Smörgåsbord of Summer

Sometimes there's too much going on to be a loyal blogger. What with pistachio ice cream, and two-lane highways prime for biking (minus the occasional tire spearing the occasional tire), and Hollywood showing up just around the corner, it's been nonstop action around here.

That's not counting the energy it takes to throw crap like this down the gullet:


















Summer's good around these parts.

I've been soaking it all in — on occasion, literally:















I'd take beet-pink fingers over sun-pink shoulder blades any day. Who says the kitchen isn't a fine place to enjoy a sweltering August afternoon?

My dear neighborly farmers have led the way lately, coaxing me toward Vitamins C and A, respectively:

































And, of course, B,L and T:




















Those are pan-fried yellow wax beans, flecked with red pepper, posing as French fries. Tricky little bastards.

On another day an abundance of zucchini and broccoli inspired a primavera-like concoction over fried polenta (star-shaped, no less). Patriotic and, as it turned out, quite good to eat. I cooked the polenta (cornmeal with a fancy name, according to the BBC) with heaps of garlic and Parmesan before spreading it in a baking pan to cool. Then, once its sponginess was eerily evocative of Play-doh, I carved out the stars (some 50 in all, I might note).














Quickly fried up in a bit of olive oil, they were the perfect foil for the bright, tomato-bound vegetable melee. A little more Parmesan on top, and I was more than pleased with myself:
















Similar bounty inspired a pizza of Webb proportions:
















Per my former roommate's recipe, the above emerged from a box of Jiffy pizza crust mix, a liberal wash of pesto, heaps of mozzarella and kalamata olives and of course, a few vegetables for color.














Preferably consumed in her company, but in a pinch, it worked out. Though I can't guarantee it didn't evoke a little nostalgia.

Such emotions were quelled by a fit of unsuccessful attempts at a lemon cornmeal blueberry muffin. So good in premise, so pretty in pictures, so disgusting in taste:




















Alas.

More successful was a bout of pickling: Tarragon-infused Kirby cucumbers, and crimson beets with onions. Easy! And so, so pretty:














It wouldn't be summer without yet another beet picture:














It's obsessive and abnormal, I know, I know. But I just really like them. They look like blood and squelch in your teeth and have little curling tails! And rings like inside a centuries-old tree. OK, enough.

And, lastly, there was an apricot tart. It was my virgin tart experience. Don't laugh, this is serious business. It involved rolling pins and tart pans and pie crust, that finicky affectation left to my long-lost friend (see pizza, above). I had to suck it up and buy my own pin and pan. I had to labor alone. But, I did. Successfully, even:
















Armed with a trusty recipe from Orangette, the trustiest of food blogs, I ventured onward. Glistening apricots from the farmers' market piled into the crust, eliciting what might have been a squeal of glee. They're pretty adorable, you have to admit:














And, once cooked, sweet and tart and syrupy and rather exquisite:
















Just try and scare me, Labor Day. I can say with confidence that summer has been squeezed out of every possible stone fruit, steamed from each zucchini and beaten from every blushing perennial. If the leaves fell today, I'd be satisfied.

But I might boil some sweet corn first.

On Ice Cream and Prehistoric Reptiles

I was frustrated. It was hot and the middle of the week, and there was no end in sight.

Only one thing cut through the haze: Ice cream.

It didn't seem too towering a request. This is, after all, a resort town, and in resort towns, ice cream flows in the same proportion as Bud Light does in a college town. So I weighed my options. There was the retro place down by the lake...too many screaming brats in the line. Then there was the frozen yogurt joint down the road....yogurt? Pshaw. I decided, after much pondering, on Byrne Dairy, which has been milking cows since 1933.

The place, which doubles as a convenience store, was loaded with celebratory kids (school ended yesterday) and tanned worker types buying cases of Coors. I saddled up to the ice cream counter to place my meager order.

Me: Can I have a small hot fudge malt?
Ice Cream Girl: Uh, like, a shake? (quizzical look)
Me: Uh, sure, whatever
ICG: And what do you mean, like put hot fudge in a shake?
Me: Uh, yeah.
ICG: (after consult with cigarette clerk) Oh, we can't do that.
Me: Fine, a chocolate shake is fine.

So she passed over the long-lusted-after dessert I didn't really order, and I paid. Then I took a sip.

Uh.

And one more, just to be sure.

Yep, it was disgusting. Gross, maybe, is more accurate. Or just plain bad. It had the consistency of slightly frozen milk, the flavor of chalk, and the distinct honor of being so exquisitely boring, I couldn't stomach it.

I tossed it, barely drunk, atop a pile of shingles in a dumpster.

When it comes to ice cream, I can stomach very nearly anything. In fact, on summer vacations as a kid, I convinced my parents to fill my mini hands with an ice cream cone each and every day. More often than not, the cones came after days spent excavating dinosaur bones in South Dakota or Utah. Along with the bones, we would find gastroliths, rocks polished over years spent in the bellies of the beasts. Some dinosaurs, apparently, would swallow the stones to help break down tough plants. Long after T-Rex croaked, these remnants remain, with all the shine of sea glass.

The fact they got that way thanks to dino-sized stomach acid only makes them more appealing.

So one cloudless day, we were traversing the barren desert per usual when, in a stroke of genius, I proclaimed my own digestive deficiency. Like the dinosaurs before me, I, too, needed digestive assistance. But stones wouldn't do for a little girl sunburned like a Red Snapper. I needed ice cream.

My ice cream stones kept everything copasetic that summer, and many summers after. Until my fated failure in Canandaigua, of course. The not-a-malt was disappointing, to be sure. But when a critical bearer of life functioning fails, I can't just give up. So back I will go into the realm of the iced unknown. Unlike my scaley friends, I'm not waiting for extinction to prove the importance of a well-stoned diet.

To Fill a Sunday with Jam

I never even considered it.

Canning takes science, and precision, and at least 45 years of age. Or so I thought. It's strawberry season, and the U-Pick farms have been beckoning me with their $1.75/quart prices and general wholesomeness for weeks now. And as it turns out that, despite my scientific and aged-related failings, I, too, can make jam.















Lazy New Yorkers get their berries from roadside stands, where you stick a couple dollars in a jar and take a few flats of strawberries. They run on the honor system. Seriously. The honor system.

But as quaint as that is, picking your own probably tops it. Not to mention, I have far too much free time to buy them pre-picked. So there I was, squatting in awkward positions and swatting gnats and generally suffering for the better part of an hour at the farm, located just outside of town. To be fair, the little crimson jems nearly fell off their stalks, occasionally oozing into my hands with alarming bloodiness. And the thrill of inhaling fresh strawberries all the while tempered the strife.















So, my arms laden with Ball jars and strawberries, I ventured into the domain of grandmothers (great-grandfathers, in my case). And wow. Canning is apparently a well-kept secret of old age.
Though, maybe, a little time-consuming:

- 45 minutes to pick six quarts of strawberries from my local "U-pick" farm
- 15 minutes to decide which 5-quart pans to buy
- 20 minutes to find Ball jars in (shame) Wal-Mart
- 45 minutes to hull said six quarts of strawberries
- 15 minutes to cook them into red sludge
- 1 minute of anxious waiting before the lids popped
- 20 seconds to spread jam onto toasted bread
- 5 seconds to realize it's way better than that Amish crap

As for the cooking and "processing," it was sweaty. And a little scary. All these boil points and pectin measurements and things to be done "immediately." But it turns out, a little fumbling is OK. And my strawberries went from glistening specimens to mushed goop to exquisite jars of jam, without any witchcraft or grandmas (just a little Sure-Jell).




















I can't wait for peach season.