Seems that Mondays are when I do the running around. Making a lot of stops with my two gals in tow is tiring under the best of circumstances. Doing so in 90 degree summer humid heat is really tiring. And doing so after a long (very fun!) weekend at the beach is really, really, tiring.

No wonder I am sitting here feeling utterly wiped out. We picked up our CSA delivery today, and oh my! What lovely freshness! What beautiful produce. At long last, the tree fruits are hitting their stride. We received five pounds of peaches and two pounds of little sweet plums this week. Tomatoes are in, and we have two beautiful pints of assorted cherry / grape tomatoes along with four generous slicing tomatoes.

The squash are here and threating to take over the fridge. Good thing I managed to make Carla into a squash lover, simply by not calling the stuff “squash”. She refers to them by fancier names. For example, she’s OK with eating courgettes but definately not zucchini. She loves Crookneck but not so much plain yellow squash. She’ll eat Straightneck, too. She was very hesitant to eat PattyPans but came around once she realized they taste just like crookneck.

Marketing. I tell you, it’s all in the marketing!

So my fridge is stuffed to the brink with all these great veggies (lots of lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, green beans, new potatoes) and so I need to plan for some good cooking. My own garden looks like it’s coming along at last, too, with some cukes, lots of basil, some purple green beans, and tomatoes are getting started.

Unfortunately, it’s so hot down in the kitchen that it really puts a damper on my excitement about cooking. I mean, who wants to be in the kitchen when it’s 90 degrees out? We have no air conditioning in the kitchen, you see. As a matter of fact, our kitchen is my least favorite part of our home. I fantasize about fixing it up someday, but it’s a big, big project. It needs a total overhaul. Walls need to be taken down. Floor needs to be replaced. Ceiling, lighting, cabinets, everything should be replaced.

We just don’t have the dough right now to hire a contractor for something huge like that; and we’re not handy ourselves.

So for now, I just make do with what we’ve got. And what I’ve got a is a lot of squash. Er, courgettes and crookneck, I mean. Yum.