Some of the surplus fruit dropped off on my little red bench made it into jam and tarts and even more made a scrumptious cobbler, served with heaping scoops of Aldens organic blackberry ice cream.
My neighbor Merle has become a regular frontier woman this summer, with a backyard small holding that, with careful planning, pickling and preserving, could see her through a couple winters at least. Pleased to report that some edible treasures just demand to be shared, and Merle's red-bench deposit of a dinner-for-five's worth of freshly dug potatoes and those exquisite purple green beans that turn green when steamed were swiftly followed by her gifting of an entire basil plant perfect for pesto plus a bag of the chunkiest, baby carrots I have ever slapped eyes on!
All that's left for me to muster up is a roasted Rocky Range (Senior), stuffed with a handful of garden herbs, a lemon, garlic, rosemary and a slathering of lovely, local McEvoy olive oil. As "Julia" would say, you can't go wrong with a roast.
Half of the fun of the little red bench is figuring out who might have left what. Though I did happen to open the front door just as Gail was making an after-school doorstep delivery of an abundant armload full of shoe-boxes of sun-ripened peaches from her Chileno Valley ranch.
Piles of apples and pears, dropped off in a sturdy, recyclable Urban Outfitters bag (Sierra?) are next up for a few naughty, fruit crumbles and an upside-down tart or two, one of the quickest, tastiest, burnt-sugar and butterish ways to whip up a late summer sweet for the freezer stockpile.
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