Melissa, I totally envy you. Sounds like you make really great dishes and using fresh products grown in your own backyard. It is the Best !!
Sometimes, I wish I have bigger piece of land so I can grow mostly herbs, vegetables, fruits and what not.
I just had a fresh banana grown in somebody's backyard. Taste so delicious unlike the stores that taste different. I have forgotten how home grown fruits taste so delicious and now I wonder about apples and oranges.
Melissa , when I went overseas. I could not cook a burger Bec I used American spices which I could not find in Malaysia like Mrs . Dash and many spices actually in store but to order on line can take about at least 2 weeks but by then I am coming back to States. I crave for pancakes, burgers and what not. As soon as I landed in Texas for transit...I got a huge Texas Burger and it was so yummy.
Now, I miss the other food which the restaurant don't make it close to it. Sigh!!
I am glad you change for good or else you won't stay there for 19 years. You develop yourself and got yourself fit in nicely. I am sure you used everything fresh to make any food while I don't staying here.
I ask my husband this question. He is a ex Chef. If he goes and stay in Norway or Italy. Can he make his own spices. He said Yes. You grow herbs like rosemary, thyme and what not. He can but I can't...so it is knowledge actually. But you have to grow...lol. Now, you know why I married him....lol.
Fresh ones is stronger than dried and I am sure you know that.
Nevertheless, I still envy you. Do you speak Italian ?
I am sure you do.
I always enjoy your thread very much. Be you , be happy and follow your heart. It is okay if you never mow your lawn. It's your place with such a beautiful place you have and wild flowers and we can only dream if such beauty and lifestyle.
Cheers !!
jin

Jin, you're so right about the produce. I have to buy almost all our vegetables--though produce in Italy tends to be good!--but there's a lot of fruit around at times, and it's so good straight off the plant. Not every year, but often enough, cherries, plums, blackberries of course, persimmons, occasionally our Nashi pears and loquat, and last year for the first time our figs, planted terribly badly years earlier, gave us fruit, as well as the massive plants growing all over the countryside. Do you have room for some fruit plants? Blueberries and citrus come to mind, but there are others.

Life in Italy is like life everywhere, good and bad, but I adore living in the country, and in an area that has a good deal of natural life. Lots of plants and animals, not all of them welcome, like the ruinous deer and porcupines. I do speak Italian, by the way. It sounds like you travel yourself. I want to mow our small lawn, as it happens: it's just getting too messy. But I'm still mired in pruning.

Thanks, Perma. What you say, that's exactly what I was talking about. There's so much to see in Nature that we'll never come to the end of it. And thank goodness for that.

I love these posts, Melissa, Jin and Perma. This is what I am hoping for too, Melissa.

Melissa, I can grow some but that means I have to stop buying roses. I finally can have a rose garden and I just cannot imagine growing anything else.
My brother had a talk with me about growing veg's , herbs and a few of my favorite fruit. He has a huge house and a huge property in OH. He is retiring in a few months and waiting for his wife to retire but she has 6 more years to go unless she can get a professor job at one of the university here. He is so tired of winter and ready to buy property in FL.

He grows some bananas in Oh in pots. He brings them inside the house. He gets his fruit and uses the leaves to cook Ikan Bakar. A fish loaded with spices and wrap in banana leave and baked on fire. I have not tried that dish at all but he loves it and uses everything of the fruit plant. He gets more shoots and he separates them some he will give it away to his friends. He has a huge veg garden with cherries trees and what not. I showed pics to Lisa which I have deleted. His veg's were so healthy looking and huge.
When I went to a botanical garden here. I saw teas plants, bananas, blueberries, pomegranates, papayas and so many types of fruit trees. Herbs that I have never seen in HD or Lowe's. Gingers that has beautiful flowers and I even saw blue ginger flowers. So beautiful. No, I did not buy anything not even a rose.
Perma, I noticed pink flowers creeping so low to the ground. It is weeds but they look so pretty which was cut today when my Gardener came. He also whacked my red crimson clovers that I was growing whole winter and also my companion plants. Not his fault but mine for not telling him. Thank goodness I have more seeds and I can throw some into the beds today.
Shiela, you are welcome .
jin

I have a few pics most of them I deleted already.

Think I have one more pic...
My husband saw a coffee plant. He was joking and teasing me about getting it. Wait for it to fruit. make fresh coffee and I was declining it so gently Bec I love coffee...lol.
jin

I grow as many of these as I can, but you can grow so much more than me where you are Jin. We grew our own bananas this past year for the first time, and I couldn't believe how much more flavor they had than the grocery store bananas. There are some dwarfs that don’t get much taller than 8-9 feet, too.

