Granted, here in Portugal it is rather hard to tell, at least by temperature alone. As far as I'm concerned, temperature-wise, it's Spring year-round, except when it's Summer. This is an odd thing for a northern girl like me: to know that Autumn has arrived only because (some) of the leaves on the trees have changed color and are starting to fall; to know that it's Winter only because it rains (a bit) more than usual; to know that Spring is here only because those trees that lost their leaves in the Fall are starting to show signs of replacing them.

The only other area that truly marks the passing of the seasons is the supermarket. Around here, what produce is available is highly dependent on what is in season. In general, I think this is a good thing. As we've all heard before, there is nothing to compare to fresh fruit and vegetables, grown locally, purchased and prepared in season. It is what food is supposed to taste like. Winter, for example, brings chestnuts and large bags of dried pine cones for the fireplace. Spring brings, among other goodies, strawberries. For the last couple of weeks, they've been selling them here and there, usually grown in Spain. They are gorgeous-- red and plump and worthy to grace the cover of your favorite glossy foodie magazine. They are also, sadly, completely tasteless. It will be a while before they taste like, well, strawberries. Even so, at other times of the year you won't see them at all-- not even the taste-free variety-- and that is fine by me. I saw some at the Jumbo, a great big vat of them that the person weighing the vegetables dishes up with a large metal scoop. (Usually, you select and your own fruit and veg, and bring it up to a counter in the produce department to be weighed and priced.) I didn't get any, yet-- although I will, I will, when the time is right-- but I thought about the other things that should be available soon. Asparagus. Baby vegetables. Fresh herbs.

It's the herbs that are making me really excited. Big bunches of parsley and cilantro (coriander) are easy to come by year round. Fresh basil, sage, dill, chives? Much more tricky, especially the basil. This annoys me, as I consider herbs to be an important exception to the Seasonal Rule of Produce I've outlined above. Herbs are easy to grow indoors and in greenhouses. They really should not, to my mind, have a "season." And, dammit, I want my fresh basil.

I've always been a big fan of fresh basil. I used to keep a big pot of it when I lived in the US. I would buy it small and repot it, and keep pinching it back so that it would grow up to be nice and bushy, the way basil does, and life would go along just swimmingly-- until I would get really busy at work and forget to water it, and one day I'd come home to find that it had died a horrible, withering death in the Texas sun. At which point, I would go out an buy another pot of the stuff and start again. I've always liked it and used it in all sorts of things, but after living in Italy for so long, fresh basil is an absolute necessity. I will never again be so cavalier as to let a beautiful, bushy basil plant die out of sheer absent-mindedness. I did try and grow basil in Italy, but our apartment was far from the ideal basil-growing environment. Even so, fresh basil was easy to find in the stores (although cilantro was not, which was a pity), and when it was out of season, I would buy a little box of the frozen stuff, which was OK for sauces and so forth.

Here is the rule for fresh basil: accept no substitutes because, let's face it, there aren't any. Dried basil is in no way a substitute for fresh, so I've learned to do without, and to rejoice in the occasional, minuscule, overpriced packets of fresh basil that I could find. Some of the specialty stores have it, sometimes. Continente occasionally does as well, although I almost never go there because of the no-car thing. Jumbo, on the other hand, never does.

But! Yesterday, as I suffered through my weekly expedition to Jumbo, I spotted an array of assorted fresh herbs in tiny little pots. And, tucked in amongst the parsley and cilantro, I found a solitary pot of basil. I'm not certain, but I think I might have emitted a (more or less) discreet squeal of joy.

So I bought it, of course, along with some dill, rosemary and the only little pot of sage they had. I now have my very own little herb garden, and my fresh herb woes will soon be over. They need to grow a bit first, and be repotted, and I want to get some window boxes to hang off the rails of our balcony. Also, I discovered this morning that my herbs came pre-infested. I suspect the dill. It's very droopy, that dill, and might need to be replaced. I've separated the basil out, though, to keep it safe. I also want to get some other herbs that they didn't have at Jumbo-- chives and thyme, at the very least. I'm hoping to con someone into driving me out to the garden center this weekend, or maybe I'll get up early on Saturday and check out the market.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more enthusiastic I become. For instance, I'm thinking some flowers would be nice, as well. I've always had good luck with flowers. I must get that from my grandmother and my aunt. I certainly didn't get it from my mother who, unfortunately, possesses a thumb of inkiest black, with possibly a tiny radiation warning symbol hidden in the swirls of her fingerprints. But I digress.

So: basil and a nice assortment of other herbs. Flowers. Pretty boxes to put them in. Maybe an attractive little tree to put in the corner. Soon, I shall have the terra�o of my dreams!