Pie in the sky

Thoughts of Summer and Beyond


The garden has offered up over 8 quarts of berries this month. I just spent 45 minutes picking the last batch. I left a few on the branches for the birds. It would be nice if the woodpecker could get his breakfast from there rather than rattle the rafters with his 6:00 Am drum solo. I cannot make blueberry jam because I have yet to finish last year's 20 pints. Since I am the only one in the house eating blueberry, that may take some time. I should have planted grapes because that seems to be the preferred flavor for PB&JS. My youngest suggested I make a pie, but surely no one will eat that. So I am stuck with all this fruit and nothing to make, but not for very long because my favorite canning book, Ball Complete Book Of Home Canning suggests I make Blueberry Basil Vinegar. Surely I can sneak that past my husband in salad dressing.

This week has also sent my oldest son off to the Berkshires in Massachusetts for the entire summer. He has been hired on as a YMCA camp counselor at camp Hirock. I find it fascinating that this tech savvy, Blackberry carrying, Cable TV watching, Macbook junkie who takes one 40 minute shower a day every day is willing to leave the comforts of home and while away the breezy summer hours atop a mountain in the middle of nowhere. And by the comforts of home I mean clean folded laundry, three meals a day, maid service by yours truly, and a job that was paying twice what I am sure a counselor makes for the summer. But God bless him, go be young while you can. There must be more to summer camp these days than friendship bracelets and nature trail. Anyway, I miss him terribly when he away and I think of him most of the day like when I am picking blueberries. How did that sweet little boy of mine grow up so fast? This summer will be practice for the following year when he goes off to college. Good thing I stared this blog without this hotel guest here I should have extra hours in my day.

I had the most delicious bibb lettuce salad with green and purple pea pods and green snap beans with frsh basil and Chevre cheese for dinner. I wish I had that blueberry vinaigrette to go with it. I did enjoy it with olive tappenade bread that I made from my sour dough starter. I had a bread dough starter going fom January, but I killed it through neglect this spring, so I started up the yeasty beast last week and started all over again with the starter. You guessed it, no one wants olive bread or Chevre cheese salad here either. I sometimes think when it comes to my family's food palate I was adopted because we have very little in common. Good thing I chose to be a chef and serve that high tech gourmet food to a wider audience. The best thing I ever ate you want to know? There was a braised veal cheek in a South Norwalk restaurant many year ago that I to this day can remember vividly the taste and texture. Raclette cheese melted on a soapstone in front of a roaring fire served over crusty French bread was a Sunday dinner staple that I fondly remember as a kid in Middle Haddam Ct
For summertime, although my mother served zucchini in every possible way, that was not a choice for the best thing I ever ate category. She was very good at disguising zucchini so you were fooled into thinking something new had made it to the table. Why is it people can grow so much zucchini and yet after they grow it, they look for friends and family to give it to? Grow something you like and keep your unwanted zucchini to yourself. No, my favorite garden food for summer has always been rhubarb brown Betty with the buttery cubes of sugar crusted bread perched atop soft and silky rhubarb sauce with the mandatory melting crown of vanilla ice cream. My rhubarb plant has only yielded three skinny stalks so far this year, so it looks like blueberry zucchini pie for us! I wonder wht they are serving at camp tonight.

Get out there and grow something even if it is zucchini. Just don't leave a bushel basket on my front porch unless you want a pint of blueberry jam in trade.

Bee El