By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, a former securities attorney and derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.

It’s a sunny day in Brooklyn. Both my front and back gardens are blooming with spring bulbs and they are not at their peak yet.

The number of daily blooms yesterday: 130+ daffodils in the front yard, 19???4+ daffodils in the back garden (number per plant) Tazetas as a flower); plus 13 tulips in the front and 20 in the back. I’ll be counting again later today, and I’ll be picking some in the back garden, filling a vase or two inside, and decorating our Easter table.

Daffodils are easy to grow, and unlike most tulips, they return in large numbers year after year. Many of the bulbs present in our back garden are the ones we planted when we first moved in in the mid-90s. One just has to remember to plant them in the fall, preferably before the earth freezes.

The pandemic has largely confined us to our dorms, so I spent a lot of time gardening, tending and restoring plantings. Our back garden used to be very shady, adorned with a neighbor’s large maple and our own three-tree dry river birch as centerpieces. Every tree got sick and had to be cut down, leaving us with a sunny space. Last summer I added some new plants and divided and rearranged existing ones. The front garden is sunny in the spring, but becomes shady when the huge oak tree overhead is full of foliage.

My husband built some large pots—very large pots—and I filled them with Lent roses and roses; roses, daffodils, and tulips; and other plants and bulbs that should appear throughout the summer. Some herbs from last summer made it through the winter: rosemary, sage, laurel. I’ll be adding these soon. While I anticipate food supply issues this summer, I have decided not to remove the existing plants and replace them with vegetables. I have plenty of room indoors to store food and I’ve been stocking up on extra supplies.

We also planted a new Japanese maple tree, a cherry tree, a fig tree, a pomegranate tree and a couple of camellias – they are doing well in this space. I tried growing something that would attract pollinators – although the presence of bees and butterflies was still a little too cool.But in May, the bees buzz around the bluebells, and they stay home all summer (see Bees and Hyacinths: Celebrating World Bee Day by encouraging pollinators in my garden). Readers responded to this post with many helpful tips for attracting more bees.

This summer, I want to attract more butterflies to join the bees. Once the ground warms up, I’ll sow some milkweed seeds – a first for me. I also sow morning glory – I’ve had great success with it in the past; like daffodils, just soak the seeds before planting and score the hard outer seed coat with a sharp knife or razor blade before planting scars, they grow easily. My butterfly bush died last year and had to be replaced. Reader: What else do you plant to attract butterflies?

What is cooking?

After finishing this post, I will start preparing our Easter dinner. It’s just the two of us this year and we’ll have ham and I’ll glaze it with balsamic vinegar and serve it with mustard. My husband loves baked potatoes so there will be plenty. I parboiled them and tossed them carefully into the hot bubbling fat in the oven – using drips, or sometimes duck or goose fat (which can be strained and reused for the next special occasion). Also, we’ll have some mashed carrots and fresh dill in the fridge, and I’ll roast some asparagus with horseradish butter.

Dessert of the day: simnel cake, traditional English Easter cake, light fruit cake with almond frosting.I’ve never done it before, I’m going to use Nigella Lawson’s recipe. My husband is British so I learned to make traditional British “puddings” – Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings. These must be started weeks or even months before you plan to eat them, and “fed” with brandy or other alcohol. I serve these with a generous amount of brandy butter. Unlike other puddings, Simnel cake can be made and eaten the same day – at least that’s what Nigella told me – and I’ll be baking mine later this afternoon.

Growing up, I don’t remember Easter entrees. In this regard, this holiday is different from Thanksgiving, whose menu doesn’t change much from year to year. For Easter, I think we usually have ham or roast pork. I only remember the Polish specialties on the table: sautéed mushrooms; kielbasa with sauerkraut, and my mom’s babka, a fermented bread stuffed with sweetened cheese and a hint of cardamom. And lots of Easter chocolate. My mom made a point of buying chocolates from a specialty chocolate store in Chester, NJ, which was located between our house and my Aunt Stel and Uncle Joe’s, with whom we usually celebrated the holidays. My four siblings and I all have our own plain chocolate bunnies: milk, dark, or white chocolate; foil-wrapped chocolate eggs; and yellow marshmallow chicken.

I was craving Easter chocolate this year, so I ordered some from what Time Out calls the best chocolate shop in NYC, Aigner Chocolate, a company founded in 1930. Although the recipe is Austrian; the chocolates tasted like the ones I remember being in chocolatiers from my youth, not Swiss, Belgian or other expensive “designer” chocolates. I chose a chocolate bunny for my husband and my mother (who we will be visiting in early May) and some old fashioned chocolate for myself – peanut butter cups, cherry liqueur, Viennese truffles, black mint tarts . Now, I admit I didn’t wait until Easter to taste the chocolates, in fact, the day they arrived, I ate 11. yes, eleven! Pure gluttony! Act like a kid in a candy store. Also, I have no habit of eating chocolate. In fact, I can’t remember when was the last time I bought chocolate. But these are fine. I am lucky that Easter only comes once a year.

Celebrating Passover this April 15th reminds me of another favorite food: hash browns. My mom loves hash browns and makes them much like traditional hash browns with fresh applesauce and sour cream. To my father, dinner wasn’t a full meal unless there was meat on the table. Mom only served us hash browns when a sporting event or other school obligation meant Dad wasn’t home for dinner. Therefore, she can provide vegetarian meals for free. Potato pancakes always remind me of those special meals I had with my mom. My version is much more complex than hers and the riff on Deborah Madison’s cookbook. I included ground parboiled flour (aka Russets or Idaho potatoes), chopped green onions, parsley, grated cheese, eggs, sour cream and some spices. I fry them in olive oil until the outside is crispy and since the potatoes are parboiled there is no risk of burning the outside before the inside is cooked. But I won’t reject my mother either. Sometime next week, I’ll be making hash browns.

How about readers? What’s on your holiday table?

enjoy your meal!