Three Days without Rain-It’s Finally Summer

Walking this morning at 6 AM, the trees are lush, the earth fully leafed, and the air smells new-washed and clean. The moon of July is called by various names, but two, Hay Moon and Mead Moon, are reminders that it’s time to start gathering what is lush and plentiful.

I plan to buy a half-dozen bottles of white wine vinegar and submerge the tarragon that’s growing in the whisky barrel by my kitchen door. I don’t cook with tarragon as much as I should, but I can always use a bottle of tarragon vinegar. This year, I’m just going to wash the springs, get rid of any yellow or brown leaves, and let it sit in the back of a cabinet until I am ready to use it. If I buy the vinegar in bottles, I won’t have to find a source or worry about sterilizing them. I can soak the labels off when they’re sealed and add my own come December.

Blueberries and corn, too, are ready to freeze. Blueberries, you just wash and pick over, getting rid of stems or stray leaves, and spread out on a baking sheet in your freezer overnight. In the morning, pour them into a ziplock baggie, roll and force out as much air as possible, and label a piece of masking tape with the date and contents and seal the bag. I plan to pull them out this winter for Blueberry Sauce. Sarah can make muffins. The key is to find the sweet ones; too many times blueberries and strawberries look picture perfect and lack any sweetness or fruit perfume.

Corn you simply shuck and cook for three minutes in boiling water. When it’s cool, cut the kernels off, then freeze and package like blueberries. Who can resist last summer’s corn for Thanksgiving or during the winter? Some of the sweetness is lost, but there is satisfaction in eating it. If I’m going to eat it off the cob or serve it for something more formal than dinner at the picnic table, it will probably be my version of Macque Choux, the Cajun cooked corn

It is just the two of us at home now, and as the corn reaches its peak, I’ll buy a dozen ears and cook 6 for eating now, five minutes in the water. We’ll eat 4 with dinner that night and strip the other two from the cob and add them to salads or other dishes. The other 6 get blanched and frozen.