Mimicking Nature: The Fennel

The umbrella shaped heads of a fennel not only catches the nuances of the seasons but offers flavor even when all else has left us

I sit here at my dining table this morning, watching another band of snow coming over the hills. I don’t know which one this is anymore. It’s the kind of snowy weather I remember as a child. The kind that kept us home restless for days because we even got tired of the snow constantly falling.

While the fire roars in the fireplace and my kids rehang the ornaments and balance between picking on one another and giggling, I see the still green stalks in our kitchen garden of the fennel. A plant that years ago I never would have thought to have in our garden. It never made the list. But now, I let grow wildly and uncontrolled in the garden. Even now in the middle of this late Autumnal snowstorm the fennel still is giving in ways it doesn’t give in the height of summer or in early spring nor in the way it will give to me once again in March and for that I feel fennel is worthy of our attention as to what we can learn from it.

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