There's Humor in Triaging that Vegetable Garden

Or, When Your Zucchini Resembles Your Humerus

At the inception of every summer, I employ selective memory by discarding the experience of the previous season. I have many ways of entertaining myself, one of which is to move with starry eyes into freezing, processing and canning that which is courting me.

Friends whose in-town availability is dictated by business and personal lives in other cities invited us to dinner and an overnight stay in their most recent, small available window. Describing the flat-out luxury of having friends cook for us is an almost meditative experience. We remember how it feels to breathe deeply. To be conversant. And to smile.

Dinner, including dessert, was a garden meal with the exception of a lovely roast pork tenderloin. Our only contributions to the meal were a savory Marionberry sauce to accompany the pork and a great bottle of Pinot noir we had just been introduced to on a visit to Furioso Vineyards in the Willamette Valley.

Vegetables and berries from the garden. We were in heaven.