Dan and I took a lovely early-morning road trip today as part of an extended birthday celebration for me. We woke before the sun rose and drove to Goshen under a sliver of a moon. We started at the Electric Brew where I chose my favorite baked oatmeal--apple raisin this time--a big hunk of oat-cake with steamed milk on top and a cup of hot coffee. Then a walk over to the Mill Race Farmer's Market where I filled my bag with pumpkins and gourds for my window boxes, garlic, sweet red peppers, and a couple of heirloom tomatoes to add some color to a tomato salad, which I'll write more about later . . . no organic apples to be found there, so we drove to the Maple City co-op where we found some little organic McIntoshes grown in New Paris--a nice surprise--and found out from the shop girls what Contra dancing was--something to add to my list of new things to try!
So, back to the tomatoes: I added the heirlooms I bought at the market to the beautiful basket of bounty shown above to create one of many tomato salads of the summer. It was a special request for my niece's birthday party today (along with a gooey chocolate bunt cake). Nora likes to pretend she's a bunny and nibble the little globe basil leaves straight from the plant.
Summer was officially over on Tuesday, but the weather has been sublime, and the tomatoes are still rolling in, so we relished it with an afternoon of outdoor play, yard work, and a bike ride into the sunset.
The frost is supposed to settle in later this week--more bitter than sweet for me as I think about what I may have done for the last time this season--bare toes in the oh-so-soft grass on my front lawn, windows and screen doors open to let the breeze blow through the house . . .
My all-time fave, Gillian Welch is on the telly in a sundress singing an appropriate tune for my wistful state of mind: "Oh, me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio--runnin' around with the rag top down . . . "
I'm hoping for a couple more Indian Summer "rag-top-down" days before the windows get locked down and I pull on my new gray knee socks. Until then, my toes will wiggle free and I'll put tomatoes on the table for every meal!
