Summer Salads

One of my father's favorite pastimes during his retirement was working in his vegetable garden. I remember him well that way, in his straw hat, pot belly a-bloom, kneeling over a patch of weeds, "secretly" smoking, red-faced and overheated.

He grew all sorts of things that weren't easy to find in stores, then at least: slasify, leek, Swiss chard, and cassis. Perhaps he remembered some of these from back home in Switzerland. The making of the cassis into jam was always a big production and required a joint effort with our expert Polish housekeeper. I believe I sometimes provided labels.

My father also grew plenty of conventional things: tomatoes, cucumbers, and raspberries, lots of raspberries. In summertime, this meant tomato and cucumber salads every night.

Elsewhere on the farm, we had blackberries, blueberries, elderberries, and lots of wineberries in the woods. One year, the strawberry plants in the horse pasture even bore tiny little fruit. We also had chestnuts and wild asparagus and pears we never got to eat before the birds - or, if not the birds, then the raccoons. Various squash, which failed elsewhere, thrived on the manure pile.

I am reminded of all this because one of my clients gave me a wonderful, big, brown bag of home-grown vegetables this week: tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant. Today I made dilled cucumber salad, crunchy and refreshing.

My Dilled Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

2 large cucumbers
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup yogurt, plain
1 small white onion, finely sliced
1/3 cup dill, chopped
3 Tbsp. white vinegar
2 Tbsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Instructions

1. Finely slice the cucumbers. (Leave the cucumber skin on and seeds in!) Let them drain in a colander for half an hour.


2. In a large bowl, prepare dressing by combining all other ingredients.


3. Carefully slide the cucumbers into the dressing. Mix and coat thoroughly.
4. Chill.

I've also eaten just about as much fresh tomato, basil, and mozzarella, which I love, as I dare. For the rest of the tomatoes, I'm thinking gazpacho, which I also love but have never made. Or perhaps, with the eggplant, a batch of ratatouille, to freeze and eat hot in fall.