Aah, Summer

For lunch today we had what could be considered the quintessential summer meal - corn on the cob, fried green tomatoes with buttermilk dressing, cucumber salad, raspberries and ice tea.  All seasonal, all from either our CSA or the Farmers' Market.  Well, the tea came from Uptons - ZK95, China Keemun Mao Feng Imperial. I made it on the light side and I must say, it is a delightful ice tea soft and winey, with a bit of floral..

In the same publication as yesterday, Delicious Living, I found a recipe for Chai Iced Tea Pops.  I modified the recipe some:


Simmer 8 chai tea bags or the equivalent tea and spices from your own recipe, with 1 cup coconut milk and 2 cups of water for 10 minutes, strain, add sugar to taste, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.  let cool for about 30 minutes and pour into pop molds, freeze about 3 hours.  You could also just use regular milk, it would be good either way.


Pop molds are in the grocery store, department store, craft store, almost every place and they are inexpensive - under $10 for 6 -8 of them.


Did you know the ancient Greeks had poetry, art, and architecture Olympics at the same time as the sports Olympics?     Remember the old concept, "sound body, sound mind"?  Greek concept.  In 1912 someone reinstated the poetry part in that year's Olympics.  It lasted until 1952.  It was discontinued mostly because the poetry was so awful.  NPR is having a poetry Olympics. We'll see if the poets are any better or should just fade away.


This morning I saw what looked like a deer family of poppa, momma and fawn, with gorgeous reddish brown coats and spots still on the fawn.  They are beautiful creatures, but I wish they would stick to woodland flowers and shrubs.


The wildflowers are early this year - the wild asters are already beginning to bloom and the purple loosestrife is running riot.  The chicory and Queen Ann's lace is having a superb year, with deep color on the chicory and more lace than usual.


My new lavender is blooming.  Not enough to do much with so I think I will just gather it and put the dried flower heads in with some Early Grey tea.  I first had this with some from Simpson and Vail Tea and I really like the combination.  I am hoping that next year I have a huge amount, both for tea and sleep pillows and all sorts of things

How's this for a casket?  Ravenna, Italy