That market dinner

Eastside Road, September 26, 2012—

THESE ARE THE LIMAS we so love to have, just shelled, a little bit larger than life, at least on my monitor. Your experience may vary.

They come usually four beans to the pod, and they're quite thin. They remind me, I hope it's not too grisly an image, of thumbnails: curved, flat, thin, and about that size. My nails are not green, fortunately; but then these beans aren't all that green either, the color's a bit saturated here.

They were the last to be had this year, Nancy told us at the market on Saturday. The seasons are turning: before long it'll be braises; cabbages and kales; we should be pickling the last of the lemons on the tree; the olives are almost ready to pick and salt as I do every third year or so, to set aside to mold and eventually throw out. I'm not much of a husbandman.

I picked up the fallen apples today — probably seventy pounds of them, and consigned them to compost. Of them a full box were sound enough to set aside; they'll go into applesauce. And those are only the windfalls: there are plenty still on the tree, to fall in their turn, if we don't get around to picking them. We already have three big baskets of Bosc pears, at least a bushel I'd say, about half the produce of that tree. The figs are running late. The Zinfandel's nearly ready to pick, or to leave for the foxes.

It's a nice time of year, and our salmon and limas and green Zebra tomatoes make a nice farewell to summer, and greeting to the fall.

Rosé, Château de Guilhem, 2011 (so easy to drink, so pleasant and good for you…)