Pistou Provencal

In southern France, cuisine without pistou is unthinkable. The Provencal cook uses the pounded paste in pastas and atop toast, and dropped cold into a hot bowl of summer minestrone.

Pistou (meaning pounded in the Provencal dialect) is a simple blend of crushed garlic, basil, salt, and olive oil. Traditionally, it is made with mortar and pestle, hand ground into a thick, creamy, pungent paste and set on the table in the very same bowl.

With the basil in my garden struggling to reach sunlight below the shade of the looming squash, I picked the final leaves today and declared a gourd victory. The thin, pointed herb leaves wouldn't last long off the stalk, and so I pulled out our large, wooden mortar and dusty pestle and wiped them down for a morning's use.

First the garlic crushed beneath the heavy sticks' weight, releasing its pungent flavor and absorbing that of the smoky salt I sprinkled in. Next went several drops of olive oil and a handful of basil leaves, slowly blended by hand into the white allium paste. Leaf by leaf, drop by drop, the paste doubled in volume, and then tripled. By half hour's end, almost a cup graced the bowl. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of fresh herb and bulb, and an aching arm accompanied me to table as I sat down to a slice of toast spread with pistou.

While the season will offer plenty more basil and a milleau of garlic, the rest of this batch is now tucked into the freezer, hidden away for safe keeping and topping off a warm winter stew.

PISTOU PROVENCAL

Makes almost 1 cup

With a food processor or mortar and pestle, crush the cloves of one head garlic and 1 teaspoon salt into a thick white paste. Slowly, add 1 cup basil leaf by leaf and 4-5 tablespoons olive oil little by little, mixing as you go until all is added and the pistou is a thick paste. Serve spread on toast, atop a minestrone stew, or on pasta. Freezes well.

Gazpacho gourmet

I received the book as a Christmas gift in December. Wrapped in tinsel and ribbon, it seemed to hold the weight of the world.

When I tore the paper to reveal the cover, I saw it did. It was The French Laundry Cookbook, a collection of recipes from the ultimate in American fine dining. One hundred and fifty Thomas Keller recipes sat heavy in my hands, and I hadn't the slightest idea of what to do with them.

I didn't open the book again until yesterday. Inspired by the drop in humidity and the crispness of the light, I peeked in again. This time, it seemed right. The page opened to gazpacho, and I looked to the pile of produce spilling out from the wooden basket on the hutch. I readied myself for a first French Laundry attempt.

It was far simpler than I'd imagined. Making gazpacho with Thomas Keller was a lot like making gazpacho with my mother, except that he was much quieter, and harbored a stern penchant for exact measurements.

As I sliced through tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, and peppers, I became emboldened. I halved his recipe, tweaked it here and there, and made substitutions with newfound freedom. I have no idea how close the dish my liberties created tastes to the original Thomas Keller. Similar or not, however, it is the perfect antidote to a hot July night. Grab a spoon, dig in, and enjoy.

GOURMET GAZPACHO
adapted from The French Laundry Cookbook

Serves 4 as a small starter soup, 2 as a meal

Chop and throw in a blender or food processor: 1 large green onion, 1 small green pepper, 5 small roma tomatoes, 4-5 pickling cucumbers, 1 clove garlic, and 1 teaspoon cilantro. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon white vinegar, 1 teaspoon lime juice, 1/8 cup olive oil, and 3/4 cup tomato juice. Blend until pureed. Refrigerate overnight to allow flavors to blend; serve chilled with a dollop of Greek yogurt or a drizzle of balsamic dressing.

Raspberry, gooseberry, currant pie

Yesterday morning I arrived at Coonamessett Farm in Falmouth at the commence of the work day. Tanned summer farm hands bustled in and out of the farm store and café with armloads of cabbage, kale, leeks, and cauliflower. Horse and rider pairs trotted by a fenced in enclosure outside, and the bray of a spirited donkey echoed across the grass.

I had found the farm first online; as one of the few Cape farms to offer a steady supply of pick-your-own produce, it had been on my list of places to visit for quite some time before my gas tank and I finally mustered to the cause.

We were not disappointed. For a fee of eight dollars, I was allowed to make my way past the shelves of fresh baked bread, through the porch of the busy café, and into the "clubhouse" to pick up picking supplies. I grabbed a flat of pint boxes and headed to the raspberry patch.

The back left hand field of the farm boasted about 15 rows of berries, enough to fill my eight boxes in an hour's time. The conical stems yielded fruit easily. I ate as I picked, crushing juicy red flesh and seed between my teeth and finally making my way with stained hands back through the rows towards the store counter.