It’s so much fun to go out and pick your own breakfast. :-)

The 'blue ginger' aka Dichorisandra thyrsiflora in that photo is not a true ginger. While beautiful, I dont think its edible. It is in the spider wort and wandering jew family. I read online that in Brazil they use the juice somehow as some type of emollient for medicinal purposes but it is acrid and can burn the eyes.

I grow it here just because its pretty and it does well.

I only know of one 'blue-ish' true ginger and that is a globba/Dancing Lady ginger called 'Blue Hawaii' that I also grow.

Papayas do well here I just have to overwinter mine in the gh the first year, then plant them out.

This was a tall variety. The flowers smell exactly like Fruit Loops! We have Starfruit and Longan and other fruit trees. I still have my baby Jackfruits I grew from seeds, as well.

You two are killing me: your pictures make me miss Florida so much! Though I come from further north where most of these tropicals don't grow. Great photos!

I used to eat all the fruits you mentioned , Jasmin. But I think I will start with key limes. I can used it as flavor in dishes. Make a drink like limeade or bake a key lime pie...yum.
I have never bake a key lime pie and it's my favorite pie in the world..sweet and tart.
I can always do a small herbs for sure. Jasmin, you are killing me with your fruit trees. I am sure you are growing so much more.

Yup, Melissa your thread title is so true. Gardening is cooking.

Perma , what type of bananas do you have ? I know there are so many varieties.
I love Basil Bec I am in love with Pesto. I usually makes homemade Pizza or any type of cream sauce or over pasta....great now I am getting hungry. ..lol

Melissa, you are doing great. Best food to be home grown. Healthy and delicious :)

Perma , there is a huge , big difference in taste from products in stores. I see that too but I wish I can grow more in my small yard.
I will find a few videos how this lady grow different types of garlic when harvesting time came she braid all the garlic's together and hang them. Looks so big and beautiful. I see that style in movies but never in stores a long garlic bundle up in braids...look so cute even as a decorations.
I will look for it on my day off on Sunday. will post it here. I think it is called Garden Answer. Her videos can go for like an hour some short but a lot of information on plants and vegetables.
Have you guys seen her show ?
jin

Sultry, your papaya is beautiful! That’s one I haven tried yet.

Jin, we grow Dwarf Oronico, Ice Cream, and Thai Red bananas. Ice Cream is almost 20 ft. tall, but the other two are shorter, and should max out at 10 ft.

I love my little Key Lime tree...it’s blooming right now, and smells wonderful. That’s a great one to start with!

Garlic is a little tricky in FL, but I’ve had success with soft-neck varieties.

Basil is super-easy, and once you have one plant, if you let it go to seed you’ll never have to start anymore. It will self-seed all over, and the basil seedlings are east to ID from weeds. If you can grow roses, you can def grow edibles. :-)

Melissa, I might trade it all for your cheese. I’m really envious of what I can only imagine is the most delicious cheese I’ve never eaten! :-)

We also grow bananas. I have some dwarfs and also the 'Ice Cream' banana which I found out, here in the US, is really Namwah. It is quite tasty nonetheless. Plus some ornamentals like Zebra, Maurelii, and pink velutina bananas.

I haven't had luck with garlic. Maybe I will try the soft neck kind next time. I have so many citrus Im embarrassed to post them all lol. My two favs are the Red Australian Fingerlime, I just got it last year, and my 2 Buddah's Hand trees. They're just so freaky!

Jin, have you ever had Monstera deliciosa fruit? It is supposed to taste like banana, pineapple, and mango. My oldest green Monstera finally started fruiting last year. It only made one fruit last year, which some butthead raccoon or possum ate soon as it was ripe! This year it has 2 fruits! Maybe I will get to try one.

The fruit takes about a year or more to ripen.

One of my variegated Monstera leaves..they are slower growers than the plain green Monsteras.

Jin I love key lime pie! My favorite as well! What's your recipe?

I love everyone post! All the pictures! Melissa this is a awesome thread and so true! Love food! I'm actually trying to eat a Mediterranean diet. Am new on it so any pointers?

I think we are all gardeners as well! Growing flowers and food! The perfect balance! My favorite things to do , eat, and play in my flowers! I absolutely love fresh produce and fruit!

