lperry

Tomato paella with the last of the pink Brandywines. Acorn squash sliced thinly, cooked briefly in the microwave, then pan-browned in butter. Excellent. Two squashes down, ten to go.

We will come if we are here, but right now we don't have the weekend's schedule. I'll second and third the comments about how enjoyable these outings are. Enjoy some wonderful food and great company!

Eggplant and tofu kaprow. The basil is looking pretty awful, so this was probably the last of the kaprow for the summer. *sigh* Jasmine rice.

Tomato Dijon tart made with Black Krims from the garden Recuerdo Torrontes 2011

Tomato paella with black and red cherry tomatoes from the garden Recuerdo Torrontes 2011

Eggplant and tofu Thai green curry Jasmine rice First we tried a rosé from Provence, then a Torrontes from Argentina. Both got overwhelmed.

Penne (Trader Joe's) with yellow crookneck squash (garden), leeks (garden), mint (garden), goat's milk feta (that guy at the farmers' market), and white wine (Last Bottle). 70-ish percent local.

Omigosh. Papa a la Huancaí­na. Wonderful. Get a recipe off YouTube, or a Peruvian website, or combine a few. Here's just one to try. It will be unlike any potato dish you have ever eaten, unless, of course, you've eaten it before. Now I need some!

Interesting. I wonder if they were young cranberry beans? We had very little time tonight, so I made a quick chickpea, goat's milk feta, and Sungold tomato salad in a tarragon vinaigrette.

Yes. You can leave them standing and compete with the birds, or pull up the plants when the peppers are ripe and hang them upside down like hanging herbs to dry.

Thai green curry with eggplant, tofu, and holy basil Jasmine rice

Hi, Alex, and thank you for chatting with us. I am very interested in the unusual pairings you mentioned above, and I was wondering if you have thought about wine pairings in situations where most people would choose beer or a cocktail instead of wine - foods with complex spice mixtures such as a Thai or Indonesian curry dish, for example. When I look for recommendations, just about everyone seems to lean toward a slightly sweet Riesling or Gewurztraminer. Do you have any ideas for something a little different?

Tomato paella.

Flashback! I used to drag people there every time I visited my sister. At the time, I had never seen such an amazing diversity of foods so it was both overwhelming and wonderful, like a food World's Fair. That's where I bought my first bottle of balsamic vinegar way back when, and if you make iced tea, they used to have this bulk mango tea that was amazing.

If you are a fan of freshly-ground peanut or almond butter, Fresh Market has machines, and has even filled one with honey roasted peanuts for those times when you need a dessert peanut butter. It reminds me of being a kid in the 70s, held hostage shopping with Mom at the Organic Granola Barn or somesuch, but Mr. lperry is in peanut butter heaven.

Seconded for keeping a few jars on hand. If you buy spices at Indian markets, for example, you can pour them into a jar and get to them better than if they stay in the little plastic bag (that inevitably gets lost and/or torn open in the cabinet.)

Click.

Sweet corn and squash blossom risotto Eggplant pancakes with parsley and parmesan, adapted from Marcella Hazan's recipe Rosé from Provence

I think Mom or Pop could easily be a retired pilot as well as a teacher if "mom and pop" is interpreted as meaning a family-run business with no particular financial implication. I don't believe small, start-up wineries are typically very profitable, but I may be wrong about that. It's also my guess that the "passion" is related to knowing about a person or persons who make the wine instead of drinking wine "made" by a big, faceless corporation. That hypothesis is based on the numbers of millennials I see at local wineries talking with the owners and clearly enjoying that connection. Yes, there's probably some poor word choice in there, but not everyone writes about wine as eloquently or meaningfully as some do.

I use some medium-sized cherry tomatoes that I cut in half and marinate in a little olive oil and salt while I prep the rest of the dish. If you want to make a nice pattern with them, just cut off the flame while you arrange them, then turn it back on to bring to a simmer before finishing. I use a little bit of better-than bouillon in the water, usually mushroom, and I also "bloom" the saffron in the water - it needs to be hot - while I cook everything. That's actually the first thing I do, put the saffron into the hot water, and I think it brings out a great deal more flavor than just tossing it in. Goya medium grain works really well in paella and is both readily available and inexpensive.

The first garden zucchini stuffed with its own innards as well as onion, goat's milk feta, hot sauce, nutmeg, and romano to get crispy under the broiler. I would have finished it on the grill, but the rain chased me inside. Caramelized sweet corn with Vidalia onion.

That was excellent. I now need to work "It tastes like a Tinker Bell popsicle" into a future conversation. I'm pretty sure there is no higher compliment.

^ When I opened the paper this morning, they had the food section on top with an enormous photo of tomatoes. I tend to agree with you about the recipes, but I have also read the entry "instructions," and know that they solicit "interesting" treatments rather than classic ones. I gravitate toward the classic, mostly because I think these types of recipes take best advantage of home-grown flavor. With that in mind, here's Mark Bittman's incredible tomato paella. I make this recipe about once a week during tomato season, and we never get tired of it. Simple, fresh, and showcases the tomato flavor.

When I get enough tomatoes to fill a half sheet pan, I slice big ones about a centimeter thick, halve small cherry tomatoes, and cut a slit in the side of the sungolds, toss everything with salt and olive oil, and roast in the oven until squishy with some black spots on the skins. That's an hour and a half or two, maybe, at 350 degrees. It will smell amazing in your kitchen. I leave the pan in the oven while it cools off, then put the cooled tomatoes into freezer bags. One pan of fresh tomatoes makes about a pint bag of roasted cherry tomatoes, and closer to a quart of beefsteaks, depending on how big they were and how dry you cook them. It's not an exact science, by any means. A bag of roasted tomatoes stirred into a risotto in February when the snow is creeping into your veins, it's a glorious thing. They can also be put through a food mill and made into a really flavorful pasta sauce - just add red wine and finish with cream. If you like the skins, hit it with the Bamix for a decent texture. If you have an overabundance, I would make and can or freeze Ina Garten's roasted tomato soup. Don't use the store-bought in the recipe - just add more of yours. I've got one jar left from last year, and it has been wonderful. Good luck! That's a lot of tomatoes!

After you scrape the kernels off corn cobs, if you have a masticating juicer, you can chop up the cobs and juice them for stock then freeze the juice. Excellent fresh flavor.