stuffed nasturtium flowers

stuffed nasturtium flowers

My best friend and I had been shopping; a wedding dress for her and a bridesmaid's dress for me. My friend was slim, blonde, blue-eyed and very pretty. She wanted a purple-blue theme for the wedding. It was her day so I went along with her choices. But a little part of me died that day.

sweet and sour marinated roasted courgettes with goats’ cheese, basil and toasted pine nuts

sweet and sour marinated roasted courgettes with
goats’ cheese, basil and toasted pine nuts

I am always looking for new ways of cooking up an abundance of courgettes and this summer I have loved this salad of sweet and sour marinated roast courgettes, goats' cheese and toasted pine nuts.

It has worked beautifully with roast chicken, and rather good with grilled fish too (although I would omit the cheese).

Definitely the perfect way to celebrate that end-of-summer glut.

what's in season: september

Brighton (September 2012)

End of Summer

An agitation of the air,

A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.
I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.
Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.
Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.

Stanley Kunitz 1905 - 2006(from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz. © 1953)