No images specific to the Tasting this time as my camera is becoming crotchety in its old age. It now seems to think autofocus is for wimps.
And we had a smaller, more intimate group at the July Tasting compared to the June one. So many of our gardeners have different commitments and responsibilities … and take such interesting trips. Perhaps we'll have to start adding in posts about Travels from the Garden.
One of our gardeners was sure as many as 90% of the garden was there but this person is a the glass is at least half full sort of individual. The nice thing about a small group is that you really do get a chance to talk with everyone. One of our members was recently in New York at a world sustainability vision conference and is still excited about the possibilities. I love hearing about that experience and the energy that can come about from people working together for the good of the planet and all living beings.
As for food, which of course is always central to our Tastings, we enjoyed some freshly roasted and salted kale. I must confess that I'm not always a kale fan and the kale chips you can buy in the store I … well, let's just say that I'm happy to leave them in the store. But these, ah these kale "chips" were crisp yet just melted in your mouth. I'm very sorry that I don't have a photograph of this plate to show you although no photograph could do the taste justice. Actually, I'm sorry I don't have photographs of all the dishes.
We also had a secret recipe gazpacho loaded with produce from the garden and highlighting some of the recently harvested garlic from this gardener's row. Our first tomatoes also put in an appearance in this dish, I believe.
In other garlic offerings, we had a sort of baked fritter with herbs and garlic: chives, thyme, tarragon. Although a store-bought sweet potato was the basis of the fritter, if it were only a month or two later, that could also easily have come from the garden.
And I brought a chilled soup made with borage leaves and decorated with borage flowers. That soup featured buttermilk (no, we don't have a cow and no plans to go there… yet) and a cucumber. No cucumbers in the garden this year due to our surfeit of squash bugs but hopefully we'll be back to them next year.
Our meal was rounded out with homemade peanut and chocolate blondies. As we savored the sweetness of our dessert, we wondered whether we should try to grow peanuts next year. And, with our fruit ripening, we were able to enjoy freshly harvested grapes. The peaches and nectarines are yet to come although the peach beetles are patrolling the trees every day now. Soon.
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