Summertime!

In the Bay Area summer begins in late August at the earliest (oh, there are a few bluffing days, where we get a four day heat wave, but it always ends in chilly fog). We are now in our second week of summer, but there is a touch of autumn in the air as well. The leaves are starting to turn in Berkeley, which is always lovely.

Curiously, cooking at this time is both very easy (all those ripe figs, the rainbow of capsicum varieties, super fragrant late stone fruit, the best eggplant and tomatoes, etc.) and tricky. Part of me wants to jump into hearty autumnal food: duck confit with grilled figs, bean soups, etc., but the weather does not cooperate. It's too hot to eat that heavy stuff. So we stick to grilled wild salmon with tomato/basil vinaigrette (Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook), and the figs go into my late summer barbecue sauce.

Oh? No? I have not posted the recipe for that sauce? Ah-hah-hah! Of course. You see, I am generally rather free with my own recipes, but there is this bug in the back of my head that is saying "bottle it!" Who knows, perhaps in a more generous mood I have already posted the recipe. Anyway, it is a lot of work, and if I ever do market it, it will be a lot easier just to buy mine. If I do or already have posted the recipe, just promise me that you will, at least once, try it on slow cooked pork loin. You may use it on chicken, beef, lamb, tvp, whatever, but at least once, slow cook your pork loin over smoking wood chips, basting it every ten minutes with apple cider vinegar, then, AFTER it is cooked, shred it and add the sauce. Eat it on Kaiser rolls.

Barbecue calls for slaw, but here is the problem: slaw disgusts me. So, my task for the season is to reinvent slaw. There is one at a restaurant in Sacramento (place called Banderas or something like that, it's on the other side of the river) that makes an Asian-influenced slaw that is quite tasty. Perhaps that is the direction I will go. I am probably going to shy away from mayo, but we will see. Maybe a homemade aioli instead.

Also, one should eat melon with barbecue, so let me recommend Persian melons. They are particularly good with a piece of jamon serrano or prosciutto di parma wrapped around them.

But the main thing about this time of year is the weather, which is beyond outstanding. It is perfect. The sky is blue. There is almost always a gentle, warm breeze. It stays pretty warm at night.

Amalia is right now armed with a bag of chalk and is demanding a piece of pavement to decorate. We need to go into the city for a bit, so I think that she might get to practice her work at Golden Gate Park. I love this weather.

OH YEAH: If you are one of my Bay Area readers, holler and I will be happy to show you how to make said sauce. There are benefits to living near me. Of course, to learn how to make said sauce, you must allocate quite a good part of your day. There is a lot to do to it.