Summer

Homemade tomato soup is good, but roasted tomato soup is even better. With the abundance of tomatoes right now in the markets, this makes great use of all those tomatoes and may be the best tomato soup you will ever have.

This method calls for roasting the tomatoes, along with some whole garlic, before making the soup. Roasting the tomatoes concentrates their flavor and adds a depth to the soup that you would not have otherwise.

I used beautiful San Marzano tomatoes for this soup because a vendor at my farmer's market had them. Use whatever nice, ripe tomatoes you have. Any Roma or plum tomato is a good choice.

The parmesan crisps, sometimes called fricos, are a favorite in our household and we use them to accompany salads sometimes (or a glass of Prosecco). These lacy wafers make the absolute perfect flavor compliment to this soup. They are surprisingly easy to make – they only have one ingredient – and fast, too.

Our local market recently had raspberries on sale -- 77 cents per half pint. I bought 8.

Since tangy fresh raspberries are highly irresistible (and perishable), Jeff and I have eaten a lot of berries over the last few days in cantaloupe boats, smoothies, berry parfaits, salads, scones, and today's raspberry sour cream cake.

This may just be the perfect summertime cake. It's delightfully quick and easy to make, and it's versatile. I know. I loved the raspberry sour cream cake so much that I made a blueberry buttermilk one too. Most of all, it's delicious.

Underneath the crunchy sugar-dusted top is a pillowy soft interior punctuated by bursts of juicy, tart raspberries. This cake needs no adornment, but a dollop of creme fraiche doesn't hurt.

I have books stashed everywhere. The car. The kitchen. The upstairs and downstairs bathrooms and the living room just in case I’m watching something on TV that isn’t recorded and I have to endure the commercials.

This summer I read the following books:

"My Lobotomy" by Howard Dully:  Somewhat tedious, at least what I can remember of it.

"Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell: Utterly fascinating as the two previous Gladwell books have been. He describes how timing, culture and class are major contributors to success. How one can have natural talent, even genius, but it often takes circumstances the reader might never have considered to optimize these qualities. I knew if I’d just been born in the 1960s, I might have had a better shot at organizing my garage!

Last weekend we found ourselves sipping on these. It's not like the weather was nice enough in any way, that it would have warranted having such a cool and refreshing cocktail. But the watermelon has been so sweet and I bought so many of those baby seedless ones at the store, I had to do something with them!

I've also always associated the daiquiri as being a frozen drink. However, after a little research, it's really the name for a family of cocktails whose main ingredients include rum, lime and sugar. Maybe I'm just feeling like I'm still on vacation in Florida, close to where the daiquiri became well known.

Story has it the daiquiri was invented by an American mining engineer who was in Cuba during the Spanish-American war. There is an iron mine in Cuba named daiquiri as well as a beach....hmmm, sounds like we have a connection. Miner...working in an iron mine...needs a drink after work...has only these ingredients in the pantry...proclaims it the daiquiri...shares it with all his friends...gains worldwide popularity? Are you feeling the connection?

Anyway, enjoy this drink, it was no nice to sip on!! This could also be made without the alcohol if you choose, making it a great option for any guests who might not be drinking. It would still taste great.