Food in the summertime

I don't know about you, but summer means more wonderful food. I live in the upper midwest, known for long cold winters and short mercilessly hot summers. For the most part, this is accurate, and yes, we survive quite well in this climate with temps that can flucuate from -30 below zero to nearly 100 degrees over the course of the year. But for us, summer means the bounty of the land becomes more readily available. Tiny gardens sprout tomato plants, peppers, basil, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, and if you're lucky and have the space, melons, pumpkins or squash.

In MN, in the summertime, it's about the tomato. I live all year in anticipation of the first crimson globe to be plucked from my tiny garden and taken indoors to it's timely demise. There is nothing in this world like a fresh tomato right off the vine, bursting forth with the taste of the sun, the warmth of an August day and a flavor unlike anything in the world. At certain moments, there is nothing that can compare, and when the short-lived tomato season is over and the last of the lonely reds are consumed, a sort of ennui comes over me, somewhat akin to sorrow that it will be another year before it's joys grace my palate again. I hover over the tomato section in the grocery store, wondering "Do I dare?" and when the desperate urge for a tomato becomes too much, and I give in to the bright red and beckoning store-bought orbs, the first bite often heaves my anticipation right off the edge of Mt. Everest. Yikes.....why do I STILL think it would taste the same!!! Despite year after year of this, I still think, somewhere, somehow, that store-bought tomato will give me the same burst of ecstacy in my mouth as my garden beauts. Wrong! Again.

Summer also means melons, juicy, sweet and deliciously soft and silky. I have never grown melons, but thankfully I worked for a produce company for nearly two years, and I know where the best melons come from and when you should be consuming them until you drop from sheer bliss. The secret?? Westside fruit from CA, it should say so right on the box in the grocers, and if the box isn't available, ask! Westside melons are to die for, everything a melon should be and generally come available around the end of June. The Cantaloupes are a gorgeous hue of orange, the flavors as sweet and as tantalizing as your wildest dreams can conjure. Watermelons are a dark ruby red, loaded with juice, just screaming for you to grab a hunk and go sit outside in what I laughingly call the 'melon stance' . And yes, we all know what that is.....you sit with the chunk of melon in your hands, knees apart and bent over so that all the juice that gets away won't run down your legs. Unless you're six, then you don't care. There's the sluuuuurrrrpppp of your first bite.......the swish of pushing that big hunk back into your mouth, and the attempt to keep the lips closed over the amazing amount of liquid spurting forth from that one bite. Eyes are half closed as if a shot of some natural painkiller has just hit your brain. The swallow, and then the mouth attacks.....over and over until all that remains in your slippery fingers is a much gnawed rind. Juices gather at the corners of your mouth, and your tongue is calling for more.....more.....more. Fruit heroin, nature's dope. One of God's greatest gifts. Never does anything taste more like summer than a big chunk of melon in July. Not even the bees hovering around the sweet, noxious aroma can spoil the mood. Just give 'em their own rind to get drunk on and go for another piece.