My oven is officially off. No more gratins, not one baking sheet of cookies, quiche is over. It's summer and my kitchen has changed guards: the comfort food has gone, the meat banished to the grill, and dessert, like everything else I place on the table, becomes simpler.
I don't cook dinner anymore. I make. I assemble. It's my three-month vacation: the season of California's best. I visit the markets and stores to whiff those aromatic peaches as I saunter by, gaze at the bounty of berries, and, for sure, grab the cherries and figs while I can.
Fuzzy peaches and nectarines barely have time to hit the fruit bowl before the sandbox hands take them out. Watermelon chunks and halved strawberries cool in rosewater. Dulcinea melons become a casual bowl for berries, or port and proscuitto, or sea salt and pink peppercorns. Apricots get devoured in twos and threes.
My spice drawer gets busy this time of year: Fruits get dressed up in simple syrups: blueberries and nectarines swim in a bath infused with star anise, lemon peel and ginger. Plums and pluots with cardamom. Pineapple and papaya spears loll in white ginger. Lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and tamarind all perfume fruit salads. I pluck mint and toss it with reduced balsamic vinegar to mingle with chopped strawberries and crystallized ginger.
By mid-August, I start getting frantic. I see the end of the season and wonder who thought Thanksgiving belonged in November. I imagine this American holiday smack in the middle of summer when this cornucopia of nature's candy collides with a plethora of fresh vegetables.
Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, ramps and green onions meld with red, pink, and white radishes, mache, watercress. This plethora of greens and reds feels like culinary Christmas in July. I introduce juicy pineapple and mango to my arugula; I sprinkle my mesclun with julienned radishes, red peppers, baby beets; I present a coupling of melons and figs to proscuitto-laced red and green lettuce, their sturdy leaves supporting a cool port vinaigrette.
Classic ratatouille gets redressed inside peppers and giant sweet onions. Sliced into a layered pie (a tian, they call it over there...) Stacked into a tower of summer and pesto, shimmering on that cool white plate with a teaspoon of tapenade surveying the table. Served rustic in a thrown-together crust (that's a galette!) Even wrapped in a tortilla with tuna, chicken, or rice.
The best part of summer, however, is my French man's morning gift to me: a green smoothie. In the summer time, this thick liquid might contain pineapple, peaches, watermelon, mango, or a handful of grapes, topping off that blender stuffed full of kale, radish greens, swiss chard and romaine. I get my 5 a day along with my coffee, knowing that everything else I eat is bonus.
Whatever gets me through the day? Yes! But summer is the best time to give yourself this ritual: a green smoothie gives you more than just an awesome breakfast. It turns you into Energizer Bunny. And yes, that liquid goes down so much easier sweetened with juicy peaches, sweet, sweet pineapple, dripping mango to offset the bitter leaves that give me the energy to chase my kids around the house after work, cook dinner, and still have some Me left for post night-night time.
I'm first up. I do the coffee. Yes, I resent it! ( I'm a princess, what can I say?...) But there he is, handing me that big glass of green. I feel so healthy, gulping down greens, peppers, beets, and ginger. I feel so energized, leaving for work with this cholorphyll rhapsody evolving inside me. Most of all, I feel so loved....My French Man is watching out for me.
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