A friend recently asked me why I grow vegetables and get a CSA share from my local market. It’s a fair question. But for me the two things serve completely different functions. My CSA share stretches me. Left to myself I would spend the whole summer eating my holy trinity of vegetables: tomatoes, corn and zucchini. I would, and do, walk happily by the produce shelves loaded with greens, root vegetables, and other less favored foods straight to my go-to’s. I can’t do that with my CSA. The dang things are in my home! In my refrigerator right now are Japanese eggplants, radishes ...
Salads and Sides
LOW COUNTRY SALAD OF GRILLED HALLOUMI, WATERMELON AND TOMATOES
I love the mountains of western North Carolina but the Southerner in me was born in the Low Country. The summers of my childhood were spent on the beaches, playing in the surf and exploring the shallow waters on the edges of the Intercoastal Waterway. Sun ripened tomatoes were eaten whole and hot off the vine. Peaches dripped juice down my chin and made my fingers sticky. We fished for crab in the shallow waters and peeled fresh shrimp to be eaten with corn which had been taken off the stalk that morning. We ate fruit pies of every sort, angel food cake and ice box cake. Later in ...
MEMORIAL DAY POTATO SALAD
Memorial Day: the beginning of Summer, opening day for swimming pools and a day for family barbecues. It is a bittersweet holiday for me. Growing up in a small town in Connecticut, Memorial Day began with my Girl Scout Uniform. Arranging my badge-covered sash over my shoulders and settling my hat on my head, I gathered with the rest of my troop in a church parking lot and marched to the town cemetery where we listened to speeches and prayers and felt the wars remembered to be far removed from our lives. Afterwards, my family would pile into our wood paneled station wagon and drive to ...
OVEN ROASTED ZUCCHINI WITH FRESH TOMATO SAUCE: HOMAGE TO THOMAS KELLER
“ZUCCHINI IS JUST A MAGNIFICENT VEGETABLE”—CHEF THOMAS KELLER I love Thomas Keller. Seriously, he may be my secret celebrity crush. I am taking an online course of his on MasterClass and his passion for the most simple of vegetables and the purest methods of preparation is just riveting. Mastery of a profession combined with sincere appreciation of its tools may be one of the sexiest things ever. So, I love Thomas Keller. Zucchini, on the other hand, I have mixed feelings about. It’s hard to rave about zucchini. We grow it (or at least some people successfully grow it). We cook it ...
