The Joys of the Summer Palate

When the eating is easy 

Are you a foodie? Or do you just want to keep it simple? Love to cook? Hate to cook? Have no time to cook? Suffering from the heat? Whatever describes your predilection, summer eating is made for you. As is eating locally and of course seasonally.
 

The summertime choice of super local food is staggering. How to choose among the various berries, peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots and melons? Will it be a salad of mixed greens or the Italian national salad of tomato, mozzarella and basil? A main-dish salad with fish, cheese, meat or egg added?

There are many reasons in addition to freshness for choosing local. Little transport = little C02. You are supporting local farmers, not big aggie. Big aggie cares not about your health or your palate; it is a business and just wants to make money. There is very little money indeed in fresh fruits and veggies; but much more in processed food. It also does not care about your local economy, a meaningful aspect of which is local farming.

For the ultimate local farming, grow your own! I can assure you that a balcony is a fine place for even very tall tomato plants, pots of basil and cress and of course herbs. Leaf lettuce is another possibility, as are beet greens with baby beets attached. I found that the latter need a rather deep pot and should not be planted too close together. Basil does well in the sun or in a spot without much sun but plenty of light. Get out your blender for pesto, gazpacho, and cucumber-buttermilk soup with your own dill or mint. Pesto freezes well and is ready for a quick hot meal. Pine nuts are traditional, along with basil, garlic, olive oil and parmesan, but in parts of Italy hazelnuts are used instead. If you are feeling lazy these meals are for you, for you don’t really need to measure the ingredients and the blender does all the work.

While we are on the subject of the work – and time – necessary for meal preparation, let’s compare the homemade variety with the processed food toted home all ready to heat. There are a lot of ingredients in the latter, even when the additives and preservatives are subtracted from the list. Of course you can cook dishes with as many ingredients yourself, but summertime makes it possible to prepare delicious quick, simple meals. This is mostly because local fresh food just tastes better; it doesn’t need tarting up. Sliced tomatoes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, corn on the cob with butter and salt, raspberries with a little cream and sugar, the list goes on.

If you like to cook you get the chance to make something a little different in the summer – jams and chutneys, for example. For those of us in Switzerland, the Coop is offering their new Unique line of slightly imperfect produce, starting with hail-damaged apricots from the Valais, perfect for making jam. Try something new, like the fig and ginger jam I made last year, fabulous! A friend had a glut of figs, and even fig-loving I couldn’t keep up with them. Green tomato chutney is a must when the days get shorter and the last of the tomato crop has no chance to ripen. But before that you may well have so many tomatoes that your friends and neighbors run away when they see you coming with yet one more offering, so make some red tomato chutney from Jamie Oliver’s recipe: www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=easy-tomato-chutney. Or preserve some of them by drying. A world away from the leathery commercial items, these are simple to prepare: slice the tomatoes or cut cherry tomatoes in half, arrange on baking trays, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle on a bit of salt and some basil leaves and garlic, place in very low oven for 4-6 hours. You can choose the degree of dryness. I like them half dry, and put them in jars in the freezer for making the very best pasta sauce imaginable.

Accompany your meals of fresh ingredients with a pitcher of ice tea with your mint added or sangria, red wine with fruit and club soda or lemonade – pretty and refreshing.

Time to get into the kitchen to make supper – fake red pesto. I toast pine nuts in olive oil, add chopped up tomatoes, garlic and basil leaves, and serve on pasta. I prefer real honest-to-goodness pesto, but with an injured finger that really shouldn’t get wet, I don’t want the fiddle of washing out the blender. You see – no matter what your situation, you can just enjoy summer’s bounty!