GIFTS & PROMPTS FROM LATE SUMMER

WITH TALK OF TOMATOES AND CORN, PLUS RECIPES

Late last week, just before the Labour Day weekend, I put on socks for the first time since May. The warmth and sudden relaxation that came with my feet and ankles covered was a real transformation. I realized I’d spent the previous 24 hours feeling a touch chilly and fragile, even with long sleeves on and a scarf wrapped round my neck. Temperatures hadn’t dropped a lot, it wasn’t very cold out, but the balm and softness of summer heat, the warmth of the ground, the softness of the air, had vanished, leaving me feeling a bit vulnerable

honeysuckle blooming again this week after taking a hit in the extreme heat this summer

I hadn’t thought about the cold, or dressing warmly, or sweaters, or long-sleeved shirts since late May. This shift in the seasons means retrieving the almost-forgotten pleasure of close-fitting cotton or wool knits, after a summer of light-weight flowing linens and cottons. Along with the socks, I pulled on old comfy blue jeans with one torn knee, and enjoyed the feeling of trousers enclosing me.

We’re heading toward a full moon. The cooler weather, recent rain, and waxing moon were a reminder to me to plant some lettuce seed in the garden last week. There’s a small open space where the garlic was until I pulled it in at the beginning of August. Unless we get cold weather, there should be time for some tender greens to flourish. Today as I write this, following rain last night and this morning, there are small dots of green emerging from the newly moistened soil, little promises of leafiness to come

little promises, with the odd weed intruder

Labour Day weekend, traditionally the weekend before school starts again after the summer holiday, is such a loaded time for many households in North America. Some school boards start even earlier, which seems very cruel to me. This last weekend I couldn’t help visualizing the parents and teachers and students all across Toronto thinking anxiously, or perhaps relievedly, about the coming change in their days. The connection between the start of cooler days and the start of the school year means that many of us are triggered by the weather into remembering school anticipations and anxieties. On Sunday I flashed on the dress I wore at the age of nine for the first day of grade five (pale green and white cotton with a dropped waist of some kind; I loved it but soon grew out of it). Extraordinary time travel.

Though I can remember the first day of school when I was nine, I seem to regularly neglect essential remembering, such as tending to my precious bicycle. A few days ago I finally pumped up the tires. I’ve been using it all summer to get around in the city, but pedalling had become increasingly effortful recently. Duh! I realised that I hadn’t pumped up my tires for weeks. The difference that a few minutes of pumping makes is so huge. Now I glide easily along the streets, loving my mobility, especially in the thickened post-summer-holiday traffic

the nasturtiums are still going strong, and the shiso is in bloom (purple plant at the bottom)

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS – tomatoes, green beans, corn, and recipe ideas

I’ve been eating locally grown tomatoes of all kinds since mid-August. Some are from my small garden but most come from several farmers at the Tuesday and Saturday markets I go to every week. (Trinity-Bellwoods and Wychwood, respectively) ). There are heirloom cherry tomatoes of many colours and shapes, and larger tomatoes that call for slicing, each enticing and magical. The huge voluptuous red ones yield gorgeous slices to lay on toast; the smaller curvy warm orange or green-yellow-striped ones make a stunning chopped salad.

treasures from Footsteps Farm

tomatoes tomatoes: a slice on a toasted slice of Dawnthebaker’s perfect rye, alongside two fried eggs on chopped tomato, lightly drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt

Other vegetable pleasures include perfect beans, both green and soft yellow, and spectacular corn: crunchy and yielding, with aromatic sweetness in every bite.

beans beans beans at Wychwood Farmers’ Market

I cook cobs of corn over charcoal, (still in one layer of husk, to keep in moisture) or else drop them fully dehusked into boiling salted water for a few minutes. It’s a pleasure to bite corn straight off the cob, mouthful by mouthful. The only questions then are: butter or olive oil? salt only, or salt and pepper? or nothing at all, just corn with a pinch of salt? I opt for the latter, mostly; sometimes I drizzle on olive oil too.

But these days I’ve taken to cutting the raw kernels off the cob and adding them to simple stir-fries or simmered dishes. I usually toss the cobs in too, to add extra flavour to the liquid in the pot, then remove them just before serving.