As I walked, I couldn't resist pulling up a few bunching leeks. Then a head of cauliflower caught me eye, and one of red cabbage, and finally a few budding eggplant and a handful of green peppers. By the time I made it to the register, I had a few boxes of hothouse tomatoes, too.

By the time I made it home, the raspberries were already beginning to soften. I rolled out a crust and began making a pie. A seventies era version of the Joy of Cooking suggested combining the berries with currants; I tossed in a mixed cup of the small red fruit and gooseberries, and crushed all three together. The pie emerged an hour later, filling the room with a sweet red steam and begging for a fork.

I was happy to oblige.

RASPBERRY, GOOSEBERRY, CURRANT PIE

Makes one pie

Mix 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose flour in a large mixing bowl. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Cut in 1 stick plus 2 tablespoons chilled butter; mix well with a pastry cutter. Add 4-5 tablespoons ice cold water until the dough forms a ball. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and roll out dough for crust bottom. Cut off edges and set aside for lattice top.

In a separate bowl, mix 3 cups raspberries and 1 cup mixed gooseberries and currants with 2/3 cup sugar, 4 tablespoons flour, and 1 teaspoon lemon or lime juice. Mix well until all sugar and flour are absorbed. Pour into pie bottom. Roll out remaining dough and cut into strips; weave into lattice top.

Bake 30 minutes at 425 and then turn temperature down to 350. Bake an additional 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling has set. Enjoy hot or cold with vanilla ice cream.

Refrigerator pickles

The yellow and green streaked pickling cucumbers have been sitting in my hydrator since Saturday morning, whisked away from the market and tucked into the refrigerator for safe keeping.

With each morning trip to the kitchen weighed down by the moist, oppressive heat of the sky, it has been hard to do little more than stare at the short, stinted vegetables.

There were other excuses, too; no dill, vinegar almost at jar's bottom, a shortage of mustard seed and cardamom.

This afternoon, facing the prospect of wilted cucumbers and a vine's harvest wasted, I finally headed into town. Bag in tow, I combed the shelves of the Marketplace for needed ingredients. Back home, I paged through book upon book until I found what I was searching for: a recipe for refrigerator pickles, no flame needed, that would sit crisp and cool for snacking on the shelves by week's end without a canning pot in sight.

With a garlic dill version in hand, I traded spices and vinegars here and there until it was pared down to my taste. I reached into the drawer and began readying the tiny green lengths. Off went the tops and tails, leaving the pale, exposed flesh to soak up the sting of a cider vinegar brine. A large clove of garlic, several sprigs of dill, a sprinkling of pickling spices, and a good dose of smoked salt later, the cucumbers dove in for a two day brine—the last of their adventures before a good long sit in the fridge.

REFRIGERATOR PICKLES

Makes 4 pints

Run four pint jars and lids through the dishwasher on high heat. Make a brine from 2 quarts water, 1/4-1/2 cup pickling salt , and 2 cups cider vinegar. Clean cucumbers and trim tops and tails. Pack jars with cucumbers and fresh dill and garlic (peeled) to taste, adding pickling spices as desired. Fill packed jars with brine; leave at room temperature for 3 days, then refrigerate for snacking. Pickles should last several months in refrigerator.

Bound Brook blueberries

It was a rare winter afternoon that my black lab, Fisher, and I did not get out for a walk. Be it raining or snowing, we headed to the trails that criss cross Bound Brook Island and immersed ourselves in daydreams of a village long past. We walked by the stone marker of Wellfleet's original one room schoolhouse, across the street to the birthplace of banana king Lorenzo Dow Baker, and finally down to the bay to see what might be jumping.

Come spring, we began to notice the bushes. Matted against sunny hillsides or cowering in the flickering shade of a five fingered pine, greening clusters of low bush blueberry plants covered the island's forest floor. We returned week after week until in early June tiny white berries began to appear. Crowned and firm, they promised a hot July pie for a morning's sweat.

Then summer descended, with its crowds and hurry and our walks first dwindled and finally ceased. Fisher sat lonely on the deck, howling at squirrels and the wind and anything else that would listen. When he chewed up a phone book, I knew it was time to return.

We went this morning, chased by the black flies and green heads and the dripping heat of our own moving bodies. When we reached the trail, I realized we had arrived for a reason. Tiny ripened berries burst from the ground, beckoning us off the well worn path and into the thickets of shrubs and fruit.

The picking was slow. The wild berries yielded only a cup before the flies chased us from their perch, certainly not enough for a fresh baked pie. We ran, fruit perilously clutched in my shirttails and feet pounding furiously, until finally we reached the car and sped away from the bay side bugs.

This afternoon, I sat down to a bowl of the fresh picked berries. The yield may have been small, but the taste was every bit worth the effort. Still, they didn't quench my hankering for a pie. For that, I think I'll head to Coonamessett Farm in East Falmouth. From what I hear, the berries are big, and will be ripe for the picking towards the end of the month. For details and availability, call 508.563.2560.

