A major aspect of the garden living lifestyle is the understanding of each season’s produce. In a culture where summertime fruits are available in winter, I feel that a true garden lifestyle is marked by the gardener’s knowledge of “in season” produce for the freshest garden experience possible. Having an understanding and knowledge of your garden and the land’s timely bounty is a must for garden living, for the rewards of this understanding are delicious. For this Farmer, knowing when peaches, blackberries, and other seasonal delights are at their finest is a memorable stopping point on the garden living journey.
As a Georgia boy, I have grown up under the shade of pecan groves and amidst the rows of peach fields. In fact, the Peach County line is only a stone’s throw from my home. Growing up on a farm lent the opportunity for an education with nature as professor, learning in relation to the seasonal and native crops perennially noting the time of year.
Each season is marked by its produce in my mind, a marking that has imprinted itself into a garden living mindset and thus lifestyle. I know we’ll have blackberries in late spring and summer, followed by peaches, watermelons and wild plums, muscadines and scuppernongs in late summer and into fall and finally pecans in the year’s latter months. From the brambles and briars yielding scores of deep purple blackberries to the fields laden with peaches, I have come to rely and respect nature’s bounty for its simplicity, its flavor, and beauty.
A rawist is a person who consumes primarily raw food, (or all raw food in some cases).
Even before cucumbers are in season, one of the first things I think of making with them is gazpacho. So when they do come in season—and right now my garden is producing some of the best cucumbers—it's only natural that I make one of my favorite cold raw soups. Gazpacho is very popular this summer and it seems to be on many restaurant menus in New York. So why not make your own?
I like food in miniature. I like dim sum, mezze, tapas and appetizers of all sorts. Working on the latest recipe development project has been an exploration of many things in miniature. One recipe that sadly will not work for my client was a terrific success when it came to ease and taste. It does not work particularly well for vacuum sealing but that's ok. It means I can share it with you here and now.