Our kitchen smells of red wine, butter, onions and beef; it's 10:30pm, but that's okay, since we just got back from seeing Julie and Julia, and we were inspired to make our attempt at Beef Bourguignon (although the not-two-hours-in-the-oven-version given the late starting time). A quick trip to Whole Foods, some French jazz, Prosecco in our glasses, and we were on our way!
It's been an excellent summer of food so far; the cherry tomatoes out back (from small starts that John planted since he was impatient with the seedlings) apparently decided they enjoyed living and went gangbusters, enough to knock over the wire frames attempting to hold them up. They're now taller than John, and trying to bust out of their second layer of scaffolding. After John was sufficiently scolded for watering them (and everything else in the garden) too much, we are now enjoying the fruits of their less-recently-watered labors so much that breakfast is often solely a trip out the back door. We love the fruit that appears so dark as to look nearly purple under the shade of deep green leaves, and so ready to burst that they split easily when you try to pick them, and is so divine in taste... almost as sweet as a peach, with that fresh tomato smell that you get by shoving your hand deep amongst the leaves to pick them... it's been a beautiful harvest.
Other things pepper our garden as well, although not nearly as well understood. The basil remains somewhat small, although in three pots, even underperforming basil is enough to decorate our brie or early morning eggs. The pot of mint, thyme, oregano, and marjoram is doing well enough to grace our dinners every now and then, although the mint is indeed attempting to overtake everything else, despite our warnings that it'll be made into late summer mojitos. The apple stick (so called by naysayers) has grown well, although has yet to bear any hints of flowering; Autumn warns that apples take multiple years to bear fruit, but John hopes this custom-bred columnar apple was a smarter student. A dwarf orange tree, rescued from the Santa Cruz garden because it was root bound and facing transplantation, found a nice home inside a large pot at Quail Cottage, and has done so well that it decided to start bearing oranges (possibly to attempt making the apple tree feel inadequate). Contrary to popular rumors, the French Zucchini hasn't exploded, although we could just be seeing effects of planting seeds in May (note to self: plant earlier next year). John was introduced to lemon cucumbers, one of Autumn's favorite vegetables. Carrots and leeks in the back yard are coming along slowly... due either to schizophrenic water habits, not enough sun, or the previously barren soil.
Although honey is not a harvestable food in this cottage, much mead was made, racked, finished, and drunk. A good number of small batches (batches G, G+s, G+c, H, I, J, K) reside, patiently and casually bubbling, under the righthand breakfast nook bench. A few experiments include strawberries, cherries (the G+s and G+c batches), light and dark honeys, oak chips, clove and cinnamon, many of which turned out quite well (especially to those with a sweet palate). We adhered strictly to the code of "drink your last batch while making the next." This code also helped free us to be more experimental with our ingredients. John's ego was boosted by a very friendly fellow food and wine snob, who declared his mead "spectacular!" (Times like these make John wish his growlers made more than five beer bottles.)
Friends came and went, the sofa bed was used often, and our half-size dishwasher was run many, many times. Hand painted chinese lanterns were crafted one Friday night as a testament to our friends' artistic skills, strung casually through the side yard hedge, and now cast a warm amber light, gently coaxing us from evening into night.
As the Prosecco drains from our glasses, we toast you Good Night, and if you are near Quail Cottage, there will be Cherry Tomatoes for you in the back yard (at least for the next couple weeks!)