Very Local Harvest

There are a number of herbs growing around front yard, some in the ground and others in pots, large to small. They are all doing extremely well so it it was time to do some serious harvesting.

Dinner turned out to be mostly Asian, with a touch of Italy and Austria thrown in for good measure. It was pan seared halibut with green sauce, Forbidden rice, and sliced tomatoes with basil, olive oil and grated cheese.

The sauce was almost a pesto of sort. Most of it was cilantro because it was bolting and going to seed, parsley and Thai basil. All this was pureed in the blender with some garlic, a knob of fresh ginger, some lime juice, a couple seeded habanero peppers, a little salt and some corn oil. This was not a mild sauce by any stretch of the imagination. It did more than make one sit up and take notice and should have come with a warning to use in small doses. What shows in the picture was about twice as much as was needed. It was still quite tasty and after removing some it to the side it paired quite well with the fish and the rice.

The wine was a 2007 Domane Wachau Terrassen Felderspiel Gruner Veltliner from Austria. The wine light, spicy and had just enough sweetness in it to counteract the heat coming from the green sauce. It was 12.5% alcohol but tasted a little less. It was good with the rice, great with the fish and sauce and good on its own.

Dessert was locally grown raspberries allowed to macerate in some sugar for six hours and then spooned onto lemon pound cake. The local market brought in the raspberries from a nearby Amish farmers group. When I picked them up in late morning they were just arriving from the farm so they were as fresh as one could get without picking and eating them immediately. There are some left for another serving or two, and that's a very good thing.

Overnight the weather system finally changed and this week some of the heat and humidity are going away. Last night I was able to shut off the air conditioning and open a few windows to get some fresh air through the house. And since there have been no more bear sightings life is good in this small corner of the universe.