Feeding Frenzy

By Stacey

June 10, 2008 3:36 PM | Link to this

For me, watermelon means summer. I never eat watermelon before Memorial Day because (IMO) it has absolutely no taste. As much as I love tomatoes, I will not buy those rock-hard, pale pink things the grocery stores try to pass off. I used to buy my tomatoes from the little road side stands but so often they are not vine ripe either. I love the job I have now because it becomes a regular “farmers market” in the summer with people sharing their excess produce. YUM!!!

By Julie

June 11, 2008 8:38 AM | Link to this

Home grown tomatoes!!

By sharon

June 11, 2008 8:59 AM | Link to this

Fruit salads and lemonade

By Gena

June 11, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this

Summer is all about homemade ice cream. Nothing beats
a creamer full of fresh strawberry, fresh peach, or plain ole “niller” ice cream! Bring on the ice and rock salt… it’s definitely summertime now.

By Harold

June 11, 2008 10:23 AM | Link to this

Pomegranite that’s been chilled. However it’s a battle to eat it.

By micha

June 11, 2008 10:56 AM | Link to this

BLT’s and fries are my favorite summer foods. Quick and easy and everyone loves them.

By Road Scholar

June 11, 2008 11:08 AM | Link to this

Fresh tomato sandwichs…sliced vine ripe tomatoes, white bread and mayo w/salt and pepper (Keep it simple- bacon optional). Also fried tomatoes (red or green), fresh corn on the cob and peaches. The blueberries (Costco) have been excellent this year.

By FCM

June 11, 2008 11:14 AM | Link to this

As a rule I hate lemonade. Ice cream is a rare indulgence. However, when I start to crave them both on the back porch…summer is here. Also when I get this crazy desire to plant the garden. I hate yard work (hence deciding to not have a yard)…but growing up meant tons of trips to the Georgia Farmers Market (by the airport). My mother and Grandmother would can quart after quart of beans, peaches, tomatoes, pickles etc….Much of the food on our table in the summer came from our own garden…fresh salad most every night with a meat off the grill. The house was always so hot (A/C made Grandma sick)…Nights were spent on the porch with ice cream, bugs, and shelling peas, shucking corn, or snapping pole beans. Lemonade (not soda or Kool-Ade) was the afternoon treat.

Now I get my ice cream and produce from the store. I keep a canister of Country Time in the pantry (and may have one glass all summer….I really don’t like the stuff) and fresh brewed ice tea in the fridge. After dinner dishes I kick the kids to the back deck with ice cream cones. I join them as the bugs show up (thank God for Citronella) with a cold glass of tea. We don’t prep vegetables for the next days canning, but I do think we are stopping the hectic life we know to catch the fleeting moments of memory only summer can do in twilight on a porch.

By Amanda

June 11, 2008 1:00 PM | Link to this

Juicy Georgia peaches and watermelon are my favorite summer produce. And of course our homegrown tomatoes.

I know it’s summer when I crave a glass of cherry Kool-Aid that my mom always made for all the neighborhood kids during summer afternoons growing up. I always cave in and buy it a couple of times each summer now, and it always transports me back to carefree summer days filled with running though the sprinkler and catching lightning bugs.

By Stacey

June 11, 2008 2:03 PM | Link to this

FCM…Boy, did you bring back some (now) wonderful memories! We had a 1/2 acre garden that we ate out of day to day (my parents planted a garden in the early spring for summer harvest, then again in August (hearty veggies) for late fall harvest). Mama bought peas, stringbeans (she wanted bush, not pole beans), and butterbeans from a local farmer that she would can and/or freeze for the winter. Mr. Rogers would backup the driveway, open the tailgate and dump a whole truckload (I mean this literally) of purple-hull peas in the carport and we would sit under the shade tree & shell peas from sunup to sundown. No central air and the window unit in living room was only turned on for “important company”, so Mama waited until it cooled off at night (to the 80’s) before she would blanche them to be canned. Our poor little finger would be so be so sore and purple that we thought we were going to die. At least four days a week, all summer long, we were shelling, peeling or snapping something! I hated the work and I think I even hated Mama (LOL) but I look back on it now as some of the most wonderful days of my life.

As far as homemade ice cream is concerned, I didn’t even eat it but I think I had the worst job of all. We had one of the old crank type ice cream freezers with the wooden barrel. The rest of the kids would take a turn helping turn the crank for as long as they could. It was easy to turn as long as the custard was liquid but when it started to freeze, it became impossible to turn…that where I came in. While Daddy turned the crank, it was my job to sit on the little, narrow top to keep the freezer from tilting over. I had a sore behind and sore fingers! Once the ice cream was ready, we would end up getting a whipping for eating the super salty ice left in the barrel! Eventually someone (Mr. Rogers, perhaps) backed over the freezer and busted the wooden barrel. By then, the electric freezer were popular and they could no longer find the crank freezers. Mama swore the ice cream did not taste as good from the electric freezer. I suppose the elbow grease improved the flavor! :-)

By FCM

June 11, 2008 4:01 PM | Link to this

Stacey…I agree with you…I remember getting in spanked if we got in the salty ice. Daddy cranked it and we were not allowed out there while he did it…I suppose he swore and that was why we weren’t allowed out, because we were teens before we heard Dad utter swear words.

When we were old enough…we got out of being in the hot house/hot yard all day by being left at the pool. Yes we were 7-14 and at the pool by ourselves. We had to pass a swim test to stay and we were there for hours…all of the prime ones I don’t let my 2 out in! I have spots on my shoulders that do not tan from all that time in the sun—yes its skin damage.

I do remember thinking my fingers (or arms) would fall off and complaining. To which one of the adults would ask “You want to eat this winter?” I was smart enough to point out that Kroger was up the street. I do recall thinking “Not this stuff.”

I think the worst is when they decided to can sourkraut. Yes, its another thing I do not like. However Grandma believed the wives tale that touching the goods when you were ‘having your cycle’ would make the kraut go bad. I never wished for that time so much before in my life!

Just had chicken salad and iced tea. We’ll head to the pool soon. Come home and eat food that may not have all that prep work…then head out for a cone.

Y’all have a good day!