From Our Fields: Almonds and Walnuts
Two trees, two seasons — and one of Lebanon's most-loved spring snacks.
## Green Almonds First
Before the almond hardens into the nut you know, it spends a few weeks as something else entirely: the green almond — loz akhdar — soft, fuzzy, and tart. For a short window in spring, it is one of the most sought-after things in any Lebanese kitchen, eaten whole with a little salt.
That window is narrow. Green almonds do not keep, and they do not travel well. Growing our own means we can pick them at the right moment instead of chasing them through a supply chain.
## Then the Walnut
Walnuts come later, in the autumn. The fresh walnut — pulled from its green husk before it dries — is a different thing from the bagged supermarket nut: tender, milky, with none of the bitterness that creeps in over months of storage.
We grow both. The almond gives us two products from one tree across two seasons. The walnut gives us something most people only ever taste dried.
## The Point
Nuts are usually a commodity — dried, bagged, shipped, and stored for a year. Ours start as something fresher, because we are the ones growing the tree.