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I have a confession to make. I really like Gasoline Station Tv set. You’ve all viewed them, the small display screen in the center of the gas pump at the filling station. I like remaining a captive audience, mindlessly viewing Cheddar Information or Much better Jointly with Maria Menounos since, very well, it’s there and it is not like I have a whole lot of other leisure selections.
The other day, I was filling my motor vehicle and seeing, you guessed it, Gas Station Tv. An advertisement came on for Lipton Peach Iced Tea. It attributes vehicle-tune fanatic T-Agony singing “Don’t Steal My Sunshine” and quenching his thirst with an iced tea over the tagline, “Open summertime … with Lipton Peach Iced Tea. Judging from my unexpected urge to drink a thing fruity, sweet and scrumptious, it’s an efficient use of 15 seconds.
The tagline also got me pondering about how we address summer time in normal and refreshing summertime foods exclusively. “Open summer” indicates that all you want to do is open up a bottle of Peach Iced Tea and you are promptly transported to an idyllic summer time, regardless of your true problem. A summer time entire of evening softball video games and front porch swings and early early morning seashore time with your preferred golden retriever. That emotion can be yours any time of yr, any spot in the entire world, even toiling away beneath the earth’s crust at your career in the salt mine
My original reaction to the tagline was a very little different. “Open summer” struck me as if it were being the opening of a store, or playground, or library. “Summer’s open, why do not you come on in and get pleasure from oneself. Poke close to, consider things out, see almost everything summertime has to provide.” The difference is subtle but meaningful.
In the initial instance, summer months is a thing supplied to you by the beverage in the bottle. You won’t seriously have summer months until you open this bottle. You can have summertime wherever at any time, but only as a lot as the bottle offers you.
In the 2nd scenario, summer season is infinite, you can have as a lot summer season as you can manage. Go in advance and swim in Lake Michigan at midnight and count the fireflies as you stroll again to your campsite. Operate by way of the sprinkler in your bathing accommodate and jelly sandals. At your age, what have you received to drop? Do what you like, it is your summer months. But it only lasts so lengthy, so delight in it while you can. When the leaves begin turning purple and the days come to feel the pinch of early sunsets and that warm summer season breeze commences to bite just a small, it’s about. There’s absolutely nothing to seem ahead to but apple orchards and cider and contemporary, scorching doughnuts, and pumpkin patches and spiced lattes and hayrides …
I guess what I’m making an attempt to say is, get pleasure from every thing in its time. Never would like it absent. I’m not against canning and freezing and pickling and preserving, I’m just not going to pass up out on eating one thing delightful just for the reason that I want to save it to freeze so that it sits in the base of my freezer and ultimately will get thrown out simply because it’s unrecognizable with all the frost that it has accrued.
If I see a wonderful, plump peach staring at me, its cheeks dark pink from the humiliation of its individual sweetness, I’m going to try to eat it. If not that, I’ll at minimum flip it into a good thyme butter sauce and slather it over BBQ ribs or drizzle on to vanilla ice cream. Possibly I’ll make a nice, fresh new, undressed corn salad with peppers and tomatoes from the yard and the flavor of bacon shining via. Provide that on the aspect alongside with some grilled ciabatta bread and you have received a food.
Okay, now that I have obtained dinner sorted, in which did I go away my jelly sandals?
Peach Thyme Sauce
4 to 5 medium peaches, pitted and chopped
2 T. water
.5 t. fresh new thyme leaves
3 T. butter
Sugar to flavor
Combine peaches and drinking water in a medium saucepan and convey to a boil. Increase the thyme leaves and cut down to a simmer.
Simmer uncovered, stirring routinely till peaches have softened, 10-12 minutes. Include butter and simmer for another 5 minutes. Adjust sweetness with a very little sugar if so preferred.
This is the base sauce. It is mouth watering as it is. If you would like to experiment, check out a single of these versions:
- For a dessert sauce, add a small extra sugar and some vanilla extract.
- To go with hen, check out introducing a minor tarragon, white wine vinegar, and freshly ground black pepper.
- To go with salmon, incorporate a small Dijon mustard and fresh dill.
- For BBQ ribs, incorporate a minor chili powder and BBQ sauce.
Corn Salad
4 ears corn, shucked and cleaned
4 strips bacon, crispy
2 Roma tomatoes, medium dice
1 fifty percent eco-friendly bell pepper, medium dice
salt and pepper to taste
Boil the corn until eventually tender, 5-7 minutes. Though the corn is boiling, chop the bacon into compact parts. When the corn is interesting enough to manage but however pretty warm, clear away it from the cob utilizing a sharp knife. Set the kernels into a huge bowl.
Include the bacon, tomatoes, and green pepper. Stir flippantly. Flavor the salad and regulate seasoning with salt and pepper. Toss to merge. Provide at room temperature.
This salad is tasty with seafood. Check out introducing some chopped shrimp, lump crab, or surimi to elevate your easy salad.
