Quotessence
Home / Topics / Varieties Quotes

Varieties Quotes

Browse 9 quotes about Varieties.

Varieties Quotes

“The roses were originally picked as much for their perfume as much for their color and form. (Unlike my first roses, which were bought purely because I was enchanted by their romantic names.) Of the basic musk, myrrh, tea, fruit and old-rose fragrances I am drawn to the latter two. Fruity is a broad bush on a night like tonight. Lady Emma Hamilton, reliable though now retired by the growers, is at her most giving: apricots and white peaches spring to mind. Gertrude Jekyll is one of the most intense of the old-rose scented varieties. She calls me over every time I set foot on the terrace. Unlike the more generous jasmine, even the most scented rose requires us to bend a little, pushing the tip of our nose into the cluster of petals. Not so Gertrude tonight, mingling as she does with the white jasmine, hovering cloud-like over the hot stones of the terrace. I have a plan to bring the Queen of Denmark into the garden too, another old-rose scent, and I long for a decent musk rose such as Buff Beauty, exuding its faint note of cloves on a warm evening.”

RosesScentsRose GardenMuskVarieties
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

“The garden itself was enjoying the painted-on brightness of the day. The flowers were in full bloom--- the dramatic pink of the Duchess of Sutherland roses and the flesh-colored Madame Audots met Harriet's eye as she stepped out of the house. Flanking those stood the La Reines with their silvery undertones and the cabbage roses to the right. The cabbage roses, though they did not have a grand name, were Harriet's favorite. More layers inside one flower than she could even count. She inhaled the sweet smell of the Duchesses and watched as every last bloom turned to face her as she padded barefoot from the door onto the stone walkway, bordered by lush green moss. Satisfied that Harriet was content, the flowers resumed their nourishing tilt toward the sky. The stones were cool beneath her feet.”

GardenHarmoniousMagical RealismRosesHeirloomsVarietiesPerennials
Book:The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt
Create image

“Direktör Benschop is a semi-double milky-white rose with egg-yolk-yellow stamens bred by German breeder Mateus Tantau in 1939, though not commercially available till after the war. The garden is also home to Alchymist, the crumpled honey, white and gold climber. I have always struggled with the notion of stripping a rose for its petals, though I do occasionally bring one into the kitchen in June, scattering them over an oval platter of raspberries, a sponge cake dusted with icing sugar or, most memorably, a vast fig meringue the size of a hat at a June wedding.”

DessertRosesLebanonRose PetalsVarietiesGarnishes
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

“I pop into Barrett's, ducking beneath the bright-red awning into the tiny shop, which is packed with fresh cuts of everything, from delicate lamb chops to meaty pork roasts covered in thick layers of fat. Mountains of fat sausages beckon from within the glass case, in more varieties than I could ever imagine---wild boar and apple, venison, chicken and sage, beef and garlic. A musty funk fills the store, giving the place an air of rustic authenticity. I order three Cornish hens (or, as the British call them, poussin) and then head back toward Pomona, the small food shop I visited this morning, remembering the fresh, crusty loaves of bread on their shelves. I grab a loaf of challah, its braided crust shiny and golden brown, along with some celery, an onion, some mushrooms, and a few spices. Before I pay, I also throw a bunch of speckled bananas, a pot of Greek yogurt, and some flour and sugar into my basket. The ingredients are slightly different here than they are back home---"self-raising flour," "caster sugar"---but I'm sure I can re-create the banana bread I developed for a famous morning-show host back in Chicago. It's one of my most popular recipes to date, and I'm sure it would taste great with a cup of tea.”

Grocery ShoppingSausagesVarietiesChallahCultural DifferenceButcher ShopBanana Bread
Book:Too Many Cooks
Create image

“Once established, jasmine grows well in this garden, and there are three, no, four varieties now. A soft yellow, like clotted cream, that hangs loosely from the window boxes, shifting in the breeze. A pink variety, Jasminum stephanense, clambers up the brittle, naked stems of a much older plant, using its relative as a trellis. White stars of Jasminum grandiflorum cover the tendrils that have woven a canopy over the courtyard, a fragrant white parasol whose petals fall like snowflakes each autumn.”

WhiteFlowerYellowJasminePinkVarieties
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

“Late February has brought crocuses to cheer us in the melancholy of winter. The petals-- white, lilac, mauve and gold-- are perfect against a grey-white sky. We planted a thousand small, hairy corms and a couple of hundred have come up. Plucky little flowers, they must fight against the rain, mice, squirrels and sparrows, all of which seem hell-bent on their destruction. Most welcome are the luminous white Jeanne d'Arc, which have swan-like petals with a tuft of egg-yolk-orange stamens. Others include Orange Monarch, a deep saffron and mauve, and a few Pickwick, the palest lilac with a delicate feathering of mauve. Common varieties, but none the worse for it.”

FlowersColors Of NatureVarietiesCrocus
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

“Moss was one of those things that, once one was aware of it, was everywhere. She knew its subspecies from botanical books: bearded moss, bog moss, grizzled emerald, twisted moss. Reindeer moss. Emerald tufted stubble. Toothless moss. Maidenhair. Wooly fringe. It was the earth's pantry, feeding its surroundings. Expansive green mother. Lavender recalled one species in her own garden that, to the touch, felt like her mother's hair. Mother-hair moss. In a floriography book, Lavender had read that moss stood for motherhood, charity. All the more to adore. She perused the ground, found: pocket moss pincushion bristle wasted-tea moss stubble-on-a-boy's-chin moss prickly oracle moss heart's tussle Oh, the tales moss told.”

SymbolicMossVarieties
Book:The Apothecary's Garden
Create image

“When I visit Maggie's farm on Monday, she takes me from field to field in her pickup truck, showing me the fruit they just started harvesting for the summer markets: yellow Sentry peaches, white nectarines, red plums, baby apricots. We spin past patches of Chantenay carrots and orchards of Honeycrisp apples, both of which they'll pick later in the season, after the raspberries, the canes already bursting with ruby and gold fruit. Back in April, the peach trees bore masses of fluffy, sweet-smelling pink blossoms, but now dozens of fuzzy, round fruits hang from their branches like Christmas ornaments, the ripe ones so juicy you can't eat them without wearing a bib.”

FruitsFruit TreesVarietiesFresh ProduceOrchard Farming
Book:A Second Bite at the Apple
Create image