Some of the best parts of the last nine months have been milky white, or pale yellow, or cream-colored. I have a friend who has Jersey cows that turn grass into something I can eat - a true wonder. I’ve been privileged to play with milk, making butter, yogurt, cottage cheese, whipped cream, creme fraiche — and one batch of burnt sugar ice cream. Real milk is a miracle!

Played hooky at lunch time this week to drive to beautiful Midway, Kentucky to have lunch at Honest Farm Pure Kentucky Market, a tasty Kentucky-based grocery. My companions ate chicken pot pie with a biscuit crust. Some of them added a Cowboy Cookie or piece of Coca Cola Cake for dessert. I had a lemony egg salad on beautiful green lettuce leaves, with improbably red tomato slices. Red, yellow, bright green - my plate looked like a flag celebrating spring. I make wonderful egg salad with splendid bright orange Elmwood Stock Farm pastured eggs. Honest Farm’s lemony egg salad recipe beat mine, though - it was the best egg salad I have ever had. Honest Farm owner Susie Quick said the pastured eggs came from Waterworks Farm in Shelby County.

I took a few pics at Honest Farm Pure Kentucky Market. Enjoy!

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All last year I read Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France, as slowly as possible. I rationed myself to a few pages at bedtime, especially on nights when the day had been jangling. I wanted to stretch my visit with Julia’s verve and optimism — as well as all that good food — across as much time as possible. The wonderful son who gave me the book also gave me the 40th anniversary edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Yesterday I cooked a meal for friends using some of Julia’s recipes, and also honoring the French framework of eating fresh local foods, with friends, in courses, with delicious wines. In addition to the tiny snips of chives from our own garden — Hooray for Spring!!! — I found quite a few ways to cook with local or organic products.

Coq au vin: Elmwood Stock Farm chickens, my homemade Bluegrass butter, Weisenberger Mill’s unbleached flour

Potato-leek soup: local Bluegrass cream; organic russet potatoes bought from Good Foods Market

Lahey-Bittman fabulous “Slow Bread“: Weisenberger Mill’s bread flour

Roast kale with roast onion rings: organic cavolo nero (”black”) kale and organic yellow onions from Good Foods Market

Poached pears in vanilla sauce with winter fruits, creme fraiche, and langues de chat cookies: My homemade Bluegrass creme fraiche, organic pears and dried Montmorency cherries from Good Foods Market, organic sugar, Equus Run American Riesling (locally produced from out-of-state grapes)

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