Is This @#$%ing Summer Over Yet?

I’m late with the account of the vegetable box. Life did its thing by getting in the way: the cats continue to struggle with various health issues (the saintly Jenni is convinced that they are both dope fiends) and I managed to lose a fight with a park bench and ended up in the ER for three hours, emerging with two small stitches and a tetanus shot (a combination that made me pretend to be Beck, following it up with “Where it’s at.”).

Still: some really nice farmers grew these vegetables and I don’t want to be the a**hole who lets them go rotten in the crisper drawer.

The haul: carrots, lettuce, eggplant, parsley, chard, apples, cucumbers, string beans.

The haul: carrots, lettuce, eggplant, parsley, chard, apples, cucumbers, string beans.

And here’s what happened:

The chard, I braised and ate with fried eggs and loads of jalapeños AGAIN. The lettuce went into salads. The apples I either ate out of hand or sliced with cheese (Cato Corner Hooligan, to be exact).

The perfectly ovoid eggplant became moussaka. Y’all, if I ever want to make moussaka again in the summertime, stop me. This should be confined to cold weather cooking: frying, roasting, making sauce, baking. OY. Still : it was delicious and a good portion of it remains in the freezer for other days.

Moussaka: delicious, but a complete PITA.

Moussaka: delicious, but a complete PITA.

The parsley went atop another focaccia. My culinary creativity these days suffers like California.

Focaccia, again. Are you sick of focaccia pics yet? I'm going to call this photo-caccia.

Focaccia, again. Are you sick of focaccia pics yet? I’m going to call this photo-caccia.

The green beans and carrots I pickled because I love pickles. I also love cute jars.

Pickles

Pickles

And the cucumbers became cucumber gimlets. I had one of these dangerously refreshing drinks a couple of weeks ago at Persimmon. Kevin at the bar is a mad genius; he tops his gimlet with a splash of sparkling wine and the combination of herby gin and nose-tickling bubbles with rock your palate into next Tuesday. Kevin used Ford’s gin; our home bar lacked that, so I used Uncle Val’s, although I imagine Hendrick’s would be good as well.

So much goodness.

So much goodness.

Have you listened to the new album from The Tallest Man on Earth yet? They played Newport this year (sniff) to great acclaim. Being the curmudgeonly, misanthropic sort, I have always appreciated the doleful nature of Kristian Mattson’s songwriting. On this song, the first single off Dark Bird is Home, he sings of heartbreak, but with perhaps his most lush orchestration to date. Violin, mandolin, acoustic and electric guitar, castanet punctuated percussion, and haunting backing vocals join in the soul-searching quest.

And so here I go again
Say I want my freedom sure
But it’s like end of all the dreams
Like in my life I needed more

This entry was posted in Food and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.