Summer Sundays

Sunday has, for the most part, been a day of rest and renewal for me. I was a child during the years when shops were closed on Sundays. We went to church on Sundays. We had a big early dinner and for the most part took it easy. It's a pleasant habit that stuck with me and carried over into my family life.

Lately, we've been falling into a new habit on Sundays. The family meeting. We share our rose and thorns from last week, and look to the week ahead, to have a sense of who is doing what and when, and organize our meal plans accordingly.

This time of year is such a great time for fresh locally grown food. Our backyard garden and the farmer's market are bursting with summer goodness: ripe tomatoes, fresh herbs, summer squash, corn, green beans, yellow wax beans, a purple string bean, scallions, lettuces, onions, sweet peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, even the first of the sugar pumpkins. The smells and tastes are exquisite. It's as if the senses have become wide open and everything is better, the color, the textures, the smells and the taste. During the cold, dark days of winter, it's easy to fall into the lull of eating food that has traveled or somehow miraculously been stored to make it through the winter and then forget how good fresh locally grown food can taste.

I want to savor it. It's a bit like those moments with children when you are certain you will never forget the exact moment, or words. And then you do. I do too. We all do.

So, with that in mind, this week we'll be eating lots of tomatoes, basil, corn, string beans, cucumbers, peppers and fresh herbs. They are so good fresh, I just can't commit to cooking them. Not today.

What fresh and local or homegrown foods are you savoring this week?