In This Month’s Blog:
Parallel Worlds: Changing with the Wind
August Garden Update
Our August Kitchen–The Heart of the Matter
The August Gallery
Chris: When the wind blows from the West or Southwest, which is most of the time where we live, it’s easy to pretend these days that our garden and our quiet home are our world. It’s a pleasant delusion. But when the wind blows from the North or East, our sky is grey, the sun is a dim orange ball, and the hazy air is made of acrid molecules of what used to be trees. We live 70 miles west of the Caldor Fire, which rages in the forested mountains toward Lake Tahoe. We live 130 miles southwest of the gigantic Dixie Fire, which has been spreading for six weeks in the rugged lands toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. About this blaze, now almost 750,000 acres–the largest in California history–authorities with the state fire service have this to say:
“Fuel conditions are much worse than previous years and along with wind is causing much greater fire spread. Firefighters are experiencing conditions never seen before, such as increased spread rates, spotting and active nighttime burning.”
So a capricious change in the wind changes our image of the world. Some days our sky is blue, the air fragrant from the herbs and flowers in the garden. But other days we cower inside and don’t even dare look through our windows. The prevailing westerlies mostly sustain our illusion, as long as no big fires start up to our west, as they did last August. For the many thousands of humans now uprooted by the flames and crowding into evacuation centers surrounding the fire scenes, there is little illusion to cling to. Most of those forced to evacuate will eventually go home to find that they still have a home, at least this year. But many face combing through burned wreckage to salvage, they hope, some little bits of their past: a child’s toy, a beloved tool, a photograph. Big decisions are upon them.
All of us across the West, not only in this iconic California that always seems to capture the attention of Easterners, still cling to a hope that the drought will end later this year… or might it be early next year, or when? With climate change now hard upon us, all bets are off.
There are places in the U.S. and in lands around the warming, fragile globe where the drastic effects of the climate disaster have still barely hit. In those places, some of the people still scoff at climate change, but those places grow fewer each year as the disaster spreads. What’s really dangerous for most of us around the globe is that some of those most desperately clinging to the melting iceberg of climate disbelief wield a lot of wealth, control a lot of politicians, spew lots of pollution, and so have the power to make the climate disaster so much worse more quickly for the rest of us.
August Garden Update
One August day’s strawberry harvest
Except on the smoky days, I’m out in the garden this month watering, trimming, studying plant health, or picking what’s ripe. I like sharing thoughts with the birds, butterflies, bees, and other insects. Or taking pictures of them and the plants. I wish I could say that I was reducing my water use beyond the 50% less I was able to achieve during the last drought (2011-16). However, though I’ve been culling plants more ruthlessly than I have in the previous five years, my water reduction is barely measurable.
But it is late August, so the time for the summer veggies and fruit is about run out. I promise to be utterly ruthless in September. As for the fall and winter produce? We’ll see. It depends on if we get rain.
Lemons. I’ve never written about ripe lemons in August before. June was our previous record. Only this year has our crop lasted into the 8th month since December’s ripeness. Eight months of hundreds of juicy, fat meyer lemons on the single spreading bush. And the last one just as fresh as the first. Lasting on the bush through dry 100-degree days. Imagine! A blooming miracle (as all plants are).
Green meyer lemons toward December 2021 harvest
Eggplants. Every summer the eggplants are late fruiters. Patience, patience. Now, in August, the two Black Beauty plants are fruiting. Just this morning the sixth fruit appeared, and two more buds look promising. The first few dark purple gifts should be fully grown by next week. Jean is ready with recipes.
Tomatoes. Four of the 7 plants have finished producing and I have pulled them out for composting. One more is about done and will be pulled in the coming 2 weeks to save more water. That leaves the two steadfast red cherries, which are still putting forth new fruit that redden in the 90-100-degree heat.
Peppers and Chilis. The real August stars in our little garden are the 3 mild pepper plants and the lone Fresno chili. This is their best month after a June and July of slow production, but they’ll still be going into September. The Fresno, which I didn’t plant until late May, is bursting with hot green gems, some of which are turning dark red, as befits their potency.
Strawberries and Zucchini. Three strawberry plants in pots are still giving fruit and putting out more buds. And Old Faithful Zucchini, which I thought was done, just showed me two beginning fruit beneath its broad leaves.
Our August Kitchen–the Heart of the Matter
Peppers, onions, tomato, garlic stir fry, with shrimp
Chris: Jean won’t be writing for the blog this month, as she is recuperating from open heart surgery, which she had early in August (hence the title of this part of the blog). We are so thankful that her recovery is going better than well, and just this week she began some cooking and baking again, with me as her sous chef, shopper, and all-around kitchen help. So the dishes we picture and describe here are a combined effort. The dish pictured above is a simple stir fry, using green peppers and cherry tomatoes from the garden, plus carmelized white onions and garlic, all fried on low heat in butter and olive oil. The pre-cooked shrimp are added just a minute before serving.
Sfougato, with finely chopped zucchini, peppers, shallots, chard, and feta and goat cheeses
A theme in this month’s blog is Mediterranean cooking. The sfougato pictured above is a Greek baked egg dish that is sort of a blend of a frittata with a souffle. The cheeses give it a salty, lemony tang, and the veggies from the garden–finely chopped zucchini, green peppers, shallots, and chard–give it an earthy, crunchy, spicy freshness.
Zucchini two ways: (1) Zucchini pickles in a bbq pork sandwich with sauerkraut and mustard (top), and (2) chunked zucchini stew, with homemade tomato sauce
Another theme this month is zucchini, as this is the month of greatest bounty of these large, incredibly versatile veggies. Version 1: It is so easy to slice thinly part or all of one of these fruit, and then plop the slices into whatever pickling brine you already have on hand from pickles you may have bought or made: sweet, dill, or any other type. The slices begin marinating almost immediately in the fridge, and in a day or so you’ll have crunchy, crispy, fresh-flavored pickles just as good as any you can make with cucumbers, and with many fewer seeds. Version 2: In either a homemade tomato sauce or store-bought pasta sauce, these half-inch thick chunks of zucchini soften nicely in the oven in a baking dish (45 min. at 350 degrees). We used the chunky homemade sauce we wrote about in July. This dish is great, too, with a few sprinkles of grated parmesan or another cheese of your choice.
What we chose to do with our leftovers was to blend the zucchini stew with the barbecued pork–an amazing combination!
Peach blackberry cobbler–really more a cake than a cobbler
While she was in the hospital, I baked as a homecoming surprise for Jean this “cobbler,” more like a cake really, using our many leftover July peaches and some of her red wine spiced peach jam that we described in the July blog. The batter is a typical mix of butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk. I poured this mixture over the fruit mixture of sliced peaches, berries, and sugar in a glass baking dish, and baked for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. What’s cool is how the flour mixture rises to the top and hides the fruity goodness underneath. A surprise indeed!
Greek yogurt olive oil cake, with lemon glaze and rose water frosting, garnished with pistachios
Another Mediterranean treat! Jean’s first cake since she came back home in mid-August, she baked it today, using the recipe from the Complete Mediterranean Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen (2016). The batter includes flour, sugar, and baking powder, along with 4 eggs, a cup of Greek yogurt, and 1 1/4 cups of EV olive oil. Bake it at 350 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Jean made this cake with a lemon glaze, beneath rose water frosting she had from a previous project. The pistachio garnish was an added inspiration. I’m so glad she’s home, getting healthy, and back doing what she loves. And I get to help.
The August Gallery
On to September in our parallel worlds…
From Sacramento to Potomac: Tales of Two Valleys 
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