You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me.

darkersolstice:

ladypandacat:
abwatt:
thegreenwolf:
falsedetective:
falsedetective:
my grandparents have to lock their car doors when they go to sunday mass because people have been breaking in to unlocked cars and leaving entire piles of zucchini
i feel like i should’ve added more context when i posted this. my grandparents live in a rural area where farmers and casual gardeners alike are, at this point in the year, suddenly being hit with unexpectedly abundant zucchini crops. there aren’t just some random vandals leaving zucchinis in people’s cars for the hell of it, this is the work of some very exasperated, probably very elderly, folks who have more zucchini than they know what to do with
Yep. You can also expect to find a bag of zucchini on your porch.
My grandfather once found his neighbor stealing his tomatoes out of his garden at three in the morning. Red-handed, with a basket of the nearly-ripened ones. He thought he was going to find gophers or something, but no, here’s Henry, taking his tomatoes. The best ones.
There was a long pause between them.
My grandfather (allegedly) said, “Henry… it’s OK. You can take some tomatoes if you want them.”
Henry sighed in relief.
“But,” my grandfather said, “you have to take two zucchini for every tomato.”
There was another long silence. “That’s a harsh bargain, John,” said Henry. “But I accept. I’ll tell Joe up the street, too.”
My grandfather said, “Tell Joe he needs to take three.”
a friend of my dad’s came by in the middle of the night, he seemed very nervous when my dad answered the door. he wouldn’t come inside but he leaned in and whispered to my dad in spanish, “i have some fresh grapes for you.” and then this happened:
the melon was a special bonus.
@we-are-rogue

I was raised in a retirement community plopped down in the midst of orchards, fields - what have you - all of it populated by folks who grew up during the Great Depression, and then fought in WWII.

Summer meant putting up strawberry or plum or apricot jam. Raw pack canning plums and apricots. Gleaning the potato fields after the combines took their pass at them (that was fun - potato chip potatoes and it was like digging for buried treasure. Zucchini - yup, that and the crookneck yellow and patty-pan summer squashes. Tomatoes, dear ghad the tomatoes.

Lettuce, plant with caution. That stuff comes on ALL AT ONCE.

I love beets. I know how to can and pickle them as well as how to turn them into borsch.

And if someone had a Thing - you found a way to use it. Those grapes? Part of them frozen on cookie sheets, then ziplock bagged - BOMB in the summer. They would make part of a good conserve with apple, walnuts - maybe a raspberry or blueberry addition.

I have a recipe for cantaloupe melon jam. Reasons.

Fall is apples. And walnuts. Pomegranates (and they make gorgeous jam, we gave it as gifts at Christmas). If you are crafty, you shredded some of those summer zucchini, ziplocked some of it in the freezer. It still makes GREAT zucchini bread, all year round.

Ratatouille, my friends. Mom used to add cubes of Velveeta cheese to it when it got boring. (Scary, but good.)

(via threshie)

fun with your food put it up put it away depression era summer