Harvest Redux

Today we ate more zucchini from the garden, made into a delicious recipe from Laura Calder's French Food at Home, cooked with the basil that has finally started to grow like crazy. On the weekend, we had the first batch of beans, and I was delighted to see that the purple ones, when cooked, turn green. Plants are so interesting, aren't they?

Tonight, as I mentioned, I picked the basil for dinner and also collected another three cucumbers and broke off another zucchini. I've made piles of really delicious muffins over the last four weeks and learned that the oven at the cottage really sucks (how can it take 2 HOURS for muffins to cook?). I'll make more this weekend and more the weekend after that if we keep getting zucchinis from that one plant.

I have to confess, I really love eating vegetables from our garden. We've used up three tomatoes so far, and even though the plants are a mess (damn you blight, damn you!), I think I'll have enough to make some soup this weekend for lunch next week. Oh, and I brought the one cherry tomato seedling that survived inside to see if it would fare better and surprise, surprise, it's almost doubled in size since I perched it beside our kitchen window.

We had a busy weekend (Sam, Jay and Sadie up at the cottage) and the weather was the nicest it's been since the summer started. I had a swim in the lake on Sunday after working for most the day on my latest Classic Start that lasted for an eternity. We ate great food, kept wonderful company, and I managed to get a pile of work done. With four Harlequin assignments this month (it's a record!), I've had a lot of work-related reading to do, but I managed, at long last, to finish Wally Lamb's exceptional new novel (#49). I started Peter Carey's latest too, and was reminded why I love him and literary fiction so much as the sun warmed my shoulders after I climbed out of the water pruned and happy. And then promptly left the book on the sun deck, which means I won't be able to get back to it until the September long weekend. When I say good-bye to outdoor swimming for another season. I'm not ready for it to end. I'm truly not.