This day, like so many other late July days of memory is to be spent trimming, washing and processing garden produce for the freezer, and that seems appropriate, given that Lammas (or Lughnasadh) or First Harvest is only a few days off now.Meals tend to be a serendipity undertaking at this time of the year with trips out to the veggie patch before every lunch and dinner to see what is available, ripe for the picking and ready to be tossed into the wok or salad bowl. Since our veggie patch is not very large, we supplement our larder with organic produce from local farms, and much of the produce is coming from my friend Caroline's market garden at the Ouellette farm out in the Lanark Highlands. I also use her aromatic infused oil and vinegar blends in salads and stir fry offerings and am always hunting for new recipes to use them in.
Last evening I spent a happy hour or two with a large pot of green tea and my copy of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Diugood's sumptuous Mangoes and Curry Leaves as well as Jessica Prentice's Full Moon Feasts, Deborah Madison's Local Flavours and Annie Somerville's Everyday Greens. I highly recommend all four books whether one ever gets around to making the recipes or not - they are all treats for body and spirit.
Today the yellow beans, tomorrow the world...
4 comments:
Thank you for the recommendations! I have Full Moon Feast, and will check out the otheres.
~Flaneuse in DC
Our weather has been so fantastically sunny on the West Coast that the farmers don't know what to do with their crops.
As we speak, I'm soaking cherries before I freeze them - at $1.05 a pound, it's unheard of here. Usually we are goggle-eyed if the price drops to 1.99.
I'm not sure how the farmers manage when they have such a large harvest - trucking costs are the same, and labour to pick it.
The blueberries are a bumper crop - I imagine that everything is.
What a blessing it is to have food. We must never become careless in our thanks for it, for the plenty in our land.
K
it is so much fun to see what is ready for the table each day. we are still waiting on the tomatoes - my favorite of all the garden gifts!
Your lovely dish inspired me to really, really get my veggie garden growing! I've been talking about it for years but haven't put forth the effort, thank you for the motivation and inspiration!
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