Summer’s over

And this blog is not forgotten.  It’s just taken a little rest.  September can be hard!  I hate summer often, but its end can be so sad.  The tomatoes, the eggplant, all that zucchini, and especially those times for lingering over coffee, only partially drunk because it will soon be time for lunch, those times especially will be sorely missed.  They are sorely missed.  It’s why I haven’t been here.

There are many ways to bid farewell to summer.  This is the one that I will try this weekend, with guests to be decided upon eventually but tomatoes already ripening deftly on my counter.  That said, the method – with multiple cheeses and tomatoes and some device for beating up the cheeses not to mention some other device for scooping out the tomatoes – this method sounds hard, especially that beating bit.  Summer and its end both call for sloth.  Inferno here I come.  But in the meantime, I like my meals not too hot, a little more substantial than those of July’s height, and ultimately very, very easy when I reach summer’s end.

I’ve had the fortune this summer and in summers past to repair to a place where the salmon are often plentiful (I’ll complain about salmon farming some other time, but there is a problem here.), and the weather not too hot.  The cooking tools are there, but they are not mine, and hence are not my favorite.  Hence I do not tend to cook, or at least manipulate ingredients.  That makes this the perfect place to have an end of summer meal.  And for that perfect meal—not really a meal at all, but rather a collection of nibbles to be served with copious wine served not too cold—should include the following: olives, barely warmed, with some rosemary and bay perhaps; a sprightly salad of some kind, because green is pretty; and some smoked salmon.  That is all.

For the salmon, and if you are to be eating with me, it must be served on darkest bread, spread quite thinly with sweet butter, then draped with salmon cut not quite right.  The capers for your garnish should be full grown if you can find them, and torn to bits with your fingers.  There should be some red onion minced to the extent your patience allows.  There should be wedges of lemon.  If you would like parsley, you should knock yourself out, just don’t trouble yourself too much.  The plate should be somewhat messy.  And then you should eat and drink and feel happily sad that summer’s over now. 

Smoked salmon on brown bread with caperberries

Brown bread  |  unsalted butter  |  smoked salmon  |  caperberries, torn (or the little caper buds if you cannot find the huge ones)  |  red onion, minced  |  lemon, cut into wedges  |  parsley if you must

Spread brown bread with butter and top with salmon.  Use everything else as a garnish.