Peas from the pod

Some evenings, company is more important than the food you keep. After a day cleaning house, four too long unseen friends came over for supper. With one lost to the west coast, two to work, and the last to the big city upstate, it was a gathering of overdue reunion and well worn laughter.

The food that sustained it was as warm as the conversation. A primavera pasta of scallops and peas shucked this afternoon in the hammock off the back porch steamed in bowls as our chatter turned from memories to predictions.

As the candles burned down, bowls shone clean and the last shimmer of prosecco was drained from glasses one by one around the table. The heavy comfort of good food and beloved company settled over the table, and the final evening of a celebratory weekend came to an end.

SHUCKING PEA AND SCALLOP PRIMAVERA

Serves 5

Boil 1 pound pasta; drain, drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, and set aside. In a heavy saucepan, melt 3-4 tablespoons butter. Sweat 2 chopped green onions until translucent, sprinkling salt to taste. Add 4 chopped scallions and 1 minced clove garlic and sauté several more minutes. Pour in 1/2 cup half and half, cream, or milk and reduce down by half. Add 2 cups of white wine in 1/2 cup portions, each time reducing down by half and making sure to keep pan hot. After adding one cup, add 2 cups fresh peas and 5-8 large scallops. Continue testing and seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. When all wine is added and peas and scallops are cooked to taste, add pasta and toss with sauce. Serve hot.

Gooseberry fool

The season has officially begun. Swept in by the fourth of July festivities, it has descended on Provincetown like a haze. The weekend marks the start of a crazed Commercial Street, too crowded to drive and some days offering barely room enough to walk, filled with voices and laughter and the wafting temptation of edibles for sale.

This noon, it was the farmers' market that drew the crowd. The formerly sparsely peopled Ryder Square was swarmed for the first time since Labor Day, filled with hungry visitors and cooks and restaurateurs. Suddenly, by the will of the earth, the produce multiplied to match. Tables just weeks ago populated by a few green onions and rogue berry boxes were now teeming with swiss chard and lettuces and shelling peas and broccoli and summer squash and bok choy and herbs.

The best find, however, lay not in the abundance but the variety of the table goods. Beside the strawberries sat several boxes of pink, purple, and white fruits. Pearled and translucent, they had the skin of tiny grapes and the seeds of a pomegranate. Their taste, farm owner Andy Silverbrook informed me, was even more delicate.

The berries were a mix of gooseberries and currants. Silverbrook Farm is located in one of the few regions of the state, Andy explained, where the bushes will produce. The fruits, cultivated for hundreds of years in Europe and popularized as garden fixtures in the 1700s, are far less prominent in modern American horticulture and cookery. As most remember currants only from historic stories and references, it seems fitting to offer an old-fashioned recipe.

Gooseberry fool, corrupted from the French term foulé, is a traditional compound made of gooseberries scalded and pounded and served with whipped cream.

GOOSEBERRY-CURRANT FOOL

Serves 2

In a large saucepan, combine 1 cup mixed gooseberries and currants with tops and tails removed and 1/8 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until liquid begins to thicken (about 5 minutes). Mash berries with a ricer or fork and simmer several minutes longer. Chill.

In a large mixing bowl, whip 1/4 cup cream until it begins to peak. Add 1/4 cup thick Greek yogurt, several drops vanilla extract, and 1 tablespoon sugar and beat until stiff. Fold in chilled berry puree; serve cold with ginger snaps or other crisp cookies.

Soldier bean re-fry

It's pantry cleaning season. With squash flowers turning to fruit and green tomatoes gaining weight on the vine, the time has come to clear the dark, musty shelves of last year's dry goods and make room for a new crop.

This early July pause between the wealth of August and the long, uncertain supply of winter and spring sees the bottom of oat tins, jam jars, and flour bins. Licked clean and dry, the shelves and containers line up one by one, waiting patiently for a refill.

The soldier beans on my kitchen hutch have been especially composed. They have watched as the oats, pasta, beach plum jelly, and pickles have gone before them, popped open and tucked into the fridge, and then one day gone entirely. They have said goodbye to the lamb, the squash, and the berries in the freezer, and even a container of last summer's thawed gazpacho.

Finally several days ago, I went to them. I cracked open their lid, poured several cups from the jar, and picked them over. I rinsed them in the colander, set them into a crock, and covered them with cool water for a soak.

Then again, I forgot them. They sat for three days—three long, hot days—before I noticed them again, and when I did, I feared it was too late. The water looked cloudy and white. A quick rinse, however, proved the beans resilient; firm and smooth, they were ready for the pot. I filled it with cold water and a dash of olive oil and salt and poured the soldiers in, turning the flame to simmer beneath the silver bottom.

