The Lingering Flavours of Summer

“Summer is so over!” I said to the students on the first day of class.

They didn’t agree.

The air still feels dusky, of a late afternoon. You can still get gelato on College Street and wander slowly along the avenue, thoughtfully consuming your luscious cone. The patio outside the Diplomatico still overflows all afternoon and evening, with its ongoing conundrum: mediocre food, packed restaurant. Nobody said summer had to end just because of school.

In the last week I did the following summery things:

Lolled about at a funky Jewish camp full of ramshackle 1940’s cottages tilting this way and that. I was visiting The Queer Organizer. I brought my delightful gazpacho, cunningly garnished with croutons. I revelled in the late summer gaudiness of yellow and purple, and the comings-and-goings of an all-day party lubricated with retro wine spritzers.

Ate a nectarine while lying on my back on a beach – a messy, yet delicious thing to do.

Devoured moules et frites on a hot, hot night on an outdoor patio at Jules with The Librarian. The city was sizzling, with heat, tension, excitement. The food was satisfying, unexceptional (can someone please tell me where I can find decent moules et frites in this city?), but it fortified us for the art opening that lay ahead of us, a show on art and food, at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Drank Veuve Cliquot in the backyard of The Playwright, whilst munching on the most exquisite honey balls (aka loukoumades) from Athens Bakery on the occasion of The Playwright’s fiftieth birthday. Our small group sipped champagne and watched as tiny fluffy clouds appeared overhead in what had previously been a flawless blue sky. Someone dubbed them “Simpson’s clouds.” And that was the perfect phrase.

Picked my very own tomatoes from my very own backyard tomato vine.

Made tomato-nectarine salsa.