We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
We're getting into apple-picking season around here. Depending on the variety, it will run through October or early November. Apple trees prefer cold winters for their dormancy.
Many apple varieties were carried to the New World by early colonists. They were not as flavorful or varied as the modern types, but it's all they had. The only apple species native to the New World is the (mostly) inedible crabapple.
Should we mention once again that apples are not particularly "healthy" as they are mainly sugar and water, but they do make a good sugary snack or dessert, especially with cheese. Like all fruits, they are designed to sweetly tempt critters to eat, and to later poop out their seeds to spread their genes around.
We consume a fair amount of ricotta in our house. It's a versatile substance, but I like it on good bread with a slice of tomato and some salt, or some jam or jelly.
Peaches ripen late up here in New England. Yes, there are peach varieties which thrive in the North.
As of now, I have had five friends over to pick grocery-bags full and have delivered bags to others. I'll ask a daughter to take a bag home to NYC today. And I have made substantial batches of peach jam, peach chutney, and canned spiced peaches. I am close to peached out with God and nature's abbondanza.
Still, this is a pic of the tree yesterday after all that. Plus the windfall from yesterday's thunderstorm. The local deer do not seem to like peaches. Neither do the turkeys. Squirrels like them, but it's more of a crop than they can make a dent in.
I use no sprays, no fertilizer - out of laziness as much as anything else. These peaches are as sweet as honey. I guess I'll make more jam, but let's consider peach pie, peach crumble, and peach buckle (that's old-fashioned).
Problem is that Mrs. BD and I are currently on low-carb, high protein heavy-work-out diet plans in an effort to delay the discouraging and ennervating effects of age and entropy.
Anyway, there are two types of peach pie: a custardy one and the classic plain one. I like both but maybe prefer the more custardy one. There are many variations on both themes.
Now Peach Crumble. Dynamite with some vanilla ice cream or heavy cream. I salivate as I write this.
For me, it makes anything tasty - including burgers. Great with cheese and cream cheese. All cheese requires some fruity accompaniment. Really fine as a meat glaze. Heck, I dip my breakfast hard-boiled egg in some, and put some on scrambled eggs. I put some on rice too. It's not for little children.
Are not just for breads and toast. I think, best of all with cheese and meat. Or cream cheese or yoghurt. Not to forget on crepes and Swedish Pancakes.And venison requires a jam or jelly on the side just as pork requires applesauce. Lean meats need a kicker.
Apple Butter
For me, best on ham, chicken, or turkey sammiches. Also good with the things listed here.
Lemon Curd
Supposedly used for scones, but I like it on fresh fruit or I won't eat the fruit - except raspberries
It's too bad that all of the peaches on a tree begin to ripen at once. I pick before ripe. Up here, it's September for peaches and pears, October for apples.
I have a pal coming over today to help me with the harvest, and we'll split the harvest. He cooks stuff too, another old farm boy. It's been an excellent year for fruit trees in general in the Northeast: frigid long winter, wet spring, hot summer.
Maybe Mrs. BD will make a few Peach Pies and tarts for friends and kids, and I'll can up some preserves and Peach Chutney. She is a crust-making expert And I will keep a bunch to ripen fully on the tree to eat. I am fond of fresh peach slices on vanilla ice cream. Aren't you?
Our hosts in Wellfleet last week provided abundant and elegant breakfasts. Fresh fruits first, of course. I am not a fruit fan, but with a good dollop of Trader Joe's Lemon Curd I can enjoy them.
They provided fruit forks and knives with the beautifully-presented fruit course. Civilized and quite effective tools for all fruits and berries. Yes, old-fashioned. We need some.
With decent cutlery and Lemon Curd, I may yet become fruit-tolerant. Is fruit "healthy"? Not at all. It's really just nature's dessert.
Friends have just returned from a week in Ravello, While there, the whole family (all 5 of them) took a full-day cooking class with Mama Agata. Despite their other holiday pleasures, they all agreed that was the high point of their trip. Mamma Agata (click on cooking classes - reservations required).
In 2 weeks it will be time to harvest my peach crop. I have a neighbor pal who likes to get into the tree with me, and shares the harvest. Mrs. BD will make us a couple of peach pies (my favorite pie), and I will can 10-12 jars of peach chutney.
I had a little spare time the other morning, so I did one last harvest from my rhubarb patch to make another batch of Rhubarb-Hot Pepper Jam. Golly, it is delicious and tangy. For the pepper component, I used chopped sorenos, jalapenos, and some sweet red peppers too just for their flavor. A little lemon juice and a dash of salt. Rhubarb is not to everybody's taste, but I love it.
I use one cup of chopped peppers per 3 cups of chopped rhubarb. I'll use up the rest of my chopped peppers to make ordinary hot pepper jelly. Sometimes I make it like a sauce, sometimes like a firmer jelly. Regardless, it is a bit too hot for some people.
My peppery special jams and jellies go well with cheese, cream cheese, pork, chicken, scrambled eggs, or anything else. Available at your specialty food store never. Photo is hot pepper jelly with cream cheese, but goat cheese is better. Any cheese, really.
There's nothing more refreshing than a cold Borscht. A family member handed me an old recipe for it yesterday.
There are countless ways to make it, all from eastern Europe. I think I like it best with chunks, and with a dollop of sour cream on top, but the one pictured is excellent too.
I like to soak sweet corn in the husks, and grill them in the husks. Three ways. Boiled corn is boring and it's summertime so you are grilling your food outside anyway.
I just had to get a new vegetable grilling basket from Amazon. Nice. Fewer of them fall through the cracks that way.
