or two shops of note, which I aimed to explore.
The main attraction was a zero waste shop. Hurray, yet another business which is at least moving in the right direction. About half the wares were in fact goods rather than food (which came loose). However, I bought a new wooden (sustainably sourced) brush for scrubbing vegetables and floss sticks from recycled plastic, partly because I need them and partly to encourage the business.
Next door but one was a greengrocer’s, where I had a more fruitful experience. Not only did they sell a large range of fruit and vegetables, the provenance of each was clearly displayed. Thus, it was easy to make a choice based on ‘air miles’ and heated greenhouse. Indeed, sometimes they were even British and in season (eg pears, which must have been stored overwinter).
Unfortunately, the hunger gap continues, so when I turned to my local organic farm to pick up this week’s share of vegetables, I was greeted with spring cabbage, bolted Chinese leaf, lettuce, potatoes and wild garlic. That is actually quite a lot of stuff in terms of volume but I’m going to have trouble feeding it to my child.
That said, I have persuaded her that wild garlic is great in butter. It might be green but garlic bread it still makes. In fact, I could have made rather a large amount of this butter, had I chosen. In comparison with my own wild garlic, at the farm, not only is there copious amounts of it, but the plants are impressvely tall and robust.
Growing out of chaos 
zero waste shop looks a good idea. The walk should do your daughter good
I think the walk is good for her. Thank you, Derrick 😊
That does sound like a hard selection of veg to make appealing to children
Indeed, Cathy 😀
My older son was a fussy eater. Now he’s up for trying all sorts of new things. I think it takes time. The garlic sounds enticing. I’m so glad you stumbled upon a new and wonderful shop.
I’m glad your son now eats all sorts, Alys 😊
Wild garlic is a real treasure and anything that gets green stuff into kids is good!
I’m amazed by how difficult it is for children to eat green food (in general). It can’t just be about taste with wild garlic being vastly different from cabbage!
I don’t understand it either – frozen peas seem to be the exception for many of them!
Yes, frozen peas get a completely different reception!
Wonderful discoveries Helen! The wild garlic does look huge, love the taste very much, I just harvested a great amount to make pesto to last in the fridge for a year I am told.
I made pesto last weekend – but I have frozen it. This weekend I might freeze some with olive oil and grated cheese – lovely on toast, Agnes.
Yes it does sound lovely especially on toast Helen. Yum!
Oh, I will have to try in on toast. Thank you for the suggestion, Agnes.