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| A Great BLT! |
We are now in peak tomato season, with lots of roma, cherry, beefsteak, heirloom, and good old field tomatoes coming in from our fields every day. It's time for freezing, canning, making chili sauces and salsas, and most importantly, eating as many yummy tomatoes as you can, especially in the form of bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches! To make a truly great BLT, you need to do it yourself. If you order one at a restaurant, it will never be as good as homemade. Enjoy it with a glass of milk for lunch, or maybe a glass of Chianti for dinner. Then make it a meal with a delicious heirloom watermelon for dessert.
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| Fresh Picked Field Tomatoes |
It's time to celebrate and wallow in great tasting tomatoes. I think the ones we grow on our farm are probably about the best you can find anywhere. Under our tender loving care, our tomatoes have survived drought and deluge, and have ripened into delicious maturity. They are being picked at their field-ripened best, so you can't go wrong with whichever type you choose. They're at their peak for the next few weeks.
Photo: Our just a few of our fresh picked field tomatoes ready for grading.
I just finished reading Barry Estabrook's Tomatoland, all about growing tomatoes in Florida (everything you didn't want to know about growing tasteless tomatoes). A fascinating read, now I know why our tomatoes taste so good, and why so many others are not worth looking at.
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| Brattleboro, NH Farmers' Market |
At the end of July my family took a quick vacation to Bretton Woods, NH to visit Mount Washington (the highest mountain east of the Mississippi, and home to the highest wind speed ever recorded). While traveling, we always keep a lookout for farmers' markets, and we found ourselves one Saturday morning at the Brattleboro Farmers' Market in southern Vermont. It is perfect in size, with about 50 vendors situated in a park with huge trees providing shade, gravel pathways and a grassy centre courtyard. The vendors could only sell what they grew themselves (in other words, none of the "reseller" nonsense that you find at Burlington and Milton), so it was refreshing knowing we were buying from real farmers. The market also had a good selection of artisans/craftsmen, and what we really liked was the vendors offering prepared food. Everything from African dishes to Indian yum yums to gourmet pizza, all made by people passionate about their culinary heritage. You could eat at the market or take it home for dinner. In addition, each Saturday there is a different musician serenading the market. We love the Burlington and Milton farmers' markets, but the diverse array of goods, and the relaxed community atmosphere at the Brattleboro Farmers' Market was a delight, we didn't want to leave!
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| Heirloom Watermelons |
One of our sources for heirloom seed is the Seed Savers Exchange. While browsing through their gorgeous catalog last winter, I was intrigued by all the watermelon they had listed. Big ones, small ones, early ones, late ones, pink ones, yellow ones, white ones and orange ones. I thought to myself, you don't suppose the breeders of modern seedless watermelons are sacrificing flavour as they try to breed out the seed?
There was only one way to find out, and that was to grow some heirloom watermelons ourselves. Our harvest has begun, and we like what we're tasting. Our favourite from yesterday's taste test was "Cream of Saskatchewan" (bottom centre of photo).
For the next few weeks it is peak season for all the summer goodies growing on our farm, including melons and tomatoes (see the full list at the upper right corner of this email).
There are a million ways to make a BLT, here's mine:
4 slices of your favourite bread (I'm a big fan of sourdough), toasted lightly
8 slices of bacon, cooked almost crisp (don't succumb to grocery store bacon, get the fabulous thick sliced bacon from J&G Meats at Burlington Mall Farmers' Market, or Maziarz Meats at Milton--- if you're going to do this BLT thing, do it properly!)
6 big, thick slices of your favourite heirloom tomato (in the photo we used Aunt Ruby's German Green, and Pineapple)
Lettuce
Mayonnaise
Salt & Pepper to taste
Enjoy your sandwich(es). Follow it with an heirloom watermelon, and if you have kids, have a watermelon seed spitting contest! Enjoy summer's bounty. Life is good.
Bye for now,
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