Joys of Summer

Ah the joys of summer – harvesting fresh, crisp, lettuce, digging up your own garlic and onions, cutting beautiful flowers for your table, gathering fresh berries. And then again there’s the flip side – weeding and insect bites (why do the mosquitoes seem to favor my left leg?) having to water twice a day to keep the garden from expiring from the tropical heat, fighting the ground hogs and the deer (they seem to be winning but leave us enough to keep us from abandoning the project all together thus maintaining their daily all you can eat buffet).

Despite the challenges there is something truly special about eating something you had a hand in raising (unlike parenting where eating your young is frowned upon). After sharing with friends and neighbors there is rarely enough for us to sustain ourselves so we also belong to a CSA (community supported agriculture). Our weekly box provides us with some of the produce we’ve yet to attempt – blueberries, garlic scapes (our garlic never scaped – it went from erect to half dead and begging to escape the clutches of the soil), and the ubiquitous kale (we did grow kale last year and met our lifetime quota of the stuff).

When traveling I have a hard time resisting stopping at a farm stand – especially when I see the fields in evidence in the background. I can’t be fooled into believing that watermelons or corn are really local at this time of year (unless your definition of local is 1500 miles away). But I’m happy to buy their forlorn kohlrabi and rutabagas lest no one else wants them. And then there is the lure of the farmer’s market. I feel an obligation to support our local farmers and so make a point of buying something from each stand. All of this results in our refrigerator being so overstuffed that I haven’t seen the Arm and Hammer box since April.

So what do we do with all this stuff? We had spinach and eggs for breakfast, a big salad for lunch, tonight I made a giant pot of steamed veggies and soba noodles with almond miso sauce. It definitely discourages one from eating out. Not to mention that unless you’re frequenting restaurants that source locally (like Ricuitti’s) nothing tastes as fresh and as delicious as that from your own garden (or your local farmer’s). Eat up!!!