Several hours later, the beans were tender. With most of the water evaporated, they mashed easily. I chopped a purple scallion and crushed a clove of garlic for seasoning; a crank of salt and pepper, several spoonfuls more of oil, and a turn in the frying pan, and they were ready to eat.

I thought of making them into a burrito, or perhaps a sandwich of some sort, but after all they'd been through, it seemed too much. Instead I ate them plain, on a plate, topped with a scallop and a side of fresh sugar snaps, and let their strength soak in and take root in my belly—a more fitting end, I thought, for such a patient batch of bold, red-eyed soldiers.

SOLDIER BEAN RE-FRY

Makes 3 cups cooked beans

Soak 2 cups dried soldier beans overnight. Drain and rinse, picking over for discolored or bad looking beans. Simmer in a large pot with 6-8 cups water for 2-3 hours or until tender; drain. In a large cast-iron frying pan, heat up 3-4 tablespoons olive oil. When hot, add beans and mash. Stir in 4 chopped scallions, 1 clove minced garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook several minutes, or until flavors are absorbed.

Serve hot or reuse in burritos, quesadillas, sandwiches, dips, sides, or over toast.

Battered summer squash

The summer squash on my kitchen counter has a pale, sea green complexion. Its skin is thin and unblemished, its stalk prickly and unwelcoming. It is small—small enough to fit easily in the grip of my hand, and firm in its freshness.

I picked it up at Hatch's Market in Wellfleet, from one of the baskets of fruits and vegetables tucked away in a bustling corner of the parking lot behind Town Hall. It's color drew me in; the lure of the pastel and the promise of the first, crisp round of the season. I brought it home along with a handful of fresh garlic and a basket of eggs and began to contemplate lunch.

Lying against the grain of the kitchen counter, the squash stood out as though aware of its fate. I heated up a pan, axed it into rounds, and cracked an egg into a bowl. It was high noon, and time for a platter of fried summer squash.

The lightly battered halos of squash hit the pan with a sizzle, spitting garlic and bread crumb and yolk into the air with a thick, bulbous aroma. Still hot, they hit the roof of my mouth and I settled in to enjoy this first of the surfeit of summer gourds.

BATTERED SUMMER SQUASH

Serves 2

Slice one thick, 6-inch summer squash into rounds, discarding tip and end. Crack an egg into a shallow bowl and whisk well. On a separate plate, crumble one slice stale bread. Add one clove minced garlic and salt and pepper to taste; mix well. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a cast iron frying pan. When hot, dip squash rounds first into egg and then batter with bread crumbs and garlic. Fry for 1-2 minutes or until batter is golden brown, taking care not to overcook.

TIP: If extra egg wash remains after all rounds are dipped, add another egg and make an omelet to serve aside the squash.

Breakfast tartlet

This week may call for a bit of creativity. I missed the market on Saturday, and by last night the refrigerator had been emptied of local produce from top to bottom. With the shelves clean, it was easy to see this morning what lingering jars and bags needed to go.

The first that caught my eye was a tiny ball of pie crust. Unbaked and forgotten, it had been sitting in the cheese drawer since the night I crafted four individual lattice topped strawberry rhubarb pies for a friend's birthday almost a month before. Upon closer inspection, it appeared happily unspoiled and ripe for the oven.

The Greek yogurt I'd used as a starter for my own batch appeared next. Carefully covered and tucked against the back wall, it remained white and creamy as the day I'd bought it.

Finally, I hit upon a half-eaten jar of last year's strawberry jam, opened a week or so ago and quickly dwindling. With this year's on the way, it could afford to be eaten.

I pressed the pie dough into a tiny, three-inch tart pan and carefully cut the excess dough from atop its scalloped edges. After ten minutes in a 425 degree oven, it was crisp and golden and beginning to puff. I pulled it out to cool and readied the toppings. A dollop of Greek yogurt spread across the bottom of the shell, melting into a warm, spreadable cream. When it reached halfway up the top of the tart, I topped it with a spoonful of strawberry jam.

As I dug my fork in, cold berries and cream yielded to the warm, doughy crust. It may have been a breakfast created from the necessity of empty shelves, but it certainly didn't taste that way.

BREAKFAST TARTLET

Serves 1

Press 1 small ball leftover pie or tart dough into a 3-inch tart pan. Trim excess dough from top edges, and bake at 425 for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Pull from oven and without allowing to cool, drop in 2 tablespoons thick Greek yogurt. Spread evenly across bottom, filling shell halfway up sides. Top with 1 tablespoon strawberry or other fruit jam. Enjoy warm.