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  • One Local Summer, Week 11

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    Still no egg lady at the farmer’s market! Egg lady, where are ya? I mean, yes, I know I can go inside the store and buy local eggs, but it’s not the same, dang it.

    Maverick engaged the nice couple selling Eve’s Cheese in conversation today, and they enticed him to try their Asian pear butter, which he loved! Yay! He’s not usually into trying new things, so I was more than happy to pay $2.50 for a jarful, even though it did push me past my $30 budget.

    Apparently the pear butter is good spread on chicken and grilled; can’t wait to try!

    So. Here’s what one can get for $31 at the farmer’s market:

    • candy plums and strawberry-banana plums ( Hmm. Verdict: both taste like plums. Maybe my palate is unsophisticated. )
    • yellow squash, green pepper, cucumber, all giant-sized
    • bag of mixed salad greens (hard to see in photo, but they are there, behind the apples)
    • apples (these are super tart, Mav loves them)
    • half a dozen ears of corn, pile of fingerling potatoes, onion
    • “donut” peaches
    • nectarines
    • Eve’s Cheese- this week it’s cheddar with garlic and chive
    • and Mav’s Asian pear butter.

    Plus, we still have a huge watermelon I bought from a roadside stand that I cut up yesterday. We are talking MAD AMOUNTS OF FRUIT in my refrigerator.

    I tried to make a pizza for dinner with sauce made from my garden tomatoes and basil, with local mozzarella, but something went awry. Usually I make the dough and Jeff makes the pizzas, but he was asleep, and I thought, how hard can it be? The timing is a little tricky when you’re making a bunch, and also corn, and a salad, etc… The sauce was still watery, should have been cooked down a LOT more. Jeff thought the crust wasn’t dark enough, I thought it was overdone. I don’t know, maybe I’m being hyper-critical, the kids ate it without complaining. Cass had three slices.

    In any case, I neglected to take a picture because I was all stressed out and my hands were doughy and the corn had to come off the burner and there was a fox in the yard that demanded his portrait be taken…you get the idea.

    So, we won’t count that one. (The flour wasn’t local anyway.) Instead I’ll submit the sausages, peppers and onion dinner we had earlier this week, at the beach. With more corn. I think I might have hit my corn saturation point.

    Jeff ate his on rolls I got from the bakery, but I just like to eat the sausages and veg.

    Again, I didn’t take pictures of the meal. I didn’t think to.

    I couldn’t resist snapping a shot of the onion and peppers before I sauteed them, though. Talk about taste the rainbow:

    Pretty, yes? Summery and delicious?

  • Happiness in Little Things

    It is not how much we have,
    but how much we enjoy,
    that makes happiness.

    -Charles H. Spurgeon

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    I don’t have much of an August display in my garden.

    I would, probably, if the deer hadn’t eaten all the sunflowers.

    But, taking pleasure in the little we do have. In this case, a little guy in Cassidy’s garden, growing against all odds amidst the weeds, having survived all her digging, overplanting, and general all-around enthusiastic “care”.

    I don’t even know what kind of flower this is, but isn’t it pretty?

  • Saturday

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    Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
    and remember what peace
    there may be in silence.

    As far as possible without surrender
    be on good terms with all persons.
    Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
    and listen to others.

    You are a child of the universe
    no less than the trees and the stars;
    you have a right to be here.

    Therefore be at peace with God,
    whatever you conceive him to be,
    and whatever your labors and aspirations,
    in the noise confusion of life,
    keep peace with your soul.

    With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
    it is still a beautiful world.

    -Anonymous