Summer Cooking

What middle class lives we have, my husband often remarks. This past weekend, on account of all our social activities (we cannot be accused of being boring!), he repeated this a few times. Hard to tell if he's pleased, ashamed, amazed, or disgusted. On Friday evening we went to the Ensemble Theater in Santa Barbara and saw an excellent play called LOOT. It didn't have much of a plot, but had interesting characters, and lots of witty lines a la Oscar Wilde. Then on Saturday we started the day by going to the farmer's market where we stocked up on organic fruit and veggies. We went to Wholefoods for their superb multigrain bread - crusty and still warm - and wine. In the evening we went to a classical concert, part of an annual summer program performed by the Music Academy of the West. Because we usually travel in the summer we'd never attended these concerts before. So as newbies, we were invited to a preconcert champagne reception. Well, that was a bit la-di-dah. All the other people at the reception were the bigwigs of the Music Academy of the West. Thankfully, we were smartly dressed and looked sufficiently like high society folks. The champagne was great. We've got tickets to a few more concerts this summer.

In the early evenings we like sitting in the garden with a glass of chilled wine. I love our summer garden. It provides us with gifts everyday. The lettuce this year - romaine- has been phenomenal. Huge heads of bright green, crispy, tasty leaves. Summer squashes, green beans, and now tomatoes, basil, and parsley - just waiting to be picked. The fruit trees are also going gangbusters - juicy, purple Santa Rosa plums, peaches, and even a fig or two. Not bad. Very rewarding indeed.

During the last few weeks I've made an assortment of desserts using the fruit in season. A favorite among my friends is apricot tart. Here's how I make it:

First make a shortcrust pastry, roll it out and blind bake it in a 9" pan at 425 degrees. Next make some frangipane. In a blender I put in a cup of almonds, an egg, 3 tablespoons butter and a quarter cup sugar. Blend until you get a smooth paste. Spread this over the cooled crust. The final step is to prepare the apricots. Remove stones and quarter each apricot. Use as many as you like to cover the surface. Arrange apricot slices over frangipane and bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven. Heat up about half a cup of jam/preserve - and when it turns to liquid pour over the apricots. I enjoy this tart best at room temperature.

I've also made a few summer berry puddings. I'll post the recipe for this tomorrow.