Flowering Plants Quotes

The next dish arrived, a small bowl of morels cooked in brown butter served with maitake mushroom broth, complex and unctuous. The morels were harvested the year before, pickled and preserved, and served with a hand-carved appetizer fork. The concentration of flavor brought images of the woods to her mind, from the mossy forest floor to the tree canopy high above. This dish was followed by marigold flowers fried in an incredibly light tempura and then salted, served with an egg yolk dipping sauce. Then walnut "tofu," surrounded by grilled rose petals, topped with a sunflower seed mole, herbs, and tiny flowers, and a caramelized milk tart stuffed with cheese and thinly sliced black truffles, the flavor nutty and savory. "That's better than sex," Cassie overheard Eamon say from across the table, eyes closed and head back in rapture.

The first round of dessert was a glass-like tortellini filled with rose hip fudge, flower petals, and wood sorrel. The inside was sweet, jammy, and tasted of cooked plum. And then the final dish: a small potted purple oxalis plant surrounded by fresh herbs, which gave Cassie a feeling of déjà vu. "And we've come full circle," said Kelly, picking up the hand-forged garden trowel that came with the plate. She cut the dish in half, revealing a layered cake of rose-scented ice cream in a chocolate pot topped with edible chocolate dirt.

Then they were served a small beeswax cup filled with flowers and crunchy bee pollen, followed by a presentation of a large shawarma, or at least what looked like a shawarma, adorned with roasted onions and rosemary, cut tableside. Pia explained that it was not made from lamb or chicken, as is traditional, but instead from celery root and truffles, before it was cooked on a spit for hours. One of the chefs used a large knife to slice off thin pieces of the "meat," plating it with greens, roasted apple, and red currants, before smothering the plate in a brown "jus." Cassie cut off a small bite and was surprised by how much it tasted like meat. It was earthy, salty, sweet, rich, and incredibly delicious. "Well, this is way better than the shawarma cart in my neighborhood," said Rebecca, practically licking her plate. "No kidding," agreed Ben, soaking up the jus with a fat slice of sourdough bread.