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Jay's beautiful garden

lodi, ny - Since we got here to Lodi, we've been eating like queens. Not queens of England (no offense Elizabeth, Charles, et al) but queens of some luscious delicious place...like the Finger Lakes, maybe. We arrived in the height of summer, and everything is ripe and perfect and abundant. Our neighbor, Jay, is a master gardener and generously invited us to share the bounty from his garden. We've so far enjoyed chard, tomatoes, basil, melons, onions, shallots, mint, cucumbers, beans, cilantro, beets, carrots, and beautiful bunches of flowers from his plot.

We've also been prowling the local farmer's markets, farm stands, and you-pick farms. We keep trying to get enough so we can put some away for winter. A day or two later, we've eaten it all up.

The Finger Lakes is ice cream territory, too. We've been eating as much as we can, since many of the local stands close at the end of September or even Labor Day. We've discovered a local offering called a Boston milkshake - your favorite sundae in the bottom of a milkshake cup, with your favorite milkshake poured over top. Yes, you read that right.

Peaches, peaches, morning noon and night!

Karen has been indulging her one true calling, slackerdom, so has had time to do a little cooking. I seem to do the most baking in the heat of the summer because the fruit is so tempting. A recent 93 degree, 90% humidity day seemed like a good day to make bagels, since you have to boil and bake those. Plenty of galettes with all those beautiful peaches and berries. Also a "congratulations cake" for Anisa's first day of classes, with the stone soup ingredients on hand here. Til Jeepie made it to Lodi, I was isolated out here since Anisa had to take the car to the bus stop. It's 18 miles to the market, too much for me to handle on my bike at this stage in my slothdom, so when I'm out of something, I'm out.


Daisy and Charlotte from Highpoint Farms