Risotto with Foraged Spring Greens

The Mindful Kitchen with Heidi Barr

Photo by Julien Pianetti on Unsplash

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke

In the northland, sometimes spring isn’t sure how it wants to show up - like the year it tried to make an early arrival one March, and we were out in the fields running around, relishing in the warmer weather while the snow melted with abandon. The seasonal ravine stream flowed freely, the moss turned vibrant green, and the robins returned. A new beaver family started swimming around on our side of the lake, and the swans and bald eagles visited with more frequency as the lake opened up.

But then, a few weeks later, it was back to freezing at night and only got up into the 40s during the day. The lake ice stopped melting, and the sun took a little breather before coming out again in full. The tiny blue flowers that always pop up first in at the edge of the woods decided to bide their time instead opening too soon.

It can be like that for us, too, right? We ge…