Summer

This is a great summer pasta recipe and perfect for a Labor Day Cookout. It makes good use of leftover chicken, or use an already cooked rotisserie chicken from the store.) It has all the flavors of summer, with a southwestern flair – cilantro, red peppers, corn, black beans – and it’s quick to make.

It keeps nicely in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, just reserve a little of the dressing (which is the real secret to this dish) to perk up the pasta just before serving.

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favabeancrostini.jpgSince eating fava beans for the first time last year, I've come to love the legume as much as the bean-eating crowd. Italians love their beans and Tuscans in particular are known as mangiafagioli or bean-eaters. Among their favorites are cannelini or white beans and fava beans, which are even more popular in Puglia. Favas, or broad beans as they are also known, are prized in their raw or near-raw state, but they are an unusual bean to shell. Each bean is encased in a slip or skin and grouped together in fuzzy pods. So yes, peeling them and blanching them to remove the extra skin may be a chore, but it's really a labor of love.

Here I take my favorite fava beans and combine them with a very herbaceous salad atop a crusty slice of grilled bread lined with wedges of avocado. Texture, flavor, and aroma are very much at play: creamy avocado, granular favas, crunchy bread, and pungent herbs all enrobed in a tangy dressing. To eat this bruschetta, pick it up like an open-faced sandwich and bite right in. It's a fun and casual summer appetizer that will refresh the palate and stimulate the appetite.

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egg-plant.jpgI don't know where I went wrong. Three years of high school French and one graduate school semester of reading French, and I can still barely string together an intelligible sentence. C'est terrible! I have accepted the fact that a French pre-schooler could speak circles around me, but as long as I can say some words, like aubergine, I'm content.

Aubergine doesn't look or sound anything like its English counterpart "eggplant." But, oh, how I wish it did. Let's be honest, could there be a less appealing name than "eggplant"? I mean, it's not an egg or a plant. Plus, phonetically, it's just not pleasing; it's harsh and flat.  Aubergine, however, flows elegantly out of one's mouth. I daresay it's almost too attractive a word for the vegetable is signifies. (In botanical terms, an eggplant is actually a fruit, but it's cooked and eaten like a vegetable).

Fortunately I'm mature enough to look beyond such petty issues and appreciate eggplant's attributes. A heavy, firm, eggplant with a glossy purple-black skin borders on the regal. And its flesh, though just an unassuming off-white color, becomes enticingly rich and creamy when cooked. Like a chameleon, eggplant has the ability to transform itself: when grilled, it is appetizingly smoky flavored and tender; when fried, it is irresistibly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

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freshtomsWe wait and we wait and we wait and we wait for the tomatoes to ripen. Not just because, like everyone else, we want to eat them. But because we run a farm stand and every visitor to Martha’s Vineyard in August wants tomatoes, right off the vine (and right now!). Finally our Sungolds and Sweet 100s and Black Cherries are ripening by the hundreds so we can sell some and eat some too. (Of course I am eating a lot of droppers and splitters in the morning when we’re harvesting. Soon we’ll have to start feeding the splitters to the “baby” chickens who actually are now almost four months old and just started laying eggs!)

The farm stand customers are even more eager to get a hold of bigger tomatoes. Fortunately, we have lots of Early Girls ripening now, too, but alas they are not nearly as tasty as the beefsteaks and heirlooms that are still green. (The first Cherokee Purples are coloring up.) Still, I’m harvesting as many Early Girls as I can, often two or three times a day since the late morning and early afternoon sun does wonders. But when we run out, there are some disappointed looks on customers’ faces.

In the meantime, since I will roast anything I can get my hands on, I am already making this delicious and easy recipe from The Fresh and Green Table that features roasted cherry tomatoes. Thought I’d pass it on to you in case you are similarly obsessed.

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rosemarylemonadeMy house wine is sweat tea, but there are a couple concoctions I simply relish as much as tea. One is Mrs. Wilson’s Rosemary Lemonade and the other, a “James Farmer” – this Farmer’s version of an Arnold Palmer.

Dear friends of mine in Montgomery host me and “put me up” (or more so put up with me) when I’m staying in town for the night, and Mrs. Wilson, a fabulous cook and hostess in her own right, often makes a batch of this delicious drink. I cannot be more thrilled to partake.

I, as she has, have served this sweet, tangy, and savory blend to guests, family, and party attendees alike and it is always received with smiles and requests for more.

Mrs. Wilson serves hers from beautiful antique crockery pitchers, thus making it taste that much better, in my humble opinion. A farm girl originally from Opp, Alabama, Mrs. Wilson knows the importance of serving the best to friends and family.

Often times the best is just simple yet elegant creations direct from the garden and the land. Rosemary lemonade epitomizes this – fresh herbs from the garden, juice right from lemons, and simple syrup to bring it all together.

Mix this lemonade with my sweet tea, and you have one heck of an Arnold Palmer. Delicious and divine my friends, delicious and divine. Yea, though, as I mention an Arnold Palmer, this Farmer does have a version of the famed beverage… selfishly dubbed a “James Farmer.”

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