Here we are, middle of August. Main topics of conversation: back to school plans, Kamala Harris, European cycling (at our house, at least), the USPS, and whether to bike or drive to get ice cream at 8:30 at night.
I harvested my first tomato this week, a so-called Early Girl (I thought it would be much earlier), which was thrilling. There are many more to come, particularly cherry tomatoes. I have about five Cherokee Purples ripening that will probably come in dead last. Worth the wait.
We had a couple cold overnights that resulted in confusion and long sleeves.
But the evenings were perfectly lovely. On Thursday we rode downtown to pick up our wine, pick up a book, and pick out a spot on the grassy knoll for secret wine drinking and cheese eating.
Recipes
Saturday was Ferragosto, an Italian holiday celebrated each August 15, originally a festival created by emperor Augustus to celebrate a day of rest for agricultural workers. Of course, the church later took it over to observe the assumption of Mary. We have celebrated it for the last number of years with Joel's pollo alla Romana, braised chicken and bell peppers, served with grilled crusty bread. This year we also played bocce in the backyard, enjoyed a crisp Pinot Grigio and watched the film Pranzo di Ferragosto.
We had more rich Italian food earlier in the week with a Milk Street recipe for Sardinian sausage ragu (made with saffron).
We've been managing to eat veggies, too. Roasted carrots with carrot-top chimichurri, and grilled assorted veggies with tahini dressing.
And finally, I tried out a recipe for honeyed blueberry cakes from Flourless, which have been tasty with coffee at breakfast.
Making
I knocked out another Willow tank this week and it might be my favorite so far.
Watching
I couldn't resist starting the Sinatra documentary that just appeared on Netflix. Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about Frank, I'm enjoying hearing him speak about his life, which is often what is missing in his biographies.
Reading
I'm almost finished with The Hate U Give, but I'm splitting my reading time with The Fixed Stars, a new memoir by Molly Wizenberg. I attended a virtual book talk to hear from her earlier in the week and it's a very interesting departure from her food memoirs, and also very good so far. (The basic gist, in case you weren't following, is that after getting married, having a kid, building a successful food writing career and blog, and opening two restaurants with her husband in Seattle, she realized her sexual identity was changing.)
Listening
I couldn't start watching that Sinatra documentary and not listen to a lot of Sinatra this week. Ring-A-Ding-Ding! was a good choice.
Desmond has early girls growing too, we harvested the first really good one this weekend (the other ones had blossom end rot).
ReplyDeleteArgh! Blossom end rot is the worst! That happened to me one year and I wasn't sure what to do about it. I still don't know what to do other than cross my fingers it won't happen again, but I've heard it has something to do with calcium? Hope you get more good tomatoes soon!
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