Availability for June 12

We’ve had five straight days of over 100 degree days at our house, and it’s a heck of a time for the air conditioner to be out of service. Normally on weekends I work in the gardens in short bursts, and come inside for some cool air and cold drink. This weekend, though, I pretty much stayed a puddle. I see the forecasters are saying the heat wave should break on Tuesday, at least enough to get us back in the 90s.

It’s been far too hot to cook, of course, and we’ve been living primarily off cold canned fruit. Not local, unfortunately, but now I’m determined to try to put some up this summer for this time next year. We did manage to have one simple dinner yesterday, though, that was 100% local and managed to use items from ten or so Athens Locally Grown growers. Even better, I was able to cook it all outside, keeping the house a degree or so cooler. Here’s what I did: quarter up a variety of potatoes, slice some onion, and peel and mash three or four cloves of garlic. Pile all three up on a rectangle of double thickness aluminum foil, salt and pepper, add a pat of butter, and top with a few pinches of fresh herbs (rosemary plus whatever else you have). Fold the foil and crimp the edges to make a sealed pouch. Throw it right on hot coals. Turn after a couple minutes, and let cook a couple more until it swells up like a balloon. Push it over to a cool side of the grill. Slice some squash longwise, toss with just a splash of olive oil and salt and pepper, and put them over the hot coals. Turn after a couple minutes, and after a couple more, put them over on the cool side. We then put some Tink’s Beef over the hot coals, and cooked until just done (three or four minutes). Very, very simple, fast, and very very good. Perfect for a sweltering evening.

You’ll find more summer items listed this week. The beans are coming in, there’s many varieties of potatoes coming up, lots of garlics (one of my favorite things about the Athens area growers is the sheer variety of garlic available), and other items are coming in.

Finally, we have got the go ahead to move over to the old farmers market building on Broad Street starting June 26th. So, we’ll have two more weeks at Gosford. I’ll have more details, including directions for those of you not familiar (it’s right around the corner from Gosford), later on.

Thank you again for all of your support! We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Gosford Wine. Stay cool!