Today was definitely a locavore nation day. It started with Beckman's granola with fresh figs, a big salad, again with fresh figs and rock cod caught by my neighbor, Jose, in the Monterey Bay earlier today for dinner. For dessert, I made turnovers with apricots from the farmers' market. My boys said they were the, "bomb," so I guess that means good. I finally picked my first tomato from my plants and it finally looks like some tomatoes are forming. I spoke to Jeff at Bokay Nursery this weekend about my poorly producing tomato plants. He thought the unusually cool nights may be the reason for the low yield.
My friends, Susan and Bob, who live a few blocks from my house, invited me over the other day to pick berries in their back yard. Bob has rasberries, olallie berries and blue berries. I'm waiting for a special occasion to make an olallie berry pie with the berries my daughter and I picked.
There are so many beautiful fruits right now. The peaches, nectarines, strawberries, etc. are all delectable. The most elusive, to me, though, is the fig. I made a fig, olive and caper tampenade from my Tassajara cookbook last weekend. Speaking of Tassajara, the Big Sur fires rage on. The Tassajara vegetarian cookbooks originate at the Tassajara Center in the Ventana Wilderness near Big Sur. We haven't had a clear sky since the fires began on June 8th. Pretty scary stuff.