Last of ...

A gardening friend in the States made me green with envy--gazpacho every day, tomato and bacon sandwiches (the lettuce he says just intrudes on those two flavours).

Geography is destiny. So I set about harvesting the last of my basil. Even kept indoors and watered and tended lovingly and pinched back, it knew the season was over. I kept saying, 'Tomorrow I'll make pesto...' So instead today I harvested the best of the leaves and tucked them into olive oil in a jar in the fridge. I'll recapture a bit of summer later, hopefully, with those leaves.

I cooked the beans from someone else's harvest.  My one bean may yet produce something but I am grudgingly accepting that this is the end of the season --and more importantly, that here at 59degrees north, we do not have a second season or a long Indian summer.

And so thinking North, I pulled out my carefully controlled Juniper syrup from Estonia. I can't say I prefer it to Maple syrup, but it is as good and of  course conjures all the warm memories of my time there.

Not exactly gazpacho--but French toast (or eggy bread) with Juniper syrup suits a northern palate.

I have a few more tomatoes on the vine. With a bit of imagination and good luck, I can still have the best of both worlds.