Family, Fantasy, Food, gardening, Nature, Weather

Dreaming of Summer

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As I’m driving in the snow the other night, this quote came up on the CD I’m listening in the car, compliments of  Susan Albert-Wittig:

“It’ll be like eating summer out of a jar”

Now I’m not complaining AT ALL about the snow and rain.  After the dry dry winter, I’m glad to have the moisture and I’m sure my gardens will be happier for it when spring/summer rolls around.  But hearing the phrase about eating summer out of a jar reminded me of one of our old favorites:

The only canning I do these days is jam: strawberry and raspberry every year and then blueberry every couple of years.  Normally I enjoy my jam all year round but I’ve never spent much time thinking about it.  Hopefully I’ll try to think of it as summer in a jar in the weeks to come!

Do you have any foods that you think of as “summer” foods?

37 thoughts on “Dreaming of Summer”

  1. Ordinarily my first thought would be grilled foods but this anomalous winter I’ve been grilling throughout. Anything that calls for lots of fresh tomatoes is best left for summer when the tomatoes are local and there are some herb-heavy recipes like a tarragon chicken salad I make that need more tarragon than I would choose to buy in pricy little sprigs.

    Certainly any vegetable-heavy recipe is of a different character and quality when those vegetables come from the garden or farmer’s market.

    Oh, and corn on the cob, of course.

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    1. figs and dates are items that I see at Costco but don’t have much experience with. I think of them as Ramadan food for breaking the fast at the end of the day. I was asked to deliver a box of figs and then the order was canceled so I got to keep the box and try it out. They were good and reminded me of eating healthy caramels but the evidently do it for me enough to have me but them again

      pomegranates are a favorite but they are fall food. I buy a tray of 12 and eat them for a couple weeks to satisfy my gluttony.

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  3. This made me think of one of my favorite Greg Brown songs, “Canned Goods.” “You can taste a little of the summer. My grandma’s put it all in a jar.”

    Summer foods: peaches, real tomatoes, corn on the cob, strawberries, zucchini.

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    1. i asked my guitar teacher to show me how to play it in pre YouTube days and enjoyed it a bunch. Greg plays it with an odd d chord configuration where he wraps his thumb around the top of the neck and bars the top string . My guitar is a classical which has a wider neck than a steel string guitar. That coupled with my average sized hands makes Greg’s move a bitch, it has always need a favorite song especially the version heard on his initial album recorded at the riverside cafe

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  5. I stopped making jam and jelly long ago, since a little jam goes a long way. I don’t like to feel compelled to eat something just to use it up.

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    1. i sure loved the care package you sent years ago.

      i got to share with the trail at a book club meeting and I thought of you every time I ate it. Peanut butter and raspberry jam on cheesy bread is one of my stuck on a desert island provisions

      I could enjoy it every day

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  6. Although they are available all year round at restaurants, I think of BLTs as a summer food since that’s the only time we had them when I was growing up. And summer is the only time you can get fresh real tomatoes.

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  7. Jacque

    Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I have had a yen lately for fresh salsa that is a summer food. I chop tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn and through in some avocado and let it blend flavor for awhile, then eat it on everything.

    I also have a bread and butter pickle recipe of my mother’s that I make, then hold in the fridge. Last month we ate the last of them. Truly “Summer in a jar.”

    OT–things are calming down a bit. Lou called me this morning at 6:50 am to say good morning and that he cannot believe he was awake so early. He sounded good. His PT resumes today following being off for the weekend, so he will feel more encouraged by that.

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  8. Garden tomatoes and fresh basil pesto… my summertime favorites. Today might be a good day to taste a little of the summer!

    I have made jams too, but like Renee said, a little goes a long way. My jam-making isn’t first rate, just good enough, so I don’t do it unless I find myself with an over-abundance of fruit. Usually if I have extra, I just freeze it.

    Really fresh, whole foods seem to do it for me. I like the whole, ripe, fresh tomato, warm from the sun. Or an apple in the fall. Or fresh, ripe strawberries in the spring. Or picking black raspberries off the bushes as I hike. In the fall, I collect buttercup squash at farmers’ markets and bake it. I freeze 2-cup portions in ziplock bags so that I have it all winter. I just eat a bowl of that. It’s so yummy I can eat it without butter or salt.

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  9. Sunday we started our peppers and eggplant seeds. I plan to buy Brandywine and San Marzano tomato plants this year. We started serrano peppers and a new sweet red pepper variety called Impact for our home garden, as well as some smaller sweet red pepper plants called Margaret’s for the church garden. Summer is coming!

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  10. Strawberries, sweet corn, and tomatoes. My Holy Trinity of summer foods. Home grown or local is a must. Fresh off the vine, bush, or stalk is important too.

    Chris in O-town

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  12. I agree-first foods that come to mind are corn on the cob, ripe from the garden tomatoes and fresh basil. Also fresh smaller sweet strawberries. It’s hard to find black raspberries- my favorite! Word press seems frozen…

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  17. Recipe for a Salad
    by Sydney Smith

    To make this condiment your poet begs
    The pounded yellow of two hard-boil’d eggs;
    Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
    Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
    Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
    And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
    Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
    Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
    But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
    To add a double quantity of salt;
    Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
    And twice with vinegar procur’d from town;
    And lastly o’er the flavour’d compound toss
    A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
    Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
    Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
    Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,
    And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl!
    Serenely full, the epicure would say,
    `Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.’

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  18. Pingback: Dreaming of Summer | wordpress.blog/jameskedze

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