My neighbor, Mary R, says I have a food fetish. I do. I think about food all the time. I'll talk about food to anyone who will listen, too. But I don't have that many people around me anymore who want to talk or hear about food.
The subject came up when we were helping at the farm on Tuesday. Mary and I were to deliver share boxes to two locations in Charlotte so Sammy could take a much-needed vacation. But when we got there, the boxes were not quite ready.
So we went off to pick three half-bushel baskets of tomatoes. To me, it's early for tomatoes...in Minnesota they don't really start to come in hot and heavy until the last week of July or so. But here, the tomatoes are around 3 weeks late due to the heavy rain we've had.
So Mary asked me a couple of questions about picking and I gave her my opinion and we were started. One of the things I mentioned was that we should snap off the blossoms so that the tomatoes piled on top would not get punctured. That's when she said I had a fetish.
Sammy has mentioned my ultimate care with handling food too. I do try to handle foods as carefully as possible, yo avoid damage. He seemed to think my handling of the greens this spring bordered on a religious rite.
I mentioned to my Mom when we were there in June that I feel so lucky to have cooking as a hobby. I am FORCED to spend money on my hobby each week. I never get tired of shopping for items to support it. There are always new things to try. And there are food stores everywhere. People who do crafts sometimes have to drive miles to find the store that carries their craft items.
And I rarely need a plan. I can usually come up with SOMETHING to make, even if all I have is a can of tomato paste, some noodles and a couple of old wilted yellow squash.
I'm thinking about spending some time exploring portabello mushrooms for a while. They are so "meaty" and substantial and now they are available every day in the grocery store. Yesterday I picked some up and I sauteed them in some olive oil with some onions and garlic. Tossed in some yellow squash that had been languishing in the crisper drawer for a couple of weeks and cooked it down until the moisture dropped evaporated. Then I tossed in a green pepper and some black olives. Ladled in some tomatoes I had cooked down in the morning and stirred in some tomato paste.
A quick trip to my strawberry pot of herbs on the deck and I had a very nice spaghetti sauce. The kids even ate it...I think they didn't realize there were so many mushrooms in there.
7:44:46 AM 
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