Every Day Delights: (Over) Abundance

Image via This Week For Dinner

Zucchini is a prolific garden vegetable.  Every time you turn around more squash have formed on the vine.  If you fail to inspect the plants for even a single day, you may end up with a mammoth zucchini the size of your thigh.  They are certainly sneaky things, and thus they require a certain amount of stealth on our part as well.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote of zucchini season:
       "Sometimes I just had to put down my knives and admire
     their extravagant success. Their hulking, elongated
     cleverness. Their heft. I tried balancing them on their
     heads, on their sides: right here in the kitchen we had the
     beginnings of our own vegetable Stonehenge. Okay, yes, I was
     losing it. I could not stay ahead of this race. If
     they got a little moldy, then I could compost them. And the
     really overgrown ones we were cracking open for the
     chickens to eat – that isn’t waste, that’s eggs and meat….
        Could they design an automobile engine that runs on
     zucchini?
        It didn’t help that other people were trying to give them
     to us. One day we came home from some errands to
     find a grocery sack of them hanging on our mailbox. The
     perpetrator, or course, was nowhere in sight.
        ‘Wow,’ we all said – ‘what a good idea!’
        Garrison Keillor says July is the only time of year when
     country people lock our cars in the church parking lot,
     so people won’t put squash on the front seat. I used to
     think that was a joke.…”

    -Barbara Kingsolver, excerpt from 'Zucchini Larceny,' Animal,

    Vegetable, Miracle

Assuming Garrison Keillor is correct, and we all have a little too much of a late summer harvest, it is time to get creative with this ingredient.  

Grilled zucchini is definitely my favorite, but I have had some other more surprising dishes as well: Zucchini skin salad with lemon zest, Disappearing Zucchini Orzo (Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle), Zucchini Brownies (Edible Berkshires), Pizzas with zucchini, corn, feta, lime and cilantro.  The list goes on and on.  Some recipes showcase the zucchini's flavors, and others use it more for its texture and moisture.

Last weekend I got inventive in the kitchen.

Clockwise from top: A tiny fraction of the harvest, zucchini soup, zucchini bread, zucchini pickles (delicious atop a hamburger).

This weekend I'll probably do a little offloading, so keep your doors locked....

Back to School

Image via Banana Pancakes Blog

I've got the back to school blues and I'm not even headed back to school.  I confess that even as a non-school-attending adult, it still crushes my heart to see those banners and ads go up every summer's end about your nearest "Back to School Sale".  I'm a firm believer in enjoying every moment given to us, as you know, and the summer season is one of those that is very dear to me.  Especially the end of summer when the evening light is so golden, the grass is parched, and the nights start to get a bit cooler.

That said, I do have a back to school tradition that I love.  I haven't been a student for a number of years now, but L is starting a graduate program today so I have been thinking about "back to school" and my mixed feelings about it.  It is certainly bitter sweet, which is why I like having the following tradition to brighten the moment: The first day of school photo.  My parents insisted on taking one of me every year as I headed out the door with my still empty backpack and brand new blazingly white sneakers.  I hated it then, but somehow by the time I started college I came to love that moment.  So much so that my college roommate and I did whole photo shoots of ourselves headed back to classes each fall.  We made sure to make them really shmaltzy -- since they inherently are.  We often used the autumn-touched lake as a back drop, and clasped our hands under our chins as an homage to the cheezy official class photos we had been forced to take in elementary school.  The difference being that these were fun and goofy and we took them because we wanted to.
Whether by choice or not, these photos now provide me with a cross section of the years as they have passed: the change in fashions, hair length, braces to retainer to perfect smile, backpack to shoulder bag, child to young adult.  Sometimes it is good to reflect on who you were.  It may help you get to who you want to be.
And besides, as an adult who doesn't want to pose in front of the door with a brand new backpack to capture the moment of setting out on a new adventure?

Watermelon Round-Up!

'Tis the season for those big juicy globes that bring delight to all and are such a radiant symbol of summer.  That's right, I'm talking watermelons.  Here's a round up of watermelon uses from elegant to campy.

Watermelon and Feta Salad:

This is one of my favorite recipes.  I see it on restaurant menus more and more these days, but I still find it an unexpected pleasure to serve at home.  Plus it is easy and doesn't require ANY cooking (which is a great advantage on a hot day).

Watermelon, cut off rind and thinly sliced

Feta, sliced thinly

Olive oil

Black pepper, freshly cracked

Salt, a flaky one is the best like Maldon or Fleur de Sel

Arrange sliced watermelon on individual plates, then place feta slices on top.  Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Ta-dah!


