So . . . the sun is shining (for now), the humidity is up, and everyone's complaining that it's too hot - must be summer! Without a doubt, summer is my favourite time of year (yeah, I know, real unique on that). Even though I hate mowing the lawn, I don't hate it as much as shovelling snow. Spring is just a warm-up for the real deal, and fall is okay if you like to surround yourself reminders of our own mortality. Nope, summer kicks the butt of all of those other seasons, if only for one reason - fresh produce.
I have previously written on more than one occasion about my love affair with food - I often feel like I can't live without it, and I can't remember a time that we weren't together. Well, if you love food, you have to love summer. Because all of the best-tasting (well, best-tasting and not deep-fried) food is available in summer, and in some cases only in summer.
I have been visiting farmer's markets since long before they were trendy hang-outs for ex-urbs or repositories for stuff that white people like (I also like pick-your-own farms, another thing that the melanin-deprived enjoy; I have friends who grew up on farms and who absolutely cannot understand the appeal of working on a farm for an hour or so to get your food when you can just buy it). It helped that I grew up in a city that had a thriving farmer's market, every day, all summer long (the oldest farmer's market in Canada - not the age of the farmers, the age of the market).
Before I present my preferred produce (sorry to those of you who were waiting with bated breath), I thought a slight detour to mention my other favourite summer food was in order. Ice cream. Lots of it. Now I'm no fool - I know that I can eat ice cream in the winter, and I do. But there's nothing like sitting outside with a big ol' scoop or two of ice cream or gelato, or whatever you want to call the chemical mass that comprises what DQ serves. Gelato is tops with me, for the intensity and variety of flavour, but I'm pretty much an ice cream whore. The real treat in the summer is the ice cream truck. Growing up, I never was visited by the ice cream truck (just the Dickie D's kid on the bike with the ice cream bars, a poor substitute). That has changed. My current neighbourhood gets damn-near-daily visits from the truck, and I am happy to support their business endeavour. Though doing so may create the need for new clothes with looser waistbands
(I was recently measured for a tux rental for the end of the summer; the woman at the tux place said that "big guys like you tend to lose weight in the summer." First of all, no I don't plan to. Second, since when am I a "big guy"?)
Okay, back to the healthy stuff. Though I am pretty open to trying anything that looks appealing at the farmer's market (amongst the food, that is), there are some that I wait for eagerly:
- Strawberries. Not the hard, sour, strawberry-shaped fruit you buy from those terrible plastic clamshell cases at the grocery store, but local strawberries - you know, the ones that actually taste like strawberries. Already here, and the really good ones will be done within a week or two ("everbearing" strawberries last all summer, but aren't as tasty)
- Peas. My absolute number-one fave. I am addicted to them and always have plenty during the summer (to the chagrin of my family, who would rather that we have room for other stuff in the fridge as well). Eat them raw right out of the shell. Already here, I've already bought and am ready to get more.
- Cherries. Like strawberries, there is a world of difference between the off-season grocery store cherries and the in-season local cherries. Only get the latter, and the white kind (Rainier) are good too.
- Corn. Cheap, plentiful, and delicious. Late in the summer there is always corn in the fridge, either already cooked or waiting its turn.
- Peaches. This one I wait most eagerly for, because I only eat peaches when they are in season. The ones you get other wise are hard and sour (if you're lucky) or mushy, mealy, and tasteless (usually). I get through up to half a dozen peaches a day when they're in season. All of the others I will buy out-of-season just to get by, but not peaches.
And sure, tomatoes, peppers, onions, fresh garlic (try if you haven't - not only are they easier to peel, they also a) are not as dry and b) have their tops, that you can use in soups or you can fry the garlic scape), mushrooms, carrots, and blueberries are great too, but I'll only get those if I have a particular use for them in mind. The five I mention above get bought no matter what.
Happy summer!
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