I cherish recipes that are handwritten on little cards and stored in a tin box, and I’m weak for cookbooks with pages that are often turned. I yearn for practices which connect me to the past, while giving my thanks for the present. I’ve come to live for the rhythms of the seasons, celebrating each harvest in it’s time and waiting with eager anticipation for the next.

I have but a small recipe collection, and I own even fewer cookbooks, but each and every one are dusted with flour, tiny grains of oat are pressed between the pages, and the occasional drops of sticky honey hold the sweetest memories. The papers are crinkled by small hands stuffing cards inside even smaller apron pockets, and smudged by messy fingers reaching to read the next step. We are making a collection of artifacts, ushering the holder into our own world of memory by way of flavor, aroma, fruitage, and the celebration of seasons.

This summer, we’ve added three new recipes to our box which are set to the rhythm of our slow, garden-side ways. These recipes mark the calendar of long, sun baring days, fields of strawberries, carrot greens stretching sunward, sugar snap peas cascading from the vine, and the first of the zucchini hidden under the umbrella of colossal green leaves.

I find so much happiness in it all, that I felt perhaps, this happiness might want to be shared. And I’m just positive, that so long as you are willing, you will not only come away with food which nourishes the body, but experiences which nourish the soul.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE
My friend Marlys first shared this recipe last summer at the peak of zucchini season. She had perfected a dairy free/no refined sugar cake, and I took the extra step to convert it to gluten free in order to meet all of our dietary need. It seems this cake has made such an impression, I worry that my family forgets there are in fact other ways to enjoy a zucchini.

In April, we used the final remains of last years frozen supply to bake a cake in celebration of planting the first Zucchini in our garden. In June, my sweet Lucy requested “chocolate zuzzini cake” as her cake of choice for their third birthday, and I can already imagine a lifetime of birthdays to follow with the same tradition.

For months we’ve been watching our garden grow, always checking on the plants. The zucchini was of the first squash to flower, and we’ve been watching her with a close eye, waiting with as much patience as we can muster. Finally there was a little baby squash. As it grew, we came back daily and checked in on the progress. “Oooh look mama. Is it big enough to pick today?” Each day I’d suggest we wait just a bit longer. And so we waited, steadfast until June 29th. “Mama, you need to take a picture with my baby. Look at her, she’s so big and beautiful.” “Can we make Chocolate Zuzzini Cake tonight?!” “ Let’s check the others…look mama, they are still tiny babies, they’re so little and cute.”

This connection to our garden and our traditions means more to me than I have words to tell. And further still, I’ve come to know a new thankfulness for all the years of waiting and dreaming over this garden. It is in this perfect timing that I could I know to love it as I do. If it had been but a moment sooner, I may have let the magic of a first garden fall prey to a need for perfection. But in the ever present company of two little garden fairies who wander the rows freely, touching each leaf, naming each vegetable or flower with a most sincere excitement, the kind that only comes from a child—my heart worries not for what is missing, but knows only to be astonished by each moment.

This weekend, we will make our Chocolate Zucchini Cake, celebrating the first from our garden harvest. We will tie on our matching aprons, and open the tin box. Chairs will be slid to their place, counter side, and two little girls will ask forthwith, if they can “sneak a couple chocolate chips”, bakers rights, we call it. We will count the measurements, always pouring from the quarter cup, lengthening the process just a little, so each girl may have more opportunity to help. A few more chocolate chips will fall into a measuring cup as finishing reward. I will dust the flour from the counter, and they will run to grab the tiny broom and dustpan, which they take such pride in doing. We will set a garden side table and we will light the little beeswax candles, as we’ve fallen into the habit that every cake must hold a candle, and certainly I am not one to argue with whimsy. For I truly hope never to undervalue the wonder and joy of our efforts, our patience, and our hope; such are the marvels of a hundred thousand wishes come true.

STRAWBERRY HONEY JAM
Sun hats and baskets in tow, we arrived at the Picha Farms for our annual tradition of strawberry picking, year three. In years past, we’ve left the fields with unbearably cute brown and red smeared faces, strawberry stained hands, and the bottom of our tiny basket toting the dusty tale of a charmed memory. There were hardly any strawberries to bring home, but we never minded.

