What It Is To Me

Summer isn’t just a season, it’s a lifestyle. It’s grilling, gardening, swimming, taking walks past eight o’clock because it’s still light, drinking cold beer, eating ice cream and sitting on the patio with the citronella burning. You wish that stuff worked, but it never does.

Summery meal from the market consisting of corn on the cob, rice pilaf with heirloom tomatoes, local onions and herbs from my garden, and homemade sourdough bread topped with red onions marinated in a white wine vinaigrette.

Yes, I finally made sourdough bread today with my yeast starter that I started like two weeks ago.

It was good but not as sour as I hoped. My FIL gave me a good tip for next time so I’ll try again and post the recipe then.

For lunch I made a fresh heirloom tomato and corn salsa with jalapenos from my garden along with lemon basil I grew. I liked the fresh touch the lemon twist gave it.

Tomatoes and corn were definitely a major part of the menu today, can you tell? If not, here’s what I ate for lunch since chips seemed a little heavy and I was feeling iffy.

That’s right, straight up raw, fresh corn on the cob. It was so sweet I just couldn’t taint it with any toppings. Yes, I did have corn on the cob twice today. But when you got a dozen at the farmers market to use up in a week, well that’s just what happens!

Fortunately, Avery LOVES corn.

Now that he has three top teeth he’s much more effective getting the kernels off the cob. I also discovered that he thinks raisins are the best thing in the world. I can see myself purchasing those often in the future. Nothing like messing with your kid by plopping down raisins in a trail and watching him walk to one, eat it, see the next and go to get it. It’s great entertainment.

It’s a wonderful thing to enjoy summer with your family even if the darned mosquitoes are so persistent you feel sure you’d lose ten pounds if you just let them do their thing.

Question: What is summer to you?