Boy Scientist doesn’t head back to school for a week and a half yet. The calendar gives us more than a month until it’s officially fall.
But the farmers’ market does not lie. As the boy and I walked around yesterday, we could see all the signs of waning summer. Tomatoes were still in profusion, and peppers, too. But zucchini are already in short supply, and we haven’t seen greens in weeks. When the lettuce and kale make their re-appearance, we’ll know that the fall crop is in.
Blueberries have vanished, the first pears are here, and the peach vendor said that this was probably their last market of the season.
Today was ninety degrees in the North Carolina Piedmont, but that didn’t keep me out of the kitchen, wringing the last bits of sweet summer sunshine from the fruits and veggies that were our haul, and the basil that’s been threatening to overtake the garden.
We started with the tried and true: roasted tomato basil soup from Chloe’s Kitchen. I always feel like I’m getting away with something here because I buy up the tomatoes that the farmers label “ugly ducklings” or “cosmetically challenged” or “salsa tomatoes.” They’re about half the price, and once they are roasted and blended, no one is the wiser!
The main course was a huge salad–grilled steak courtesy of Mr. Eos; potatoes, beans, and corn courtesy of local growers; cheese-less pesto courtesy of the overgrown garden basil.
And dessert? Ah, dessert. Those end-of-season peaches (seconds, like the tomatoes), all just HAD to jump into a bourbon-peach cobbler, total winner of a recipe from Cybele Pascal’s Allergen-free Baker’s Handbook. Forget every sloppy, gloppy gluten-free cobbler you’ve ever had. Buy the book and make this one. Now. Even for the non-allergic with whom you eat. They’ll thank you and beg you, tears in their eyes and a hint of desperation in their voice, to make it again.
See?
Yum. And that last teeny-tiny bit? We call that breakfast!
