Arrived too late to last Sunday's Greenmarket. Alas, no more milk at Ruby's Milk Thistle farm stand. All sold out. But turning disappointment into opportunity, she proffered a large milk bottle filled, uncharacteristically, with yogurt. "Try it", she suggested while pouring a thick creamy swig into a little paper tasting cup. I tried it.
This was no ordinary yogurt. This was Switzerland in a bottle. The delicately tart confection was the perfect semi-liquid consistency I've come to prefer over the gelatinous corporate guk that comes in nonrecyclable plastic pots in the grocery store. Not a yogurt "drink", yet she poured it easily from the bottle. And the taste, so clean and surprisingly sweet -- not a candy kind of sugariness, but something else, more discreet, like the flavor equivalent of a pink carnation.
This morning, a little glassful with a small squeeze of Stannard Farm's pure honey and I was transported to our friend Jane's kitchen in Flims, a small Alpine village. A kitchen where a Spring day greets you with the scent of cow meadows and geraniums mingled with tea and freshbaked bread. The kitchen where I learned firsthand how to marry the practice of thrift and simplicity to a spirit of generosity and deliciousness. Thank you, Jane. And pass the muesli.
