Inaugural Salsa Verde - Happy Equinox!

Our recent Grassy Knolls harvest of Green Zebra tomatoes and Bulgarian carrot peppers (Shipkas) cried out for a fresh green salsa so it was a quick web search for salsa recipes resulting in the following lash-up. Oh, and buying a delightful salsa verde from Cam, the Eastside Tomato King last Saturday at the Silver Lake farmers market...

Green Zebra Salsa Verde

• 2 Shipkas peppers (seeds and all)
• 6-7 Green Zebra tomatoes
• 2 smallish heirlooms tomatoes
• 1/2 cup of red onion
• 7 large garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• Juice of 1 lime
• salt & pepper to taste

The salsa is now in field trials with Enrique and results are expected soon.

The character of Shipkas peppers is fairly complex, hot but with a surprising twist at the end that's hard to describe. This is my third use of them and I'm sizing up my cache so I can have a few more recipes before they disappear for the season (and I'm moving the plant to a more sustainable pot and drying out some seeds for next year).


FOLLOW-UP: 2 days later I added more Green Zebras (this time seeded) and heated the salsa to reduce it a bit. Now in field testing at work, the salsa verde is greener, thicker, and less hot but still good and spicy.

Dog Days of Late Summer

Celebrating the end of the first week of high school and the fast approaching beginning of fall, end of summer, we ate a lazy Saturday afternoon lunch of Nathan's frankfurters topped with chopped onion, one of our freshly harvested heirloom tomatoes, Teresa's homemade pickle relish, and neighbor "Cam the Tomato King's" green tomato salsa.

Wow - these were great hot dogs!

The Sandwich Moment

This is the "money shot" in the sandwich making process. The sandwich freshly cleaved, the halves revealing a glorious stratified view of the constituent materials.

A great way to start the day, making lunches for my son and self, packing and cleaning up, ready to ride out to meet the day and whatever it brings.

This is a standard toasted focaccia*, with English mustard* and shipkas tapenade,* with German salami and Tilsit cheese and red and green lettuce.

* Home-made ingredients

Happy Labor Day - Lagom is best!

Not May Day (as in the 8-hour day 1886 version still officially observed elsewhere) but a 3-day brief from work and unofficial start of the school year and Fall semesters in the northern hemisphere.

It was stretch weekend for garden work - renting an truck and auger and picking materials for several home projects. The heatwave brought earlier and the weekend has been warm and mild.

As I've been meaning to snap a pic of this recent anonymous wall poster I detoured from our Sis Deli shopping errand to capture it in all the bleached-out glory of the midday late summer Los Angeles sun.

This simple, surprising sentiment turned agit-prop slogan resonates with my discovery of Lagrom - as in lagom är bäst. Roughly translated (as much as it resists translation) - "just the right amount" or "enough is as good as a feast."

After two days of errands, ground clearing, and pole hole digging we dined on a simple meal of BBQ chicken and sauteed trombetta fresh from the garden (with melted Tilsit for the adults). It's taken a few months to finally obtain a local source for Tilsit (aka Tilseter, like a stinkier, more flavorsome version of Havarti). Continental Gourmet Sausage in Glendale is worth visiting for their own sausages and cold cuts - so the Tilsit and other German and European food items are a just an added bonus.

Trombetta di Albenga - Winter squash