Summer reading and eating

Crossing my fingers, toes and eyes. I am soooooo enjoying this Summer. The temperatures have been on the coolish side with little humidity, no horrible heatwave yet...yet. I'm sure it will come but in the meantime we'll wallow in perfection. The threat of Arthur didn't materialize much so the Fourth of July celebrations weren't ruined and it falling on a Friday has made for a glorious three day weekend. I am also cautiously ecstatic because I seem to have emerged from my long reading rut and hoping to start tackling the ever increasing piles and getting through entire book. The one that brought me back was "Gone Girl"; not a particularly good book filled with extremely unlikable characters but I rushed through it because the genius of it is that you need to find out what happens. At least I had to. So now I can graduate to better fare. I started the new Andrea Barrett short story collection "Archangel". I love anything she writes usually having to do with the earth, the sea, the land and nature. I've read the first one and since they are short stories I can enjoy them by reading one here and there while picking up other material in between. After that a collection of short stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky awaits, a bit heady for Summer so maybe it will be Fall before I get to it, there's plenty to choose from before then. A friend though suggested what I am finding to be an irresistible joy! "Mediterranean Summer" by David Shalleck. An autobiographical account of a chef cooking on a huge yacht which is cruising the Mediterranean one Summer. I am transported to the South of France,

and craving an Aioli platter

which consists of boiled potatoes and vegetables; I used green beans, artichoke hearts, carrots which I marinate in a little olive oil with some salt and pepper. Quartered tomatoes, same marinade. hard boiled eggs and poached cod served at room temperature with a heady garlic mayonnaise, Aioli,

made with 8 to 10 garlic cloves minced in a food processor with a pinch of salt, the juice of one lemon and 1 1/2 cups of olive oil drizzled in slowly in a steady stream with the machine going. This is one of my all time favorite dishes and perfect for beautiful Summer evenings.

And for dessert scrumptiously creamy vanilla bean ice cream.

I love cruising the Mediterranean!

Even if it's on dry land.