Time however, does grow little girls, even if it is all together too fast. And so this year they danced their way out amongst the berries, so very big in ambition and heart, fervently ready to be mama’s helpers. The morning began with a “kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk, just like Sal” they’d say, as they dropped three little berries in their baskets, which would disappear in no time. Then, smiling with a spark of innocent mischief, they’d take a couple of mine and giggle. And I’d remark back, just as they’d expect me to do, “now girls, run along and pick your own berries. Mama wants to can these so we can have jam for the winter.” After bellies were fully satisfied, their little hands earnestly picked away. Each berry found was followed with enthusiastic remark, “Ohhh mama! look at THIS perfect berry!” “I found a treasure, five of them (holds up five fingers), LOOK!”. I sang my highest praises, so rightfully deserved. Before the 11 o clock hour, our baskets and box were overflowing, 30 pounds of big, beautiful, perfect berries. I kissed their berry stained lips as I tucked them safely into their car seats. Still such little bodies, which hold the very biggest of hearts. I praised them evermore for such a wonderful day, how proud we all were, and how excited they were to show their daddy what they had picked.

We separated a bowl of berries and set right to work making our first jars of freezer jam. With just as much pride as they had in their fields, both Jane and Lucy helped with every step of the process, they washed, hulled, placed the cut berries in the pot, they took turns stirring the entire time. They poured the honey and licked the spoon, snuck a couple of fresh strawberries on the side, helped transfer the cooled jam into the jars, and licked the pot clean. When we were all finished, we set up our farmers market and “sold” strawberries and jam, and a few vegetables from our evening harvest in our own garden. The girls bought up the jam by the basketful and then they’d put it back so they could buy and sell again. Each time running to show daddy what they bought at the farmers market.

And so it is, each jar of jam that awaits will not only provide for us the berry red flavor of June, but it will set our hearts ablaze with the sweetest memories of sunshine and strawberry fields, bubbling berries on the cookstove and the achingly beautiful memories of days past coupled with the utmost anticipation for another June to come.

WASTE FREE HUMMUS
While hummus may be enjoyed all year around, it may never be savored so much as when met the sweet crunch of sugar snap peas right off the vine, and carrots picked straight from the garden. I’m already thinking I’ll need to double, or even quadruple our carrot and pea crop for next year. We found our perfect hummus recipe inside the book Simply Living Well, (a book I open daily). The process is slow, though not intensive, and it’s such a treat to share that we altogether enjoy the experience. My girls are even thrilled to help peel the chickpeas after they’ve cooked and cooled, taking some of the labor off my hands and drawing us closer in the moments which matter.

Hummus and our garden vegetables have become symbiotic, when the girls know we are making hummus, they assume our garden is ripe with crunchy vegetables, or when they see the carrot greens are growing tall, they immediately ask if we can make more hummus. Such has become our savory treat of summer.

My closing remarks:

It is a tremendous joy to invite you to the very thrilling and humble beginnings of our garden journey, pouring our hearts and days into a work which nurtures and nourishes—an act of togetherness, mother and daughters with the exceedingly generous help of our dearest Mr. Hackett who unfailingly provides for our needs. My ambition can want to get the better of me, even with the best of intentions—to provide more food and more beauty for the ones I love. But many things have been let wait on account of giving the best we can with what we have—to each other first, and the garden second. And so it is, at the end of each day I am so very pleased that there was always enough. What we did not have, we did not know we missed. What we hope for, we will put forth the effort when we are able. One day at a time. And for each day we share in it all, I am perfectly astonished by the richness we have come to know.

If this may be an encouragement or to any one of who stumbles upon these words and images, I would be so happy for it. And if there is but an inkling of a curiosity for more, questions that beg to be answered, I’d be delighted to receive your inquiry. I do so love to share my joys, and it would mean the world to know how it serves your heart in these days. Please don’t be shy, let us connect and grow together.

A Slow Summer in the Garden and A Few Favorite Recipes