Saturday 23 June 2012

In this neck of the woods...

they call this weather 'African heat', and you can understand why, as everybody gently wilts by mid-morning, and the idea is unthinkable of doing anything in the garden before the evening shadows start to lengthen, at around six o'clock. Even the junior four-footed inclines to the idea that the cool of the kitchen floor is a better option than trailing around outside, in these temperatures.

TD is in the middle of installing our mega-effective (I hope) garden-wide watering system....or, rather, is in the middle of starting to install etc...We gave up on hoping that Tatiana's husband was going to come and do it (the attractions of the beach are too much to withstand, I imagine, now that summer is here)  and since we don't want to get overtaken by the sort of heatwave we had last summer, when some of the garden got a bit touch-and-go, it seemed better just to bite the bullet and get on with it. Half of the woodland garden was linked up yesterday - and I must go and do an audit of which bits of the setup are working and which need attention. Well, when it's a bit cooler, I will, anyway...  

The fruit harvest continues apace. White peaches are now being picked, and the plums, and whilst there's a lull in the strawberry yield, the raspberries have started, as have the gooseberries...apples are looking good, blackberries ditto, and we risk being overwhelmed by the onset of the pear harvest. Peach sorbet (200g of puréed peach flesh, churned along with 150 ml of sugar syrup, and the juice of half a lemon) was excellent, a couple of evenings ago, and we even managed a macedoine of strawberries, peaches, and raspberries in chilled prosecco, with chopped mint leaves and grated lemon zest, where everything (apart from the prosecco, sadly) had been home-grown. It does my scottish blood good to think of the economics of it all!

Tonight's Dinner:

Fettucine, with a sauce of leeks, pancetta, and cream.

Baked salmon fillet, on a bed of braised celery, with tarragon beurre blanc.

White peach tarts.