Two surprises awaited me this past Saturday as I took a walk from Neukölln to Kreuzberg, getting acclimated in Berlin again after a week in the heat of Spain. First, I realized that one of my favorite greenmarkets, the “Turkish market” (held on Tuesdays and Fridays on Maybachufer), has spun off a third, Saturday market dedicated to fabrics and handcrafts. There, I was doubly surprised to find an airy, minimal stand in shades of dusty green and creamy white, offering an array of strange air plants with nary a root or speck of soil in sight.

The women behind these spiky little plants call their effort Till – Air Plants. They provide not only the plants and tips on how to care for them (indirect light and a few sprays of water per month is all they need, but also a variety of holders for them, from glass and ceramic globes to hand knotted string nets.

Their aesthetic is absolutely charming. I love the color palette of the plants and the containers.

On the card I was given about Tillandsia, a genus of over 450 ephiphytic air plants, I read that many species only blossom once in their lifetime. So perhaps I was treated to a rare sight in the glass globe above!

Till – Air Plants regularly appear at greenmarkets and flea markets around Berlin, and also offer their wares in a few shops around town. Their website is also lovely, with tender watercolors of each species. If you are looking for a very low-maintenance houseplant in Berlin, this might be your source. As for me, I’ve been adding houseplants faster than I can care for them, but when I’m ready for some new ones I will have to visit Till at the next open-air market.

Spring on Spain’s Costa de la Luz (the Atlantic part of the coastline) is an explosion of wildflower blossoms, from red poppies and yellow-and-white daisies to purple thistles and blue borage. I plucked a few while staying in the dusty little village of El Palmar to study more closely.

In a grungy steel planter in front of a cute little mite of a delicatessen in Kreuzberg,

a crowd of juicy green wildflowers has burst into life. Specimens more often see in the fields and forest wave in the backdraft of passing cars, cyclists and tourists: dandelion, buttercup, mint, grasses and more. Spring.

In this restaurant in Berlin-Friedrichshain the other day, in the morning before the restaurant had opened for the day, a crew of plants were chilling in the window, from oranges to orchids.

As I’ve mentioned, spring has felt massively delayed to many Berliners this year. Maybe our expectations have been warped by global warming, but it feels like we’ve been waiting, shivering at near-zero temperatures, on the brink of spring for ages. We’ve watched reports on TV about Germany’s beloved spring crop, white asparagus, whose harvest has been delayed for more than four weeks by the cold rain. Same for my favorites, bright pink rhubarb and Bärlauch, the tender wild garlic greens that Berliners forage in city parks, which both have been nowhere to be seen… until this week!

The tide turned on Tuesday. I walked into Yuki’s café to find tea sandwiches filled with hard-boiled eggs and Bärlauch! I was so delighted that I promptly wrote a post about it on my other blog. That very evening, the television news did a whole five-minute segment on the topic Grass Will Grow Again Starting This Week! It’s not every day that urban plants get so much media coverage.

I don’t know if Bärlauch gets quite as much hype as this grass I saw on the news, or as that American foodie favorite, ramps (which is native to North America, but which I’ve never tried). So if you don’t know Bärlauch, or ramsons, it is simply a leafy member of the garlic and onion genus with a tender, gentle garlic or chive flavor, which grows wild in Europe and Asia. I find it’s not so terribly different from chives, garlic scapes or garlic chives in flavor. You could certain substitute any of these in a recipe with good results, I think.

However, to me, there’s something magical about this herb because it’s one of the first to appear in spring. It’s a relief: fresh, green and juicy, and most importantly, not a storage vegetable. I wonder if it’s just the timing, the early-bird status, that makes it taste so good? Would I turn still backflips for rhubarb — sour and stringy  —  if it ripened in August? What about the German mania for white asparagus, could it happen in late summer?

No matter! Whether its charm lies in the flavor, in the symbolism, or just in our sun-starved heads, Bärlauch est arrivé! Here is one way to cook it.

Barley Risotto with Bärlauch (or any seasonal herbs)

I adapted this recipe from Mark Bittman’s Barley ‘Risotto’ last night, after I spotted a bunch of Bärlauch at the LPG market in Friedrichshain. You can make it with any tender, fresh herbs available. In fact, you can also use the same instructions to make risotto with rice, as I usually do. Either way, the warmth of the dish is nice for the chill of early spring.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1-2 shallots
• 1 cup pearled barley, rinsed
• 4-6 cups broth, heated *
• 2 generous handfuls fresh herbs, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup white wine
• Parmesan cheese, butter, salt, pepper

1. In a large, heavy pot or pan, heat the olive oil at medium-high heat. Add a spoon of butter if you like. Then sauté the shallots until tender.

2. Add the barley and sauté for a couple minutes, stirring constantly. Salt and pepper lightly.

3. Pour in the wine and continue to cook, stirring, at medium high heat, until mostly evaporated. Tip: a wooden or silicone spatula is really helpful from this point forward.

4. Stir in about a cup of broth and simmer until mostly absorbed. Repeat, stirring in the broth a cup at a time, then cooking it down. This process is what makes the risotto creamy – it requires a bit of extra attention to keep the grains from sticking to the pot. Continue until the barley is creamy and just tender, but not soft, which should take around 30 minutes and use up most of your pot of broth.

5. Turn off the heat. Stir in the cheese and another spoonful of butter, then salt and pepper to taste. Finally, gently stir in half of your herbs.

6. Serve, topped generously with the remaining herbs. Enjoy!

Let me know how you like the recipe, and what spring vegetables you’ll be gathering, sourcing and cooking.

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* I made a quick broth by simmering a carrot, an onion, some celery root trimmings from the freezer, and a couple dried mushrooms in a pot of water while talking on the phone to a friend.

Snow is still on the ground a week after Easter. Most Berliners are busy complaining about the total absence of spring, but my neighbor Herr Mischke has taken matters into his own hands. On the mountain of old snow in front of his bookshop, Atlantis, he’s throwing this spring’s first garden party on the icy peak.

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Geografische Buchhandlung Atlantis is an independent bookshop ‘for reading travelers and traveling readers,’ with maps, travel guides, and general interest books (mostly in German). Karl-Marx-Allee 98, Berlin-Friedrichshain.

Kind of gross, kind of gorgeous. I left this red ranunculus blossom in a water glass on my office windowsill over the weekend. Today I found it had drunk all the water and stuck itself to the bottom of the glass in a surprising way. Beautiful decay? Or just slimy?

“Make your own sunshine,” Sylee titled the blog post on Berlin Reified featuring her photos of this make-your-own tulips kit, made here in Berlin. Yes, we must make our own sunshine here in the gray city at the moment, holding our breaths, waiting for spring to come and bring us the real thing!

Photo by Sylee Gore, Berlin Reified