Garden

Not much of a post today (rushing into the city), but just wanted to let you know that the blog, and my recent post on Cape Cod, are featured today on Gardenista, the new garden-centric sister to the wonderful design/lifestyle site, Remodelista. I'm really thrilled about this and hope it may lead to other collaborations. Please stop by for a visit and leave a comment there so I can feel popular. Have a lovely weekend!
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Can't you just see her, proudly leading the parade down Main Street, all rosy cheeks, healthy curves and shiny Breck-girl hair? (Sort of like Hilary Rhoda if she ate more.) Actually, "The Tomato Queen" was what they dubbed Tillie Lewis, whose canning factory in Stockton, California, in the 1940s, was the first to market Italian Roma tomatoes to mainstream consumers. But that's neither here nor there. What I'm writing about today is a way to use all those cherry tomatoes that are still flooding in from your garden (or local greenmarket). I posted my recipe for "tomaisins"—my own deeply clever marketing term for dried cherry tomatoes—a couple of years ago, and I'm running a similar one here because I still think it's a great, easy preserving method. I hope I'm preaching to the converted, but if you still haven't tried this, now's your chance. Of course you can add fresh cherry tomatoes to your salads, toss them raw with hot pasta, slice them with cucumbers or just pop them into your mouth for a snack but, if you're like me, you will still have a ton left cluttering up your kitchen counter (never refrigerate tomatoes). This simple recipe for a flavor-intensified condiment is the perfect solution.
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Did you know that nasturtium means "nose-tweaker"? This lovely massing plant produces a rather sharp oil, similar to that of watercress. Tropaleoum, as it's formally known, has showy, brightly-colored flowers and proliferates wildly all summer long in even the most neglected gardens. It's an edible plant, and the flowers are often tossed into salads where they impart a pleasantly peppery bite. The unripe seed pods—which can best be observed by picking up the massing plant and examining its underside—have a rather more intense flavor, almost like horseradish. They can be pickled in a simple brine and used as you would capers, or any spicy pickle. This means they pair well with cheese, or can successfully be tossed into anything eggy or creamy.
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This has been a good year for tomatoes. The Brandywines are bodacious. The cherry tomatoes are sweet as candy. And the Green Zebras are running wild. Every time I turn around Mr. Green Thumb has sneaked a few more into the kitchen. Green gazpacho will be on the menu this weekend. What do you call a Bloody Mary made with green tomatoes? Don't answer that. (Shades of Linda Blair, people. If you're too young to catch that reference, consider yourself lucky.) I'm thinking green tomato sorbet, spicy green tomato jam. These are not unripe tomatoes, by the way. If you don't know Green Zebras, it's time you discovered this wonderful variety. Our local farm doesn't grow them because they can't get people to buy a green tomato. Really? These have a wonderfully clean flavor with a zingy tartness. They're no bigger than a very large plum but they pack a lot of taste. And their chartreuse color with stripes a shade darker is so very chic. Their vivid hue inspired me to make a salad with all the green things I could get my hands on, many of them from my own garden. It's art. It's health food. It's life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on a plate.
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Ah, August. A month whose name alludes to its impressive stature. It looms large, shimmering in the heat, revered as the last great beacon of summer. It's over now and September stretches ahead in the golden light, the first leaves smoldering red, the school bell ringing in the distance. Summer is so fleeting but I'll hold tight to my memories of Cape Cod, a place that with its salty air and sun-bleached shingles seems to encapsulate this season better than any other. A few days with dear friends in their beautiful home near the beach in Truro left us relaxed and rejuvenated, determined to go barefoot more often. We strolled, swam, cooked, lingered in the screened-in porch and slept soundly, dreaming of childhood.
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I almost forgot: Every August I take a vacation from the blog. So the time has come. I hate to leave you, but rules is rules. It's a good opportunity for me to regroup and recharge, and perhaps for you to dig into the archive and discover lots of new things (like posts from the past three summers!). I'll be back right after Labor Day with the faintest of tan lines and renewed vigor for all manner of projects, in and out of the kitchen. But before I go, here are a few ideas to inspire you to make the most of these last sun-drenched and carefree days of the season.
