FROM REAPING TO EATING

I am beginning to think I need to add a few extra words to my blog title...like food, cook, eat, etc. It seems like I spend more time blogging about food in general then on kneading and weaving.

Given that it is high summer, and the garden is spilling over into my kitchen two and three times per day, it is difficult not to be thinking about food...picking, preparing, eating, preserving, savoring, sharing, and then thinking about it again. Right now, cucumbers and tomatoes are the most fruitful, with basil coming in close behind. I have made and frozen lots and lots of pesto, and will do a few more batches before I let the basil go to seed.

As the tomatoes are coming in a bucketful or more each day, I bring them in, line windowsills, and benches on the porch and let them ripen a bit more.

Tomatoes washed and ready, along with the basil, for roasting.

Even on the hottest and most humid days, I fire up the oven to roast tomatoes.

Two pans of cut up tomatoes, onions, basil, fresh garlic, and olive oil, and a tiny bit of sugar. (The pan on the left also has oregano, as this will be pizza sauce. Sicilians NEVER put oregano in pasta sauce, at least no Sicilian I ever knew. If it has tomatoes and oregano, is cooked and it's not a salad, it is pizza sauce.)

Looks good enough to eat right here!

(When I walk into the house and the sauce is roasting, I wish I could take a picture of the aroma, it is almost enough in itself!)

Just out of the oven, ready to cool, put into containers and freeze. In the winter, after defrosting and heating, it is simply delicious just like this over pasta.

And speaking of pasta...I once saw a photo of Pappardelle Pasta (a very wide fettuccine) and longed to try some. So I decided to make it, and it turned out not to be difficult at all. I actually made it and froze half of the dough, which I took out to have with this meal yesterday. I kneaded it through the large rollers of my pasta machine until...

it is thin enough to see the light through. The I cut it into wide strips, and just as my father did when I was a child,

hang it over broomsticks suspended between chairs to dry.

I'm inclined to say, and then comes the rewards, but there is so much reward in the making that

despite the beauty and utterly indescribable flavors of this finished plate, I can't. However, this pasta melted in your mouth, and the fresh garden vegetables that came almost directly from the garden to our plates were truly a reward. Add a great glass of red wine, who could ask for anything more??