Here’s a very easy and successful corn-loaded one-pot dish that took shape on the weekend. It started with four large sausages, two “hot Italian” and two “rapini” from Sanagans, my local butcher, just over a pound (500 grams) altogether. They had some chile heat and were very freshly made. Usually I grill Sanagans’ sausages over charcoal, but this time I cut them into short lengths, less than an inch/2 cm, and started them in my heavy Staub pot, in olive oil flavoured with aromatics: ginger, garlic, spices. Then in went some chopped carrots, some water, and kernels chopped off 3 or 4 cobs

here’s the sausage-corn dish served as reheated leftovers, over leftover brown jasmine rice, with green and yellow beans and some heirloom cherry tomatoes; it makes terrific leftovers.

I had worried that the combination of carrot and corn would make the dish too sweet, but it turned out that the sausages’ chile heat balanced out the sweetness and made it all come together successfully. I served it with a simple salad of chopped radicchio dressed with a yogurt-enriched vinaigrette.

Here's a loose recipe:

3 or 4 cobs of corn, stripped of husk

Olive oil, about 3 tablespoons, depending on how fatty your sausage is

2 inches ginger, peeled, sliced, then minced

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

About a teaspoon of brown mustard seed

A scattering of fennel seed

4 large sausages (see headnote) weighing a total of about 1 ½ pounds/675 grams), cut into approximately ¾ inch/2 cm lengths

Carrots, cut into /2 inch lengths (I used 5 or 6 medium carrots)

Water

Salt to taste

A generous splash of soy sauce or fish sauce if wanted

Slice the kernels off the cobs and set aside. Heat the oil in a heavy deep pot over medium high heat, toss in the mustard seed and then the fennel. Once the mustard seed pops, toss in first the ginger, then a moment later the garlic. Stir a little then add the sausage and turn it a bit so all sides get exposed to the flavoured oil and the heat. After about 5 minutes, add the carrots and stir and turn.

Add hot water, enough to have the liquid an inch deep or so, and about 1 teaspoon salt. Toss in the cobs if there’s room, to add flavour to the liquid. Cover and bring to a boil, then lower the heat a little to maintain a medium boil and cook for about ten minutes, covered. Add the corn kernels, stir them in, then cook at a low boil, partially covered, for 4 or 5 minutes. Taste the liquid for seasoning. I found I needed to add a generous dash of fish sauce; you could instead use a medium soy sauce or more salt.

I turned the heat off once the corn and carrots were the texture I wanted, and left the pot standing with the lid on while I made the salad and cleaned up. I find these kinds of dishes benefit from sitting around a little before being served (reheated if necessary). The wait gives the ingredients time to really talk to each other. And if you used the cobs, remove them before serving.

You could sprinkle chopped basil on top of each serving, for aromatic prettiness.

and another possibility: chicken thighs cooked with with potatoes and corn, served with green beans, and with stir-fried cauliflower

And another corn kernels example: Two night ago I started with four bone-in chicken thighs I’d bought from a local farmer. I’d salted them lightly for fifteen minutes before they went skin side down (again in my heavy Staub pot) into hot olive oil flavoured with minced ginger and garlic, plus nigella, a generous 1 teaspoon cumin, and a small scatter of lovage seed. Once they’d browned a little I turned the legs over to cook on the other side for about five minutes. I added about 8 medium-small new potatoes, sliced, and about 1 ½ inches/4 cm water, as well as about 2 teaspoons salt. I brought the liquid to a boil, then lowered the heat, covered the pot almost completely, and cooked it at a low boil for 10 to 15 minutes. The potatoes were fairly tender by then. I needed to add a little extra water to the pot. In went corn kernels cut from two cobs. The dish cooked at a simmer for another ten minutes or so.

I served it with freshly cooked untrimmed green beans cooked in an inch of salted boiling water until just tender. They were dressed in a simple olive oil-brown rice vinegar vinaigrette spiked with a little sesame oil. Guests eat the beans in their fingers, like asparagus, so they can toss away the tough stem end. I prefer to cook beans untrimmed, so they don’t get soggy. And what is better than eating a perfect vegetable with our fingers?

I’m ending this rather rambling post with some lovely acidity from the beautiful stone fruit in season right now: a recent lunch of slices of peach and nectarine over slices of cheese on Dawnthebaker’s nut and raisin rye bread