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As much as I love to travel the world, the journey home will always be my favorite. I spent several long hours in the Atlanta airport yesterday, waiting for my delayed flight back to Newark, surrounded by squalling babies, lurid fluorescent lighting, enormously fat people talking much too loudly on their cell phones and a general air of fetid unhealthiness. When it became clear that a real dinner was not in my future, I sidled hopefully up to the nearest Wolfgang Puck Express where I was met with the world's saddest array. Dessicated "baby" carrots, the desperate orange of Guantánamo jumpsuits, huddled in fogged plastic containers alongside clammy cubes of cheese and a few shriveled grapes. Spago it was not. I ultimately gnashed my way through a heap of watery romaine with a lumpy feta vinaigrette and longed for the green, green grass of home. Once aboard the plane, there was a moment of glory: as lightning shot repeatedly through a layer of meringue clouds, we soared high above into a crystalline night sky illuminated by an enormous silver moon. And then the pregnant lady in front of me farted. 

When I arrived home past two in the morning and emerged from the frigid yet stale air of the town car, I inhaled the cool country sweetness and was instantly restored. The wild honeysuckle brushed lovingly against me as I made my way up the front path. Moths slam-danced into the yellow porch light. I crawled into my bed between two biscuit-warm bodies and fell asleep to the rhythmic buzz of the night creatures.
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If you don't like cooking, make sure you know how to shop. There are people who can pull together a wonderful dinner without ever lighting the stove. If you have access to lovely cheeses and charcuterie, fresh produce and a delectable bakery, you can simply act the part of curator, responsible only (but crucially) for the selection and arrangement of the perfect elements. A salade composée, or composed salad, is another variatiom on this theme. This French invention (if, in fact, anyone can really claim ownership)—a fitting combination of prescribed rules and laissez-faire—is a perfectly calibrated assortment of ingredients aesthetically arranged on a plate and drizzled with dressing, rather than tossed with it. (Though I'm not above tossing mine, if I feel it may be of benefit.) The most famous example is arguably the salade Niçoise, with its complementary hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, canned tuna, potatoes, olives and green beans. The most successful manage an artful balance of colors, flavors and textures and a pleasing architecture, like the ones currently featured on two of my favorite blogs—flavor in spades and hungry ghost—whose fertile creativity and gorgeous refinement continually amaze.
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Breaking Bad is back with a vengeance, and we're still making our way through the original Swedish Wallander, but we also stumbled across Inside Men, a new BBC One series that I submit for your viewing pleasure. It's really quite gripping. It's about a brutal armed robbery that takes place at a secure money counting house, the events that lead up to it and the aftermath. I especially love the performance of Steven Mackintosh as the milquetoast manager who finds his inner bad-ass. I confess that after these grueling days spent sweltering at my desk, in the garden and in the kitchen, I like nothing better than stretching out on my Society linen sheets, popping open a bottled Americano and being amused. No more reading, no more surfing, no more writing, no more cooking—but certainly not mindless entertainment, no chick flicks or idle fluff for me. I like something truly engaging, full of believable characters and smart dialogue. Don't you? Here are some more worthy distractions for you...
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The greater diversity of plants we have in our garden, the more creatures we attract. Fewer chimpmunks are roaming around the rock walls that surround our raised beds, and now we know why: the snakes have arrived! I love snakes and am very fascinated by them. I adore their gorgeous skin and have not been above spending close to $1,000 on a python Bottega Veneta bag. But that was in another life. Now I prefer to admire them alive and in my own yard. We have established that there are at least five and are beginning to understand their habits—when they like to take the sun, when they are on the move, when they rest. It's all about being warm, but not too warm. I am slightly relieved that these are just common garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) because they only have a tiny bit of venom which doesn't affect humans.
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