Summer

Slightly rustic and simply elegant, this easy dessert is a mainstay in this Farmer’s kitchen! The complement of basic ingredients with pretty fruit is what makes this dish so elegant. Peaches in the summer, apples in the fall, pecans in winter, and strawberries in spring, the dough for this tart is quite versatile.

Just shy of true pie crust dough, this tart dough is a perfect blend of the slightly sweet with just enough puff and flake. Sweet and tart peaches are the piece de resistance for this lovely dessert, and a glaze of peach preserves adds a beautiful sheen to the tart and makes the perfect dollop for serving.

Fresh from the farm peaches are wonderful just about any way you slice them. For this dessert, I leave the skin on, which helps hold the shape of the peach wedges. Arranging from a center floret of peach slices and concentrically ringing the dough with the fruit is quite beautiful if you roll the dough into a circle. If you roll your dough into a more rectangular shape, lines of peach slices make for a great presentation as well.

I'm a little bit disappointed.  You see, I have always been told when you live in the country, during the summer season, you must lock your car doors.  Not because someone will steal your car but because they will fill it up with bountiful amounts of zucchini they have grown in their garden.

What?

Well, I've purposely left my car doors open for days and days now and NO ZUCCHINI!  Nothing.  Nada.  Where is it people?

I'm not sure what the problem is, I would treat the zucchini so well.  I would pan-fry it, make zucchini fries, make some desserts...some breads.  I would even share my treats.

So what's the problem...where's my zucchini?!

Well, it could be, a) I don't live far enough out in the country or b) folks on the golf course don't grow zucchini in their backyards.  I'm thinking it's b.  Bummer.

The trouble with going to the farmers’ market is that everything looks so gorgeous I buy enough to feed everyone in my zip code. Then I go home and realize that I actually have to do something with all this bounty, as in, cook it, at which point I have been known to utter a mild curse.

Last weekend I visited the relatively new market at the Beverly Glen Circle. The produce and friendly purveyors were so seductive, I found myself leaving with armloads of bell peppers, eggplant, red onions and masses of heirloom tomatoes, herbs, stuffed flatbread, artichoke spread and even some truffle-scented sea salt, although I’m clueless as to its practical use. If you’d seen me schlepping all those bags to the car, you’d have mistaken me for someone who actually likes spending most of the day in the kitchen.

Isn’t it great to be blessed with friends who entertain beautifully, who attend to every detail, artistically, with care and flare? Friends who take pleasure in delighting with beauty and richness?

I am one lucky ducky in this department for sure. Most of my friends enjoy setting a pretty table and “doing the flowers” as I call decorating when having guests over for a meal. A couple of my peeps, though, are off the charts in this department which causes me to spend most of my time wandering around their house saying “wow I love that,” like I haven’t read a newspaper in weeks and have nothing else to say for myself, or like a gal from East Podunk, straight off the farm, who’s never seen a formal place setting before let alone matching salt and pepper shakers. Or someone in awe of people who create beauty and inspire me by the things they think of and do. Please say the latter.

One would expect our friends Heidi and Guy to have a great house. She’s been selling prime LA real estate for 25 years, and he is the proprietor of Ligne Roset Los Angeles, the go-to store for architectural furniture. Ten years ago Heidi and Guy combined tastes, talents and 3 young teens and moved into a sprawling and spacious Spanish, Mission- style house in a canyon with a never ending view of LA’s immense valley. Guy is almost apologetic in sharing in his off the cuff, just between us, way that the style of the house, the architecture, is not really him so much, (like any of us who know him and his exquisite design sense need to be told), but the interior and over all vibe of the house is so him and Heidi in all of their beauty, creativity and warmth; the art, furniture and fabrics, the two gorgeous greyhounds, the family photos taking up a whole wall in the kitchen juxtaposed with the Chanel Houndstooth fabric on the family room couch.