Varieties Quotes

“To regain my equilibrium, I head for the corridor of bird skins. These are not taxidermied birds, not cute in any way. Still, it comforts me to open the wide, flat drawers and see them there, even if they are tied at the feet and devoid of the life conveyed in the average field guide. Ornithologists, it turns out, are both preservationists and murderers, learning how to scoop out a bird's innards and keep the feathers on. But as a bird skin, if properly prepared, can serve as a reference into the next century and beyond. Like this drawer full of cardinals: juveniles, males, females, specimens with winter plumage, summer plumage, and every variety within the varieties.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“You can enjoy the rich, deep color and smooth feel of ebony chopsticks...
... or the mellow beauty and soft touch of lacquer chopsticks, which can be almost like works of art in themselves. And I think you can get in touch with nature by holding those natural cedar chopsticks.”
― Tetsu Kariya, Japanese Cuisine

“He reaches into the crate and pulls out an apple with rough gold-and-brown skin. "A few different kinds of apples here. This one is a Goldrush. Kind of like a Golden Delicious but with a bit more acid. It keeps pretty well."
I pick up another from the heap. "And this one?"
Drew reaches out and delicately takes the apple from my hand. "This is a Smokehouse, an antique Pennsylvania Dutch variety. You can pretty much use it for anything---pies, cooking, sauces. It tastes like fresh cider. Really good. So are the Mutsus and Pink Ladies.”
― Dana Bate, A Second Bite at the Apple

“When I visit Maggie's farm on Monday, she takes me from field to field in her pickup truck, showing me the fruit they just started harvesting for the summer markets: yellow Sentry peaches, white nectarines, red plums, baby apricots. We spin past patches of Chantenay carrots and orchards of Honeycrisp apples, both of which they'll pick later in the season, after the raspberries, the canes already bursting with ruby and gold fruit. Back in April, the peach trees bore masses of fluffy, sweet-smelling pink blossoms, but now dozens of fuzzy, round fruits hang from their branches like Christmas ornaments, the ripe ones so juicy you can't eat them without wearing a bib.”
― Dana Bate, A Second Bite at the Apple

“Moss was one of those things that, once one was aware of it, was everywhere. She knew its subspecies from botanical books: bearded moss, bog moss, grizzled emerald, twisted moss. Reindeer moss. Emerald tufted stubble. Toothless moss. Maidenhair. Wooly fringe. It was the earth's pantry, feeding its surroundings. Expansive green mother. Lavender recalled one species in her own garden that, to the touch, felt like her mother's hair. Mother-hair moss. In a floriography book, Lavender had read that moss stood for motherhood, charity. All the more to adore.
She perused the ground, found:
pocket moss
pincushion bristle
wasted-tea moss
stubble-on-a-boy's-chin moss
prickly oracle moss
heart's tussle

Oh, the tales moss told.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“I pop into Barrett's, ducking beneath the bright-red awning into the tiny shop, which is packed with fresh cuts of everything, from delicate lamb chops to meaty pork roasts covered in thick layers of fat. Mountains of fat sausages beckon from within the glass case, in more varieties than I could ever imagine---wild boar and apple, venison, chicken and sage, beef and garlic. A musty funk fills the store, giving the place an air of rustic authenticity.
I order three Cornish hens (or, as the British call them, poussin) and then head back toward Pomona, the small food shop I visited this morning, remembering the fresh, crusty loaves of bread on their shelves. I grab a loaf of challah, its braided crust shiny and golden brown, along with some celery, an onion, some mushrooms, and a few spices. Before I pay, I also throw a bunch of speckled bananas, a pot of Greek yogurt, and some flour and sugar into my basket. The ingredients are slightly different here than they are back home---"self-raising flour," "caster sugar"---but I'm sure I can re-create the banana bread I developed for a famous morning-show host back in Chicago. It's one of my most popular recipes to date, and I'm sure it would taste great with a cup of tea.”
― Dana Bate, Too Many Cooks

