Here’s what I know: just when you think the thing you’re looking for doesn’t exist—that the world has turned to golds and reds, is more than tinged with madness and cruely—if you really want to find it, you will; in fact you’ll find there’s all sorts of it about. I’m pretty sure this works for everything. Including goodness. That despite appearances, it’s there all around us. We just have to really want to find it…
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The quince crop this year is just enough to fill the house with bowls of fragrance (gorgeous fresh scent for weeks as they ripen); not enough to make jam. Which makes me very happy.
I’m not in a jam-making mood.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
—from The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear
~
I wasn’t going to do another colour so soon but it’s the last day of summer and wandering about the garden just now, in that beautiful early evening light—the yellows just stood up and shouted to be noticed. Everything seems suddenly golden in a way that’s not yet Fall but also like nothing you ever get in July or August (when ‘yellow’ can sometimes be too ‘hot’ to like much).
Peter’s freshly picked but as yet unpickled peppers: Italian Roaster, Belgian Carrot, Banana and Jalapeno (every one of them grown and babied from seed then planted outside the day before the heat and humidity struck in June; who knew there was an early heat wave scheduled? (The Farmers’ Almanac that’s who, probably.) Anyway, plenty of innocent and tender seedlings perished—fast and painless for the most part—but these guys made it, making them, hopefully, bearers of super hardy seed for next year)
So… with the addition of vinegar and a few magic ingredients, presto—
Echinacea
Joe Pye Weed
Sandcherry
Elderberry
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The one with whom I’ve shared the bounty of the garden.
I say ‘shared’ even though he/she got most of the green beans… and all of the brussel sprouts.
~
Very ‘connected’ to our tomatoes this year as Peter grew every one of them from seed—coddling the seedlings through the last weeks of winter, convincing them that, yes, they must go outdoors, easing them into the sunlight, into small pots, larger pots, and finally into the big bad world of real soil with its inherent bugs—and worse. And all of them heritage plants, which made them very different from what we’re used to. Not as plentiful on the vine as the hybridized versions, nor as perfect or uniform in shape, but delicious (and beautiful). Along with the usual red variety, we had orange and green striped, plain orange, and yellow. Made some very nice salads.
And even though things are slowing down a bit—picked the last big bowl of cherry tomatoes yesterday (it’ll be small batches from here on out)—for the moment it’s still fresh bread, butter, salt, and occasionally some onions and a drizzle of oil—as the tomato festival continues (thankfully) just a little longer…
“One of the joys of summer is to go roaming through the garden, pulling ripe tomatoes off the vine and biting in. Juice and seeds drip all over your nice white shirt, but who cares? In summer the idea is to eat as many tomatoes as you can and enjoy the luxury of getting sick of them…
“My own idea of pure bliss is the tomato sandwich, which is good on any kind of bread… This sandwich can only be made with ripe tomatoes, luscious and full of seeds. The bread is slathered with mayonnaise, then dusted with celery salt and layered with thinly sliced tomatoes. I prefer this sandwich open, but it is fine with a lid.
“My favourite salad is the ubiquitous salad of the Middle East: diced cucumber, onion, and tomato dressed with salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice. If you fry up some squares of pita bread in olive oil and add some flat-leafed parsley and a little fresh mint, you have a salad called fattosh, which is ridiculously delicious and extremely simple to make.”
—from More Home Cooking, by Laurie Colwin (who, in the same book, offers up a recipe for Tomato Pie that is next on my To Be Made list)
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Take 2 cups of it, in fact (from your local farmers’ market if you can, or better still, pick it yourself on a sunny day). Tightly packed. Put in food processor. Add a few pinenuts. A tablespoon, two. Or none. Or walnuts. Half a cup of olive oil. A whoosh of salt and by a whoosh I mean about an eighth teaspoon, no more than a quarter (you can always add later). Garlic cloves. Three, four, five, depends how big they are, how much you like garlic. But more than five large ones would just be silly.
Puree.
Place in small tupperwares and freeze. I use single serving yoghurt containers, covered with saran wrap (and an elastic band to hold it in place). This recipe will fill two such containers.
Don’t worry about imprecise measures. You can’t go far wrong here. What you’ll have, no matter how you do it, is a little preserved ‘summer’ to enjoy in December.
~
A good reason to check each freshly picked garden leaf before chopping.
Audible sigh of relief as guest is returned to place of origin. (Note: no caterpillars were harmed in the making of either this post or pot of sorrel soup.)
~
Matilda Magtree 
