WEST BRATTLEBORO — In August, produce overwhelms the senses. We are kids in a candy shop, only we're filling our bellies with berries, laughing at baseball-bat zucchinis, and getting high whiffing heirloom tomatoes.
Right around the first of the month, summer changes. You can feel that shift if you persistently observe.
August is a dichotomy: lazy summer days and impending fall semesters. People are torn between enjoying the moment and planning their future, wearing summer clothes while shopping for back-to-school wardrobes.
Our inner hedonists always duke it out with our inner pragmatists for our attention, but in August, the dynamic feels visceral.
In the kitchen, it's no different.
On the counters, grilled zucchini share space with pickling cucumbers. We enjoy caprese salad (layered tomato and mozzarella with basil and olive oil) before preparing buckets of salsa. At farm stands, freshly picked berries are sold next to freshly canned jams.
I forget to remember how blessed we are to live in this lush green valley - how conscientiously subversive we Vermonters are, by Jesum. And I forget to remember that while gearing up for the fall, I am still in the summer.
One way we might savor the remainder of the season is though our palate. August is a handful of blueberries eaten, one by one, on a front stoop. It is the thick cucumber slice. August is corn on the cob, munched in that horizontal typewriter-key-clacking motion. Each meal, every bite honors surrender and retreat.
To help quiet the tug-of-war, please enjoy some vignettes of food and community commingled, in this, the sweetest of summers. (The best spring I ever spent in Vermont was the summer of 2014!)
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This August, I intend to enjoy...
• … the best raspberry jam on the planet. Gail MacArthur of Whetstone Ledges Farm in Marlboro adds just a touch of butter to her almost-fuchsia-colored jams to ease the foaming that occurs through simmering. I don't know if it's that touch of butter or Gail's touch, but there is gold in them there jars.
• … the services of a kind and passionate Vermonter, the Mushroom Forager, who identifies mushrooms and tells you if they are edible, when you send photos of the day's hunt.
• … visiting the farm stand near Chesterfield Tire in Chesterfield, N.H. to get a dose of Sadie, the black lab puppy. Sadie's in her first trimester of life, so she's ripe with sweet puppy breath and innocent pre-fang nibbles on your fingers.
Go for the corn; linger for the love.
• … balancing “farm fresh” with “dollar discount”: roasted corn and tomato salad with diced onion from the garden sprinkled on a cracker with hummus from Dottie's Discount Foods in Brattleboro.
• … heirloom tomatoes at Walker Farm in Dummerston. Their display offers a feast for the senses, as you meander playfully through all the varieties, comparing shapes, sizes, contours, and fragrances. An edible museum of tomatoes, indeed.
• … pizza on the Farm. Lilac Ridge Farm in Brattleboro hosts Rigani Pizza on Wednesdays from 5 to 7 p.m. through the summer.
One thundery evening, I thought I'd do them a favor to stop by and buy a pizza. You know, help 'em out. Approaching the farm, I saw 100 cars parked along the road! Turns out, thunderstorms don't deter this weekly pizzapalooza.
• … thoughtful, generous neighbors greeting us with a bounty of Black Trumpet mushrooms. Just cuz.
• … swimming with dogs and drinking local beer at the West River.
• … corn roasts with neighbors at South Pond in Marlboro.
• … grilled zucchini with a side of grilled zucchini.
Wherever you find yourself this month, whatever it is you are doing, remember to savor the flavor.
Sure, September will be here before you know it... but for the moment... it's not.
Fare well.