Even people who hate vegetables find pickled vegetables to be a treat. You can pickle anything - onions, summer squash, cauliflower, peas, beans, peppers, beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, peaches - you name it. People will eat it before it is fully pickled because it tastes good. Here's Perpetual Pickles for you with gardens.
Vegetables (like fruit) are nutritionally borderline-useless, but they can be made to be tasty. Thus far this summer I have produced many half-pints and a couple of quart jars of hot pepper jelly, and about 12 quarts of dilly beans. Waiting for my peaches to ripen to make Peach Chutney. I did not grow cucumbers this year. I forget why.
A pal has been traveling across the US with family in an antique camper. He reports that they had possibly the best dinner they have ever had in the US at The Windsor Hotel in Del Norte, Colorado. Not likely that you would be passing through there, though.
It's a new form of cheese to me: Burrata. It's a gooey variant of Mozzarella (a cheese which I do not like, even Buffalo Mozzarella. Flavorless and rubbery). Burrata, like Mozzarella, is a fresh cheese.
I'd be willing to try Burrata with sliced tomato. They may have it at our gourmet Italian market, and I am told Whole Foods carries it sometimes. I hate Whole Foods on principle, but they have always had a fine cheese department. Me love cheeses with fruits, nuts, jellies for dessert.
A good tomato platter might be sliced tomatoes, sliced mango or peach, a chunk of oozing burrata, a handful of chopped fresh basil, and a balsamic dressing.
...with the exception of wild berries, wild game, wild mushrooms, and most fish and shellfish, everything in American diets is derived from organisms that have been genetically improved in some way.
Most foods have little resemblance to their natural origins. They have been domesticated and are "unnatural." Human genius defeating a cruel nature.
Wild maize is a grass, with the fruit/seed about an inch long. Were it not for those ancient Central American genetic engineers, we'd have neither grits nor polenta.
Despite all of her visits to every part of Italy, Mrs. BD concedes that the best Italian food she has had is at Scarpetta, one of the spots she goes to with friends when she goes to see theater and dance. She has some real foodie pals.
Scarpetta. Give it a try. As a matter of fact, she is taking a BD daughter to dinner there tonight after the new Annie Baker play. (They are Annie Baker fans after loving Flick a while ago.) She says their pastas are amazing but our advice is to always skip pasta in good Italian restaurants. Why dine on starch, when there are so many other better flavors in antipasti and secondi?
I'll make exceptions for Pappardelle al Funghi with wild mushrooms, or Fois Gras Ravioli with Black Truffle.
Looking back, thus far, for Italian, we have also recommended Barbetta,Giovanni,Macelleria, - and Bar Eolo for genuine Sicilian. Only Barbetta is a jacket and tie joint, but for Giovanni a jacket is appropriate.
Mrs. BD asked me to fix up a batch of rhubarb compote to splash on some Haagen Dasz for a fancy dinner party we are attending tonite. My guess is that nobody there will have had it before. It's a North country treat. Lots of people do not care for it much. Their loss. It's tangy. I always use half the sugar.
We are the Rhubarb People. A racial identity group and a much-abused and/or neglected one. Maybe we all originated in Yorkshire. Who knows?
Since my own recipe for hot pepper jelly (served with cheeses and cream cheese) was such a hit at a fancy cocktail party in NYC that I have been urged to produce a line of it, I decided to branch out into Spicy Rhubarb Jam. Maggie's Farm Produce, or something. All-organic, meaning grown in pig and cow shit.
Mom always grew her sizeable patch right outside the barn. We would just pitchfork some fresh horse poop and horse straw on top of it when cleaning the barn. Worked well. A rhubarb patch likes to be fed.
A good patch takes a couple of years to establish itself. How do you harvest rhubarb? With a sharp yank on the stalk. Not with clippers.
My rhubarb plantation, stolen from my Mom's garden, is overwhelming. Had to use some more of it. We'll make some pies too (never with strawberry), but I invented my own recipe for Spicy Rhubarb Jam - chopped rhubarb, lemon juice, sugar, chopped fresh red chilis and chopped jalapenos, some chopped green peppers, a little salt, and I threw in some pectin for the heck of it. No pressure canner.
Is cooked rhubarb red? Almost never. People add food coloring but I don't bother. You only get a little red from the young thin stalks.
Yes, the jam tastes like spicy rhubarb. Quite tangy. I like it. Might be good with pork or chicken. Not sure. Definitely good with cheese especially goat cheese. Not on a toasted bagel. I am no expert food canner but I just boil the heck out of the Ball jars for about 15 minutes and hope for the best. Botulism is not wanted.
Next stop might be Spicy Cranberry Preserve. Why not? Any poultry is improved with some cranberry on the side. And for those who can enjoy a tart now and then, for dessert any little rhubarb or cranberry tart is nice.
We consume a fair amount of ricotta in our house. It's
Peaches ripen late up here in New England. Yes, there are peach varieties which thrive in the North.
Man, I love them. Will make some this week. Just need to pick up 
Our hosts in Wellfleet last week provided abundant and elegant breakfasts. Fresh fruits first, of course. I am not a fruit fan, but with a good dollop of Trader Joe's Lemon Curd I can enjoy them.
In 2 weeks it will be time to harvest my peach crop. I have a neighbor pal who likes to get into the tree with me, and shares the harvest. Mrs. BD will make us a couple of peach pies (my favorite pie), and I will can 10-12 jars of peach chutney.
There's nothing more refreshing than a cold 
How To Make 
It's a new form of cheese to me: 
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This sounds like a fine summer party dish from the grill, despite all the annoying greens in it.