Busy plant market in Bergerac's old town

Along with a few peppers and tomato plants, I had an uncommon herb on my list for this season’s plant markets and fairs.  Surely, browsing all the vegetable and flower stalls, I could dig up a source for lovage.  So I inquired: Livèche ou ache de montagne? Rare, madame, très rare – I was told by one plantsman; “go to a specialist nursery” said another.  It was Deborah Madison’s www.culinate.com article on this large culinary and medicinal plant that spurred my search.   She described the herb so enticingly that one corner of my potager has been cleared for a potentially gigantic lovage plant.  The idea of stirring up a cream soup of lovage, topped with frizzle/seared strips of prosciutto made my mouth water.  This seems a perfect starter for a cool spring evening’s dinner.  Having struck out at the Bergerac plant market, my search is not over…perhaps I will find one in the US in a round of Marin markets with my sister in California later in May – or in upstate New York with my daughter.  Going west or east, the quest continues.  Stranger ingredients have been known to find their way into my luggage on return from past trips.  Meanwhile, enjoy your herb-shopping, with the promise of summer meals enhanced with aromatiques straight from your own balcony or herb patch.

Jazz on the corner, a toe tapping interlude for plant shoppers