An Alternative Watermelon Salad:

Watermelon, cut off of rind and thinly sliced

Mint leaves, whole or ripped

Olive oil

Black pepper, freshly cracked

Salt, a flaky one is the best like Maldon or Fleur de Sel

Chili flakes

Arrange sliced watermelon on individual plates and sprinkle with mint.  Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and chili flakes.

Watermelon Porcupine:

This whimsy just tickles my fancy because we've had a resident porcupine in my parents' garden for the past two years.  She/he waddles out in the late afternoon to fill up on greenery and in the process trims our hedges.

Image via Cutest Food

Vodka Watermelon:

Image via SweetPaul

I've always wanted to try this, but haven't yet.  These directions come from Sweet Paul

Watermelon

Vodka

Large funnel

Cut a hole in the watermelon all the way into the meat. Place the funnel in the hole and pour in the vodka.  (He suggests using lime vodka.)

Note: It takes about 2 days for a watermelon to soak up 2 cups of vodka, so do it in the fridge and ahead of time.


Watermelon Polo:

Image via Goaupairsouthcentralnj

Image via Crazy As A Cool Fox

This game is reminiscent of the days of summer camp.  It can be played in a pool or at the lake.  Grease a watermelon using Vaseline or Crisco.  Divide your players into two teams.  The objective is to get the slippery watermelon to the "goal" without picking the watermelon up out of the water. (In a pool, the goals would be two opposite walls.  In a lake, use two buckets weighed down with rocks to keep them submerged, and set them up about a pool-distance apart from each other.)  I promise, this is harder than it sounds.

Every Day Delights: Inventive Light Fixtures

I've seen a bunch of creatively repurposed pendant light fixtures in my travels recently.

A cheese grater chandelier at Little Muenster, a grilled cheese shop on NYC's Lower East Side.

Image via The Kitchn

Image via The Kitchn

Relique sells a single antique cheese grater fixture

Image via Relique

Beaters from industrial mixers form the light fixture at The Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley, CA.

Zipper 8 Lighting makes a soda can tab pendant light

Image via Zipper8Lighting Etsy

Can you imagine what an archaeologist would think having unearthed one of these? "Were these tools?  Are there remains of grated cheese, or slopped soda? Or are they light fixtures, having been fitted with a socket and bulb?" They might never get it straight, but lucky for us, we live in the present where objects are constantly being reinvented in playfully creative ways!

Wedding Flowers: A Neighborhood Affair

Neighbors had been growing and tending extra flowers for this wedding all summer long.  The day of harvesting finally arrived, and I had the pleasure of watching as bucket after bucket of flowers arrived and crowded together on the front porch of the house.  Long stems, short stems, an old paint bucket filled with 10 different kinds, mason jars full of sweet peas.

 Friends and neighbors convened at the house the day before the wedding to help with the flower arrangements.  We taped a grid over the mouth of each vase to better stabilize and contain the stems, and then set to work in pursuit of our own floral arranging styles.  The results were seriously breathtaking.  Everything was in season so nothing looked out of place, the colors were vibrant, and the flowers were everywhere.

Here are the two big ones K and I did:

We had one very talented family friend who made all the bride/bridesmaid bouquets and the boutonnieres.  These were a combination of locally donated and purchased flowers.

Pacific Northwest Wedding Teaser: Here Come the Girls!

I went to a splendid backyard/garden/farm wedding last weekend on an island off of Seattle (and no, I am not just saying that because it was my best friend's wedding: it actually was a design blogger's dream come true.)  I'm still traveling the craggy cliffs and winding roads of that particular coast, so I'll just give you a first taste today.  More to come!

The Girls

The pastoral view from the flower and candle lined driveway

Every Day Delights: The Bare Branch Indoors

Image via BashPlease

I found this photo of BHLDN's booth at The Cream Wedding Showcase and stowed it away in the recesses of my brain as an idea for my friend, Caitlin's, wedding.  Since then I've found myself drawn to bare branches mounted on walls.  Maybe it's the minimalism, the shapes, the neutral colors, or just the fact that one normally sees branches sitting upright in a vase.  Find a branch you like and hang it on a nail, nestle it over a picture frame, or mount a bunch using some fishing line in one of those empty spaces on your wall.  It only costs the price of a walk in the woods.

Image via DesignSponge

Image via DesignTripper

My foyer

Image via DesignTripper