No, I never had Monstera but everything of that plant is poisonous. You have to know how to eat it. Heard it taste like banana and pineapple mix. Very complicated of how and when and where to eat.
Jasmin....you have so many unique and exotic fruits. Well, I won't be surprised if you have mangosteen or even rambutan trees there or even Mata kucing...lol
Your pics are amazing esp your banana tree so huge. Those fruits like Logan and tropical are expensive in store. I paid like $50 for Mata kucing during Chinese New Year. Not much fruit but mostly branches that weighs a ton...a rip off plus it was not that sweet.
O remembered about last year you getting finger Limes. Well, how is the plant ? what colours did you get ? Have you made any dish with it or ice cream or ? How it taste ??
jin

Jasmin, I am coming over..lol
jin

Its not poisonous but the unripe fruit has oxylates that are very irritating if eaten before the fruit is totally ripe. I hope that stupid possum got them since he stole my fruit lol !! Yes I will have to wait for it to get very ripe and the scales are falling off before even thinking about trying it.

I never had the Mata kucing. I know it is similar to Longan. It looks really neat when I google it. I dont have Rambutan yet. I buy the fruits from our local farmer's market. They are so cool looking and good. That is where I got the Jackfruit seeds. Jackfruit tastes like Juicyfruit gum and so good!

I got the Red Fingerlime. It will have red fruits that have tiny juicy reddish vesicules in them that burst in your mouth. It hasn't fruited yet because apparently they put four of them in one pot and they are very crowded. I need to take them out and separate them but the plant is very spiky not like a normal citrus tree. So I've procrastinated lol.

I had the green one before and use it as a garnish on Key Lime Pie along with chocolate curls and meringue. Its also good on drinks like margaritas or on fish or shrimp tacos. Basically anything with lime.

One tree I would love to grow when I move further south, is a Breadfruit tree. I just think they are so pretty!

Interesting...now you got me googling too about breadfruit tree. How about mangoes ?
Anyways, I have to paste a video as

I promise on Sunday. Found it here is first...growing types of garlic..just saying.
It will help Melissa more...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=
jin

part 2...I hope ...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=

last part 3...I love to watch her..she grows beautiful companion plants and shows in details...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=

I don't grow much of anything but have so enjoyed this thread, beginning with Melissa's lyrical writing. Today I made cilantro pesto with lots of garlic and we enjoyed it over fettuccine mixed with honey cured ham. It tasted like spring.

I wanted a change, so yesterday I made a spring meal: egg pasta, plain and spinach, dressed with Gorgonzola and a spoonful of milk, a plain salad of Boston lettuce dressed with lemon, olive oil, and salt, potatoes dressed with olive oil and salt. I warned you: super simple. But good.

Alana, just do an Internet search on "Mediterranean diet", as I'm not an expert. But I believe the diet is rich in vegetables, legumes, fish, and olive oil, and low on red meat, animal fats, and sugar. I'm a vegetarian so don't do fish, but I do eat a lot of vegetables, legumes, olive oil, fruit; and starchy foods, dairy, and sweets as I feel the need. My body is announcing different needs as I get older, but the one food that is always welcome is vegetables.

All these tropical fruits are AWESOME.

This cooking stuff makes me feel so guilty. I don't like to cook and since I paint, do sculpture (sort of) AND garden-all of which are messy,dirty-hands manual activities-there's not really much room in my life for it. Eating veggies and fruits is so much healthier than eating meat, and is better for the environment,but preparing vegitarian meals just DOES require more effort and time. Worse yet, chemotherapy seems to have warped my sense of taste quite a bit; "simple" stuff often results as almost nauseating to me (IMO, the chemo nurses should tell patients to only eat fattening, bad-for-you things while they are doing chemo, so afterwards it will be these things that disgust the ex-chemo patient, not simple stuff, LOL!)

It's really a shame that they don't have foreign take-out places here, lol. Then we could just order Indian, Chinese, Thai...all strongly flavoured cuisines...

Bart, I’m so sorry your tastebuds are off due to your chemo. Hopefully not much longer? That would definitely make me not want to cook for sure.

Jin, I have seen some of Laura’s videos before. There’s some good stuff. We just have to make a few adjustments since she’s gardening in Oregon. Esp. with the garlics. All the alliums are day-length sensitive, so we need to grow short-day varieties. Soft-neck are the best, then Creole types. We plant in the fall here. My ‘Red Inchelium’ has produced the best here in N FL. :-)

Bart, hang in there. I understand how you feel. Just enjoy what you can and I understand how it plays a big effect and your taste buds are so off . My brother also when through chemo and it is not pleasant at all. He also turn into a vegetarian.
Hang in there.
Wow, you are such an artist. I never knew you like to do sculpturing. I hope to see your pics on your art.

