I think I've mentioned before that my heritage is half Italian.  My mother's father was born in Italy, although his family migrated when he was two.  My maternal grandmother was born in New York but she and her younger sister were the only siblings of the nine in the family that were born in the US.  My grandparents (and all the kids) moved to the west coast during World War II, first to Vancouver, Washington to work in the shipyards, eventually making their way to Salem, Oregon where they lived out the remainder of the 94 years that they both achieved. 

 

Some of my earliest memories are of the Italian Plum trees in the backyard of the house where they lived.  At the very back of the yard two large trees flanked a pathway that led from the house to a gate that led out to the alley.  There were so many plums on those trees that there were plenty for my grandparents, our family and my mom's sister's and two brothers' families. 

 

We generally met about this time of year for a massive picking party.  The yard would be littered with those that had ripened early and dropped from the trees.  Ladders and buckets and bushel boxes would be evident everywhere you looked.  The uncles and older cousins would be up on ladders picking the highest fruit, while the younger ones would be assigned whatever they could reach from the ground or they'd be running full buckets from those on the ladders to the bushel boxes.  Often the aunts would be inside making jam with the first bucketfuls to come from the tree.  

 

And at some point during the day there'd be lots of food - maybe big pots of spaghetti or a picnic lunch to which everyone had contributed.  There was always food. 

 

By the time we were done each family would have several bushels to take home to can or make into jelly and my grandparents would have stacks of filled jam jars ready to be stored and used over the winter. 

 

Italian plums always bring back memories of those fun family occasions.  So today while I was at a friend's house to help her pick her Italian plums my mind kept wandering back to those warm summer days filled with family and food. 

 

My friend most generously gifted me with as many plums as I wanted and I ended up with about twenty five pounds of fruit!  The first several pounds have simply been washed, allowed to dry a bit and then split and the pits removed.  I placed the plum halves on silicone lined baking sheets and they are now in the freezer being individually frozen.  Once frozen I'll package them in Ziplocs.  Freezing them on the sheets will keep them as individual pieces so I'll be able to pull out as many halves as I need in the future.  Many of those will go into tagines or other braised meat dishes. 

 

I also plan on making a few batches of jam and am still pondering what I'll do with the balance.  However, I'm pretty sure there's a clafouti somewhere in my future and perhaps some sort of plum ice-cream or sorbet... so many options.  But for now, it's time to remove the plums from the freezer and package them up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things I like to use my colorful tomatoes for is Bread Salad.  You can find a zillion recipes online for this salad and you'll see they all have similar ingredients.  I like to do a simple version. 

 

Generally I start with a nice rustic bread, cut it into 3/4" cubes and then lightly sauté it in olive oil.  I often add a little minced garlic and dried herbs to the pan, too.  And today I even added some chopped onion.  As with each step of this recipe you are free to add whatever sounds good to you. 

 

Once the bread is toasted on all or several sides, I remove the pan from the heat and let it cool a little.  The bread will get a little crunchier as it cools.  Next I cut tomatoes into 1" cubes.  Today I used several varieties from the garden but you can use just one type if you prefer.  Add some torn basil to the tomatoes (there's both a purple and green variety in the photo), toss everything with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. 

 

You can also mix in the bread at this point but I like to place some of the bread in the bottom of a bowl, heap the tomatoes over the top, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, add a few shreds of Parmesan cheese and then toss a couple more pieces of bread on the top. 

 

 

 

 

 

I am generally blessed with gigantic tomato plants that grow amazingly tall and produce like crazy.  Although I take very good care of my tomatoes and have a great spot to plant them, I know some of it is luck because of one very specific thing.  Tomatoes deplete the soil pretty extensively and, especially in our damp northwestern climate, they are subject to all kinds of maladies and diseases.  So they should never be planted in the same place two years in a row. 

 

Well, I have a small yard and don't really have room for crop rotation.  In fact, other than herbs that are planted throughout the yard, strawberries that have managed to spread everywhere, and a few things grown in pots on my deck, tomatoes are the only crop I grow.  So there's nothing to rotate them with.  This means that I've been planting them in the same exact place for over ten years.  And yet each year they grow so tall and produce so emphatically that I find myself searching for new ways to support the vines and hand out tomatoes like crazy to anyone who expresses even a passing interest in them. 

 

But this year the spell was broken.  Last fall I didn't amend the soil as well as I normally do.  And I planted very late this summer.  There were a few other things that slipped this year, too.  Although I don't have the bumper crop that I'm used to I still have lots of tomatoes.  I've been eating them like crazy and even with that they are gaining on me.   I planned to can a few jars this past weekend but had a little stove incident late last week and so have to hold off until I can get the stove serviced.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it's back to normal tomorrow... And I'll continue to have tomatoes ripening well into October.  Some years it's been into November!

 

In the meantime, I love looking at all the beautiful colors and shapes and sizes.  I plant several different varieties since each has their own special use. Some are better for slicing, some for sauce. Plus, I love to create colorful recipes that use several varieties.  It's nice to have some that ripen earlier in the season, and yet I love the heirlooms that take a little longer to achieve their full flavor and color.  In my garden this year I had two red varieties, Early Girl and San Marzano; a prolific yellow Roma style called Golden Rave; the giant Yellow Brandywine, which is actually orange colored; the striped Green Zebra; and a purplish-red variety that was marked as Vintage Wine but appears to be something entirely different.  Each has their own flavor and texture but all have that wonderful fresh from the garden tomato taste. 

 

If you have not planted vegetables in your yard before I encourage you to make a plan now for next year.  You don't need much room to grow.  The area I use for the tomatoes is about 2'x12'.   Select an area that gets a lot of sun.  For many people the planting strip between the sidewalk and the street works well.  If you want to grow tomatoes they will benefit from a location protected from wind and that holds the heat.  For instance, I plant mine next to the south-facing side of my house.  The area stays warmer overnight as the heat accumulated in the wall of the house releases once the sun has left the area. 

 

Once you've chosen your location you can take steps this fall to give your plants a head-start in the spring.  Weed the area so that nothing is pulling nutrients from the soil over the winter.  Amend the soil with 2" to 3" of good compost so that it has a chance to become part of the growing medium.  Cover the area with something to protect the soil from our winter rains.  I generally use leaves that I've picked up with my lawn mower, so that they are cut up into smaller pieces thereby breaking down easier than whole leaves.  But whole leaves will be fine, as is straw.  In the spring you'll remove this cover and add it to your yard waste or compost pile. 

 

In the spring you'll be rewarded with nice, rich soil ready to support whatever seeds or plants you select.  A little work now pays off later.  So start your planning so that you are ready to go in the spring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not exactly sure why, but carrot cake is a fall thing for me.  Which I think is rather odd, because I look forward to carrots in the spring and throughout the summer.  Maybe it's because carrot cake generally has walnuts and sometimes grapes and those items make it feel like autumn to me.  Or maybe it's because the richness of the cream cheese frosting is too much for warm summer days.  Or perhaps it's just one of my many idiosyncrasies.  That's probably the most likely explanation. 

 

I was at U-Village on Saturday and remembered that Trophy Cupcakes had recently opened a location there.  I popped in and picked up a carrot cupcake to go.  This new location does not have any sort seating inside, although on a nice day there is a lot of outdoor seating nearby. 

 

The cupcake was deliciously moist and tender.  The cream cheese frosting was a tad bit too sweet but by removing a little of it the cake and frosting came back into a nice balance.  It was just what I needed with an afternoon cup of tea.