SUMMER!

Here's a toast to summer and summer foods!

The warmer months are a great time for abundant produce and the simplicity of eating cold watermelon for dessert instead of heating up the whole house by baking some elaborate dessert.

Isn't this^ a great photo?  Very impressive. (mixingbowlkids.typepad.com)

I've been trying to eat more seasonally and it has been very rewarding.  I load up on all that the farmer's market has to offer me and look around in my local grocery stores for produce from this area and that I know hasn't been sitting in a freezer for 6 months before reaching the shelves.

For real!  If California and Florida orange growers think they are fooling anyone when we peel an orange only to see the membranes are all hard, all the little juice packs are separated and dry, and the flavor is NIL, they ought to think again!  I know that orange has been FROZEN and the cells are damaged!  GROSS!  Not only unpleasant to eat, but it kills the fruit's nutrient profile :(

So after one too many nasty orange (or other foods), I decided to make a concerted effort to eat produce in season.  Odd as it sounds, it kinda feels like the right thing to do when I think about how my pioneer ancestors would not have had peaches in December (unless they were canned), asparagus in October, or oranges in May- so why should I?

[And you didn't think veggies could be cute, did you? They're hugging! From Greenpoint-Williamsburg CSA.]

This winter was my first to focus on winter produce- arguably the scarcest- and I found that the rich, earthy vegetables of winter were just what my body was wanting during those cold months. {Think brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, cabbage, rutabagas, parsnips, winter squash...}

And here is some of my latest farmer's market pull, full of early summer's bounty:

No more golden beets (my favorite!), but they did have golden raspberries!  You don't see those everyday!

So enjoy the beauty of summer and all it offers, including fresh produce, which I consider to be one of the greatest blessings of the season.  Here's a list of some popular US summer crops to stock up on:

• peaches
• watermelon
• plums
• figs
• blueberries
• corn
• summer squash + zucchini
• tomatoes
• eggplant
• basil

P.S.
In the interest of full disclosure,  I do have a few holdouts: bananas (impossible to get locally) and avocados.  But I don't count these two because, for me, they're more like health supplements than produce- my body NEEDS them and I wouldn't avoid getting medicine just because it wasn't made in a local factory right??  OK, maybe that's a little bit of a week excuse, but I'm working on it... :)