No One Local Summer meal this week – and why

DH is away to give a talk and I’m alone with Amie, who caught a stomach bug on Thursday and is still not recovered – the hot and humid weather isn’t helping much. When she’s not sleeping she is glued to me, so I haven’t managed and probably won’t manage to prepare a OLS meal …

One Local Summer – Week 4

Oh Potato! There were potatoes at the Farmer’s Market this week, at just one of the dozen Farm stands but I got to them before they sold out. M-mm! So we had, all grilled (on charcoal grill) by DH: potatoes from Middle Earth Farm from Amesbury, Mass (50 miles as the truck drives) summer squash and …

Amie drew “Happy”

“Happy” has been a favorite icon of Amie’s since she was very young. At 16 months,  she was always drawing “happy” – the feeling, we presumed. Later “Happy” became a happy face: a simple circle including points for eyes, short lines for eyebrows and nose, and a curve for a smiling mouth. As I reported in …

Recipe: Eggs, Red Chard, Squash, Mushrooms

Yesterday it was just Amie and I – DH was out, playing a softball game. So dinner had to be cooked fast and easy. What I came up with was tasty and creamy, healthy and local, and ready in 15 minutes. So I thought you might want me to share the recipe. You need 1 small onion, …

Silk Road Cooking in Massachusetts

  I just published a review of Najmieh Batmanglij’s wonderful cookbook, Silk Road Cooking. A Vegetarian Journey on Suite101.com. You can read it here. It did occur to me that the Silk Road and many of the other ancient trade routes that Batmanglij travels in this book are about as non-local as you can get! How …

Brilliant “Stop Wasting” Argument

I had a discussion today with my upstairs neighbor this morning. She leaves her airconditioners on, all of them, all day and night, even while she’s at work. One of them is very noisy and makes the doorknobs in our bedroom vibrate. I met her in the hallway and addressed the problem (again). She was very …

Sweet Family Memories

These are my dad’s parents, taken in 1999 at a typical family meal in summer. For me, the picture crystallizes “family”: the shared food, cooked by my grandmother (who was a great cook), the shared wine (note the three bottles!), selected by my grandfather, the unseen but imagined presence of many family members around the table, …

One Local Summer – Week 3

Ah, my apologies for being late! Due to unforeseen but lovely circumstances, we went out to dinner with friends the last couple of days, so I had to postpone our One Local Summer dinner until today. It was worth the wait, though (for us at least). Simply salad Very simple: lettuce purchased at Drumlin Farm (where …

One Local Summer – Week 2

It’s only week 2 of One Local Summer – which now has its own website! – and I already feel the impact of seasonal eating: no more asparagus, and no potatoes and onions yet. But there are still heaps of leafy greens in their prime, juicy young garlic and garlic scapes, and the newly arrived …