There’s a bit of a bite in the air after about 6pm. The sun is lower in the sky and, heaven help us, the heat goes on for a bit in the mornings. The overnight temperatures are low – they dropped into the 40s and last week I spent a few days wearing a hat, a hat, dammit, while sitting at the computer. It’s been a difficult summer, weather-wise, with unwelcome throwbacks to March in the middle of August.
I go out into the garden and stare at the abundant and unripe cherry tomatoes, seeing if I can turn them yellow and red by sheer force of will.
It’s not working.
I’m able to harvest a handful every two days or so – enough to add to a salad, but not enough to make sauce. The soil is good, the plants located in a sunny and protected spot, but we have not had the consistent sunshine we need to produce a good crop. Wednesday, we pulled off just enough tomatoes to make a nice batch of tabbouleh, a salad made with chopped tomatoes, bulgar wheat, parsley, and whatever else you feel like adding. I use lots of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and fresh ground pepper. It’s good with feta cheese or olives, too, and some like to add onion or garlic. The flat leaf parsley I used was also from the garden – it gave me great pleasure to eat food that was so unmistakably fresh – from the yard to my plate. Wow.
I grilled the fish in a little lemon and olive oil, nothing fancy. Snapper is really more of a stewing fish than a grilling one – it was more successful last time round swimming in vodka and tomato sauce. The fishes with more distinctive flavor do better on the grill, anything with less character needs an intense marinade or a different method entirely.
September tends to be one of Seattle’s finest months, bright and clear and so far, it hasn’t disappointed. The school buses passed our house this morning for the first time since spring…we can no longer deny that summer is just about gone. The best season for getting fresh northwest seafood is coming to an end too. We’ll go watch the salmon make their way upstream in another week or so, just to say goodbye, so long, and thanks for all the fish.
Eat your fish, it makes you understand nerdy literary references.