A celebrated salad

Friends, I was so delighted to find that my Tomato, Peach, Chevre and Herb Salad with Apple Vinaigrette was recently chosen as a Community Pick on Food52. 

FiggyPudding's review was so lovely, and if you try this salad before tomato and peach season are gone until 2017, I hope you enjoy it. 

YES! I absolutely love the combination of peaches and tomatoes. I used gorgeous heirlooms and they really shined in this dish. It came together super-fast, was stunning, and was better than any Caprese. I would make this time and again in the height of tomato season...

Hours of cooking, beautiful food, misc

I tell you, spending hours picking fruit will surely keep you accountable in terms of not letting it go to waste! It's a race against time when you have fresh produce ripening in real time, and when you go slightly overboard with poundage schlepped home, well, get your cooking hands ready!

I was too slow for about a sixth of my blackberries, but the rest are safely frozen, jammed, or pied, and today I finished the raspberries. Lots of straight-up raspberry jam and also some raspberry-Grand Marnier. I'll be honest, y'all, while Grand Marnier is a heavenly substance, the plain old raspberry jam just can't be beat. I'm glad I made a majority of that.

I'm about half-through the peaches -which are scrumptious by the way- and have so far brandied seven pints and made a gorgeous pie. I'll deal with the rest tomorrow.

Also, tomatoes. Y'all know how I feel about summer's star. It's true love. This evening I made this caramelized tomato tarte tatin with slow-roasted Romas, caramelized onions, and puff pastry. It's like summer thinking of sliding into fall via cast iron pan. 

Tonight was a tough'ish night of parenting, and I was glad to have two episodes of The Americans to settle into when finally the boys' bedtime came. It is such a good show- Matthew Rhys and Keri Russel have delicious chemistry, and Frank Langella...Oh how I adore him. What an actor. 

Tomorrow I'm taking the boys to see Cirque du Soleil. Have y'all seen one of their performances? I never have and am looking forward to it!

Fruit picking 2016, Wondy?

Yesterday marked my annual outing to Larriland Farm to pick my body weight in fruit. You might recall my original case for thorns and/or my overzealous death by fruit of previous years. Both memorable and delightful; yesterday was no different.

Isn't my Jack a handsome boy?

We brought along our dear neighbor, Jane, and picked peaches, blackberries, beets and raspberries with various degrees of abandon. Last night I froze twenty cups of blackberries and made one pie and four pints of jam (just two ingredients! blackberries and sugar!). Today, I taught Jane how to can and then put up several pints of raspberry jam (just three ingredients! raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice) myself. 

picked and quickly frozen blackberries- beautiful!

Tomorrow I plan to finish dealing with the berries and pray that the peaches don't ripen until Friday. 

Tonight, as soon as Tom walked in, I retreated to the bath. Where I found this.

Is that Wonder Woman? In a rugby hat? With a mean face? What the heck? #summerstillgoing