Summertime: Books and Veggies

Summertime.  Locusts, fireflies, corn fields.  It has a certain magic.  A season with clear edges, challenging you to take advantage of every last moment.  We'll miss the sunshine, and the warmth, the birdsong, and the foliage, but they're here now for the taking.  

And for me, summer also means choosing a theme.  I'm not sure how it started, but for a long time, I've chosen an overarching theme for my summer reading- once, it was happiness, once the grand classics of Russian literature (yes- that was a reallllllly depressing summer!), and this year it's Japan.  I've never gone into it with a theme already picked out, but once summer hits, I start "chain-reading", starting with one book, then reading another that was somehow mentioned or alluded to in the first or stumbled upon in the same section.  It's taken me on some pretty fun and rambling trips.  And then, when summer is drawing to a close, I can look back and see what my theme turned out to be.  Anyone else do this?



Everything began in the spring when I read The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, which is a memoir by a lady in waiting in the 10th century imperial court of Japan.  I stumbled on this while we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and browsing in their bookstore.  It introduced me to parts of history and literature/poetry that I hadn't ever come across before, and I was hooked.  In continuing to learn about different parts of Japanese history and literature, here's where the summer's taken me (cover pictures from Amazon.com): 

Dreaming Spies (My very favorite series of all time!) & Narrow Road to the Interior (Beautifully atmospheric true story with haikus)

The Housekeeper and the Professor (Possibly the loveliest story I have read in a long time, and I'm only halfway through) & The Guest Cat (Just started!)

On another note, I'm trying to take more advantage of our local farmers market this summer.  The heat has been disgusting, which isn't surprising since New Jersey is the US state suffering the most from global warming (2 degrees overall), and the humidity has really outdone itself this year.  In fact, a local weather reporter has coined the phrase "air you can wear"!  That being said, venturing out to the farmers market has given me a reason to leave the house instead of hunkering inside in the air conditioning all day.  Isn't summer supposed to be spent outside?! 

But let me tell you, the tomatoes are worth all the sweat and frizzy hair!  They have been beyond delicious!  We've eaten quite a bit of caprese salad so far, and I've been making tomato-basil jam to put on our cheese toasties. Yumm!  

There's also sweet corn arriving now at the market, but I just can't bring myself to buy any.  Isn't that weird?  You'd think a girl born and raised in the buckle on the Corn Belt would be clamoring for sweet corn, but I ate my fill of it long, long ago, and just can't stand it any more.  Shhhhhhh!  Don't tell anyone!  They'd revoke my honorary "Illinois-ness"!  

What have you been reading and cooking this summer?  I'd love to know!

Lots of love,
~Mersy