Finally our kitchen is starting to show signs that summer is in full swing. Padron peppers and shishito peppers are hitting the fry pan. Berries are being put into jam jars and pies. One of our chickens seems to be morphing into a goose…would you look at that egg! Cheap farmers market apricots are being cooked down into sweet jam. Unphotographed cucumbers are fermenting with dill and garlic and grape leaves. And I’m trying to keep track of it all this year. After reading an article about Wendell Berry’s wife, especially this passage, “Mom has kept lists of all the food she has preserved over the years inside a cabinet door in the kitchen; almost 50 growing seasons recorded.” I was inspired to do the same. Surely this kitchen has seen well over 50 years of garden preserving going on, while maybe it was documented it was not directly on the kitchen cupboards. Being doubtful that one day I wouldn’t want to paint the cupboards at some point, I chose to write it on paper.
At the end of the days, the kitchen is a hot mess. But a good kind of mess, a productive, fresh summer bounty kind of mess.
which have always been a great deterrent. Scott went ahead and ripped out the plastic and wha-la, the gophers retreated once more. We should have known, they do love to tunnel under our plastic, above ground pool.
