high summer
My first little garden harvest has come in, and I’ve found a couple of collections of recipes in the last couple of days that are going to be indispensable for cooking up my fresh and (very) local produce.
They are both by the New York Times’ Mark Bittman who first came to my attention when he proclaimed that the best chefs don’t need a fancy kitchen filled with pricey gadgets to cook great food - a thesis me and Alton Brown can totally get behind (I’ve actually given away bread makers, George Foreman grills and food processors - they just take up too much space).
The first is this handy compilation of 101 quick and easy picnic recipes. Each recipe is about 2 sentences long and they all sound either deliciously unconventional, or at least, painless in their simplicity.
I think I might just start making my way through them - they sound perfect for avoiding actually ‘cooking’ in this heat that’s finally decided to come and stay.
Then there’s the smaller collection of recipes attacthed to this review of a delightful sounding vegetarian restaurant in the south of France. Good, hearty veggie recipes are so hard to find, but these sound incredibly comforting and satisfying.
In particular, the recipe for swiss chard stuffed with risotto is going to get some use, I think, what with my bumper crop of beautiful, neon-tinged bright-lights chard.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Such wonderful photos! What kind of camera do you have?
Or maybe it’s more the musician and less the instrument.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
It’s just a Canon Power shot - you know, one of those teensy little Elphs? It’s actually a damn fine camera, though certainly far from an SLR. It has an especially great macro feature. I just love that I can pop it in my pocket and go!
And I probably have a bit of an eye on top of that, since I both have been trained classically as an artist, and have photography in my genetics (my grandpa was a pro, and all my uncles dabble).
August 7th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Thanks for the info. And I think you’re right: composition takes an artist’s eye–no camera’s going to help with that.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Yummy indeed! Your harvest looks gorgeous! I cannot wait to finally have an outdoor space to grow a mini vegetable garden of my own…
August 11th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
mmmmm. macro veggies.