“The garden itself was enjoying the painted-on brightness of the day. The flowers were in full bloom--- the dramatic pink of the Duchess of Sutherland roses and the flesh-colored Madame Audots met Harriet's eye as she stepped out of the house. Flanking those stood the La Reines with their silvery undertones and the cabbage roses to the right. The cabbage roses, though they did not have a grand name, were Harriet's favorite. More layers inside one flower than she could even count. She inhaled the sweet smell of the Duchesses and watched as every last bloom turned to face her as she padded barefoot from the door onto the stone walkway, bordered by lush green moss. Satisfied that Harriet was content, the flowers resumed their nourishing tilt toward the sky. The stones were cool beneath her feet.”
― Chelsea Iversen, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt

“Direktör Benschop is a semi-double milky-white rose with egg-yolk-yellow stamens bred by German breeder Mateus Tantau in 1939, though not commercially available till after the war. The garden is also home to Alchymist, the crumpled honey, white and gold climber.
I have always struggled with the notion of stripping a rose for its petals, though I do occasionally bring one into the kitchen in June, scattering them over an oval platter of raspberries, a sponge cake dusted with icing sugar or, most memorably, a vast fig meringue the size of a hat at a June wedding.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“Late February has brought crocuses to cheer us in the melancholy of winter. The petals-- white, lilac, mauve and gold-- are perfect against a grey-white sky. We planted a thousand small, hairy corms and a couple of hundred have come up. Plucky little flowers, they must fight against the rain, mice, squirrels and sparrows, all of which seem hell-bent on their destruction.
Most welcome are the luminous white Jeanne d'Arc, which have swan-like petals with a tuft of egg-yolk-orange stamens. Others include Orange Monarch, a deep saffron and mauve, and a few Pickwick, the palest lilac with a delicate feathering of mauve. Common varieties, but none the worse for it.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“Once established, jasmine grows well in this garden, and there are three, no, four varieties now. A soft yellow, like clotted cream, that hangs loosely from the window boxes, shifting in the breeze. A pink variety, Jasminum stephanense, clambers up the brittle, naked stems of a much older plant, using its relative as a trellis. White stars of Jasminum grandiflorum cover the tendrils that have woven a canopy over the courtyard, a fragrant white parasol whose petals fall like snowflakes each autumn.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“The roses were originally picked as much for their perfume as much for their color and form. (Unlike my first roses, which were bought purely because I was enchanted by their romantic names.) Of the basic musk, myrrh, tea, fruit and old-rose fragrances I am drawn to the latter two. Fruity is a broad bush on a night like tonight. Lady Emma Hamilton, reliable though now retired by the growers, is at her most giving: apricots and white peaches spring to mind. Gertrude Jekyll is one of the most intense of the old-rose scented varieties. She calls me over every time I set foot on the terrace.
Unlike the more generous jasmine, even the most scented rose requires us to bend a little, pushing the tip of our nose into the cluster of petals. Not so Gertrude tonight, mingling as she does with the white jasmine, hovering cloud-like over the hot stones of the terrace. I have a plan to bring the Queen of Denmark into the garden too, another old-rose scent, and I long for a decent musk rose such as Buff Beauty, exuding its faint note of cloves on a warm evening.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“It is when I get to wallow in the salacious delights of the crinkle-petalled Black Parrot and Orange Emperor, the brilliant tangerine Cairo that stands head and shoulders above the crowd, or fantasies about the soft ochres of Brown Sugar. The single-flowered, pale pastels are tempting, too, if only for their gentleness, their shy colors reminiscent of buttercream on cupcakes.
The Rembrandts are the tulips of my dreams, great goblets the color of hot-air balloons; deep plum and crimson with flashes of yellow; tight green and white petals as crisp as ice on a pond and those that look like crushed berries being stirred through whipped cream.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts