Honey Al Fresco

To bring home a taste of the local terroir, some people like to buy wine on their travels. I choose honey.

This morning I sat on the patio in the precious warmth of a Victoria summer munching on toast drizzled with chestnut flower honey from Siena. Tuscan sunshine and flowers in a jar. I was daring enough to crack my latest treasure the other day after I had scraped the last drops from a pot of macadamia nut honey from Hawaii. No point hoarding it and letting it crystallize.

I’m not sure when I started this honey habit but it makes the sweetest souvenir. Every time I savoured the creamed lavender honey I bought at the market in the hill town of Gordes I was transported back to the heat of Provence and the lavender fields.

Strangely today the honey makes me think of Provence again, not Tuscany. I was trying to imagine exotic dishes for the menu of my sister’s and my shared birthday picnic this coming weekend and I thought of the honey swirled in fresh cheese with pine nuts that I had at the restaurant in the Roman town of Glanum near St. Remy.

The Taberna Romana served dishes based on ancient Roman recipes. I had Pullus chicken in a honey mustard sauce, mashed chickpeas with cumin, a rustic salad and red wine flavoured with myrtles.

After a morning of exploring the site’s ruins, it was heavenly sitting in the shade dining on delicious flavours of the past al fresco.

Sometimes memories get sweeter with each remembrance.

So it makes me sad to hear that the world’s honey bees are dying. What are we doing to these miraculous little artisans? I hope that we can save them because the world would be a bitter place without honey.

Now here it is, your moment of mosaic. Not Roman this time but Canadian. I have started to make mosaics and this is my second attempt. Hummingbirds and flowers in case you can’t quite discern this. I’m hoping to improve with experience and will try a Roman design next.