Foraging for Words and Weeds

foraging 4.jpgInspired by my friend, Abbie Rosner, author of Breaking Bread in Galilee, I went foraging for wild spinach down the road from my house.

I was also foraging for words while writing. Stuck. Even though I’ve written one novel (and drafts for five more) it never gets any easier. (Jenny, are you paying attention?)

So here are photos of the enchanted spinach forest. foraging 3The spinach leaves are the ones that look a bit shinier than the others, sort of diamond-shaped.

I cleaned the spinach (last time Abbie found four snails in the leaves!) and steamed it. Then I sprinkled it with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Now back to writing…

foraging 2 Here’s what the dish looked like:

which I eventually ate with brown rice. Boosting up my brain cells! Abbie also said that wild plants have more vitamins and minerals than cultivated vegetables because they have to work harder to survive and pull up more nutrients from the soil. Leaving my desk for even a few minutes gave me time just to think about what I was writing. It’s all inspiring!foraging 5

 

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books, including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a reporter for Israel21C, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.
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2 Responses to Foraging for Words and Weeds

  1. Sounds like a wonderful and productive break. Does wild spinach have a stronger taste?

    • dianabletter says:

      Hi, wild spinach seems to have a more subtle taste! And it was a lot more fun going to forage than standing on line at a supermarket!

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