Youth - Revisited

My dad always had a large garden until he could no longer take proper care of his vegetables. He would always, in his younger years, have at least 125 tomato plants, 100 pepper plants, hills of cucumber, assorted squash, eggplant, string beans, several varieties of lettuce, and the most wonderful rare ripe onions. My mom would can tomatoes, string beans and would can the best pickled peppers that I have ever had in my life.

Many times during the summer when the tomatoes were ripe enough, mom would send me to get a couple of decent sized tomatoes and a bunch of rare ripe onions from the garden. She would slice the tomatoes, cover with cut up onion and add olive oil and salt. A good piece of Italian bread for sopping up the juice. Loved it! There is nothing like a fresh picked tomato.

This morning Carol and I went to the Farmers Market located at the St. Andrews Marina. First this is a beautiful location with the docked sailboats, fishing boats, and some power yachts. One of the fishing boats was selling fresh shrimp and blue crabs. We went to get farm fresh eggs, having enjoyed my daughter's chickens output while in Rhode Island, we wanted more fresh eggs. We also bought fresh picked asparagus, string beans, tomatoes, my rare ripe onions, and a small basket of peaches. Pictured below is the lunch I had earlier today. I needed to meticulously remove all the seeds as I can not consume the seeds due to a medical condition. The only missing piece was the Italian bread. The bread here just does not do it for me. I enjoyed my lunch and the fond memories of mom and I having our summer lunch together years ago.

Carol made the place mats. She loves butterflies and if you look closely, you can see them.