Melissa I also hope to see more pics of your garden. I think it is great to grow what you can.
I am going to stick with my roses only . Maybe herbs but bit more than that .
I never ask you what do you miss as foodwise from States ?
Jasmin and Perma, I might buy some key limes and saved the seeds then I will try to grow them if I am successful if not I buy a plant next year at Botanical or even from Dept of Agriculture,. They also have their own plants sale. So much cheaper than HD or Lowe's.

Jin

Bart, I wish you the least uncomfortable passage possible through your therapy, and a happy recovery to health. Your last few years have been hard.

Jin: tofu and soy sauce, graham crackers and peanut butter, blueberries, walnuts, pecans, mangos. A lot of baking ingredients: rye flour, caraway seed, molasses; (reasonably priced) oatmeal, rye and barley flakes, for cooked cereal and to make muesli; dried cherries (for stollen); dried currants. We've made a couple of our own substitutes. We cook winter squash and mash the pulp for pumpkin pie, and we pick our own sour cherries from an abandoned orchard for cherry pie, as canned pie cherries are unknown here. Cherry pie is a major treat for us, eaten only a couple of times a year, and ours is as good as they come.

I am glad you can get cherries. Pumpkin pie is my favorite. Oh, I will definitely will be growing pumpkin if only if I can get hold of one...tons of seeds. You have Halloween, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin juice ( I usually buy that from my work. The best drink made of Apple cider, pumpkin puree and apricot ) and pies.
Melissa don't tell my favorite mangoes, peanut butter, soy sauce, currents...your list is short but still it is important ones.
I will be buying cans of food and pack a bag for a year or two Everytime I come back to States. I hope a store will open there. I will be talking to Chinese people who lives there or American. That's me...lol
I ran into a few people here like Malaysians and Indonesian. I love their food. everytime I cook the food it doesn't make too spicy or different because the ingredients are not the same. So, when I ask how they cook ...they mostly get supplies overseas especially when they travel. Then I also discovered restaurant opens here a few and it is a treat to go and eat out. Closest cooking ever. Took me like 28 yrs or more living in FL. In California was not a problem Bec of so many Asians there with restauranst and chinatowns. In Florida is a lot of Vietnamese. So food is very different. Even a dark soy sauce which I am having a hard time. They will give me a duck sauce. So far I found only one dark sauce but the flavor is different. I can't find a different brand even on Amazon. The flavor differs tremendously. There is a dish called chicken roast cook with egg plants, tomorrow's, onions, garlic and ginger. But we used light sauce and dark to give a flavor and dark eat it with rice. That dish I cannot cook due to dark sauce. Even the light sauce is only Kikkoman here. There are better tasting light sauces around the world which put Kikkoman off the list.

Now, I can get some spices like for satay but I am not picky. My brother's wife is very picky. She came from the mountains in India a place call Jammu . Jammu and Kashmir is located mostly in Himalayan mountains. She goes every year and buys the fresh spices and bring back. She don't like the spices here Bec they are not fresh at all and I meant as seeds even cardamom which is so, so green compare to the stores here. You can see the big difference . She will grind them all as what she needs to cook. Her cooking is fantastic and extremely delicious.

All, I am saying is don't give up. You might find something there and never know of a store or something. I definitely did find a few places after I stop looking around for many years.

jin

Melissa, I have found a reasonable substitute for graham crackers: these "digestive biscuits" from England called "Mc Vities" ,but I don't know if you can find them locally. Here ,if you go to a supermarket in Prato, you can find these, also peanut butter,tofu , soy sauce and oatmeal. Blueberries and walnuts are available as well, but awfully expensive.

Thank you all for your good wishes, too. I pray that I will never have to do chemotherapy again. It was one of the worst experiences in my life. I finished about 8 months ago, and still have consequences: fatigue, slight numbness in fingers and toes, and this taste thing. The doc said that by now the taste thing should've gone away-and it certainly is not as bad as it was. Also, I do have to do these inhalations for emphysema, and this medicine can alter taste as well,so it might be due to that.Best wishes to all of you-and your brother as well, Jin!

Geeze, there are go again. Errors must be from moving up n down or change on auto. The tomorrow is tomatoes . And the food I cook actually becomes to spicy.
Melissa, all the food you mentioned are all my favorites so you know.
I will be definitely be looking out for Americans who live there. Never know....
Okay got to drive to work.
jin