In fact, Monet had three gardens around his house at Giverny: A flower garden, a water garden, and a kitchen garden.
His flower garden, surrounding his two storied pink house, was a French styled cottage garden. As he did with his paintings, he expressed his feeling about colors, cool and hot, on his landscape.
Yes, the flower garden was magnificent; however, his exotic water garden, or water lily garden, had gained a high reputation due to those masterpieces which he painted in his later life. To me, if the flower garden was his expression about shades of colors, while the water garden, reflected his philosophy about the relationship between light and shade, the lifelong pursuit of an impressionist—just like once before art critic Clement Greenberg commented on an impressionist painting. “a forming, pouring, shimmering profusion like nothing else in painting; pictures that are spotted and woven with soft, porous colors, and look in themselves like soft bouquets of flowers.”
At the other end of the village where he lived could be found his third, perhaps his most important, garden—a two-acre kitchen garden, which provided him, his family, and his guests daily fresh garden produce. Garden-to-table- what a gourmet, healthy lifestyle! Beyond that, he even raised his own poultry, and his house was fortunately close to the seaport of Dieppe which supplied fresh seafood from the Atlantic Ocean.
A bountiful kitchen garden, home raised poultry, lobsters and fish that just came out of the water, what else would he do? Of course, cooking.
It is said that Monet was selective and picky about his food. That’s very understandable—because only a real selective and picky foodie would spare no effort to create a kitchen garden, to collect the best food source, and to even write down his own recipes in his culinary journals.
As a part time painter, a home gardener and chef, I share a lot of hobbies with this great master. If I could meet him and invite him to come to my house, what would I serve him?
First, I would show him my garden so he could enjoy it while I was cooking. He liked fragrant flowers, in particular peonies. Luckily, I also like peony (I even designed a peony embroidery for my clothesline); I have ten peony cultivars plus two varieties of tree peony. If he came at the end of April or early May, he could watch the flowers even though they wouldn’t bloom at the same time. But I also have many other gorgeous, fragrant flowers which bloom in different seasons, such as: Flowering mume in January; high fragrance camellia in February; cymbidium goeringii and daphne in March; freesia and lily tree in April; lilac, calycanthus and mock orange in May; Jasmine, honey suckle and magnolia in June; gardenia and tuberose in July; abelia in August; camellia sinensis in September; osmanthus in October; spider chrysanthemum in November; snowbells handelii in December…
He would like my fragrant garden, for sure it contains many interesting species which surely would inspire him. About the food, it would be easy as a breeze: I could use my home produce to make a simple garden-to-table salad; about the entrée, since he loved seafood, I would do my signature dish—low country boil steamed in lotus leaves; as I have a beautiful peach tree in my back yard which grows beautiful peaches, I could make a peach pie as the last course. About the wine, I also have something very special: My home made, five-year aged green plum wine. It would be wonderful to drink it with ice and lemon balm or elderberry flowers (from my garden, of course!) on a hot summer evening under my flowering crape myrtle.
What an unforgettable memory it would be!
(My garden-to-table salad: SunSugar tomato, purplette onion, and sweet basil)
(Michael in our Kungfu shirt is checking on the peach crop)
(My painting of the lady in our peony Qipao)