Too Long...

It's been a while since I last tapped on these pages, never a good thing to be away for long. Life tends to get in the way when we let it. In the meantime summer has sped past, with it went many good meals had in the garden; one of the very few benefits to come from the draught that has settled upon California. Yeah, Berkeley pulled over it's foggy blanket most evenings, but the days proved consistenly clear and sunny. The plots grew well, gave readily. It's always good when you find it difficult to keep up with eating as much as your garden is offering.

"Jaune Flamme"

 Sipping the morning's coffee, watching "Squirley", the slender dusty chestnut squirrel who shares my yard shimmy down through a thatch of bamboo, persimmon thievery no doubt in mind, the first real feel of season's change sets in with a sun seemingly a bit more soft peeking through morning clouds. He/she tends to take as many as able, stashes them about various spots to get good soft and rotten. They've been uncovered every where from inside potted roses to tucked along the herb patch to simply resting in the crown of lavender plants. Suits me fine that this quest results in the figs being left alone, which now litter the turned earth, ground coffee brown and moist from last night's precious rain, where tomato plants once stood. No where near the luscious gifts from Mnsr. Jean's tree down the white lane behind Charmé's church, those being perhaps the best figs this one's ever eaten; the way something so perfect stays with you when eaten at it's best, your best. But, these small black figs, that for much of my time living here at the cottage have been dry and pulpy, are shaping up so well that the need arose to hunt down some Jamon Ibérico. Just a bit, paper thin, a lovely sheen of fatty oil on the flesh.

Les radis.

 As for the tomatoes, they weren't pretty, foliage a little thin and reedy. But they produced in a fine way, "Black Krim" and "Jaune Flamme" standing out in quantity as well as on the plate; the one place it really matters. Seldom, if ever, have the good people at Berkeley Horticulture been stumped, and stumped they appeared when presented the sad little leaves. Found myself one weekday morning with a handful of some of the smartest there are in the trade, who finally summed it up with a shrug and suggestion to "Just change tomato location next year." That and, along with the usual winter "amending", do an off-season of something like... favas. Still, didn't want for tomatoes this year though, the plants all gave abundantly. 

Garden pesto and friends.

 With most everything in except some lingering Kale and Swiss chard, there's a wait on that last push of Indian Summer heat that tends to arrive in the Bay Area about this time to encourage the rows of chilli plants now flowering. Four types: Calabrian, Jimmy Nardello, and two heirlooms scavenged from a friends previous harvest whose names escape me. My first year for this, and optimism is high despite a late start from seed. Come oooooon heat wave! Will probably happen when back in France to wrap up the house for winter. Oh, well... They won't go to waste. Wonder if Squirley has a taste for the épicé?!