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My apologies to anyone who, like me, has spent many summers bent over a boiling pot and then a cold water bath, preparing tomatoes for canning or sauce-making or what have you.

This entry is for anyone who needs a little instruction on tomato processing.

Step 1: Boil a big pot of water. Drop in tomatoes, about 4 at a time, and blanch for about 60 seconds or until the skins split.

Step 2: Submerge tomatoes in a cold water bath. Core them and peel them over/under the water so you don't make a mess of the juices.

Step 3: This is where it gets really fun. Unless, like the big dork that I am, you find peeling tomatoes really relaxing. Turn those beauties into whatever you want -- keep them partially whole and can or freeze them for later use, or crush them up and cook them down into a homemade sauce with fresh basil and oregano, kosher salt, a little sugar, a dash of red wine, a squirt of olive oil or a chunk of butter -- whatever your little heart desires.

Last night, when I took these pictures, I made a batch of tomato sauce. I chose not to bother with straining out the seeds, but next time I may try to strain them out for a cleaner sauce. I have found that I like the flavor of butter in the sauce very much. But I am still working on perfecting the recipe.

Thanks to my good friend Randy for these lovely tomatoes. If I had to rely on my piddly plants, I'd have nada so far.

Officials reportedly find samonella in the irrigation water at a Mexican farm:

See CNN or The Washington Post

Now THAT is one pretty pie.

This photo was sent to me by reader Daniel, who picked a mess of wineberries on a recent camping trip and transformed them into this lovely custard pie. Daniel tells me he grew up baking and worked as a mess boy, and later a steward, on an oil tanker. Sounds like he knows a thing or two about baking a good pie.

Daniel says he grew up eating fruit custard pies with everything from peaches or apples to cherries or blueberries. He runs into folks all the time who have never had a custard pie, and I'm racking my brain to remember if I've had a custard pie before myself. With all the pies my grandmother used to make, I find it kind of hard to believe I have never had some form of a custard pie -- besides pumpkin, of course.

At any rate, Daniel shared his recipe for a custard pie, which looks too incredibly easy to pass up. A word on wineberries: They are a wild, raspberry-like berry that can be found in these parts during the summertime. My predecessor on the food beat, Beth Macy, did a column about wineberries once.

I don't have much experience with them. My wild berry-picking experience is limited to huckleberries, wild blackberries and tea berries, which are really only good for eating right then and there, in my opinion.

Below, you'll find Daniel's custard pie recipe. And if we're all very lucky, maybe Win will decide to share her recipe for rhubarb custard pie (hint, hint). Enjoy!

Update: I forgot to note that Daniel says if he makes a peach or apple custard pie, he sprinkles cinnamon over the top before baking.

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Check out this poignant online documentary on the MediaStorm Web site about two Illinois families -- one that farmed their land for generations before they had to sell it and another that moved into one of the suburban homes built on the old farm.

Photographer Scott Strazzante spent 14 years documenting the two families. The result was this seven minute doc called "Common Ground." Click the box in the middle of the site to watch.

One quote from the doc: "It’s the next step and the next generation. That farmland changes to suburban and you still see the same qualities of life even though it’s no longer a farmland."

Really? What do you think?

Meadow Creek Dairy in Grayson County, Virginia has taken home more enviable awards in the world of cheese making!

The dairy, which is headed up by husband and wife team Rick and Helen Feete and their children, claimed second place in the Best in Show category and first place in the Farmstead category at the American Cheese Society competition in Chicago last weekend. Both awards were for their Grayson (pictured), a rich, nutty white cheese that, like all the Meadow Creek cheeses, is made from milk produced by their own dairy herd.

According to the society's Web site, more than 1,100 cheeses were judged. The winners of all 22 categories went up for the Best in Show award.

Here's what the Feetes had to say about the awards on their Web site:

"We're honored -- and a little stunned -- that the judges chose Grayson over so many other excellent cheeses, and even more flattered by the best of show award. Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the years; you've helped prove that a small, local dairy can hold their own in the big time as well as anyone."

If you've never tried Meadow Creek Dairy cheese, look for it at Annie Kay's Whole Foods, Harvest Moon Food Store, Gourmet Pantry, Eats Natural Foods, Vintage Cellar or the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op.

Read more about Meadow Creek Dairy here or here.
Photo from Meadowcreekdairy.com

Given the pitiful number of replies to the cookbook giveaway yesterday, I can only conclude that:

a) nobody was interested in that book, or
b) everyone was actually having a pretty good Monday and couldn't think of anything whiny to say to earn the book.

Hopefully it was the latter, because this really is a beautiful cookbook. We do have a cookbook winner, however, and her name is Angela G. She wrote, "The dirt under my fingernails, my aching shoulders, and pinched back are all reasons why I deserve the organic cookbook you are giving away today. In addition to the 40+ hour work week I spend behind a desk I also work on an organic farm that provides weekly harvests of organic veggies and free range eggs to CSA shareholders in my small town."

To check out Angela's entire response, look below the jump. Congrats, Angela! E-mail me your mailing address and I'll send "Organic Marin" your way.

In other news, tomorrow is National Bring Your Salad to Work Day. That's according to Kraft Salad Dressings. I can't imagine how they would benefit from such a day. Marketing aside, it seems like a good excuse to bring a crisp, cool salad to work for lunch. I've got some romaine, cherry tomatoes, green pepper and garbanzo beans lurking in my fridge this moment.

Next up, does anyone watch "The Next Food Network Star?" If so, it may amuse you to learn that someone on the Food Network's Web team accidentally revealed the winner online before the finale ran. Oops!!

And finally, has anyone out there ever had a custard pie with fruit? As a lover of pies, I was surprised to realize that I never have had such a pie. A reader wrote in last night with his recipe for wineberry custard pie, which looks 10 times easier than actually collecting the wineberries for the pie. I'll post the recipe, along with his beautiful picture, later today.

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The weekend flew by as usual, with a few blessings thrown in. I harvested my first round of cherry tomatoes (oh, the sweetness) and threw some lime on my other plants to hopefully rid them, once and for all, of the blossom-end rot.

More importantly, I learned that blog reader Lori gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, Samuel, early Friday morning. That makes regular blog reader Kathy a proud grandma! Congratulations to them!!

Let's continue to brighten up this Monday morning with a cookbook giveaway! This week's feature book is "Organic Marin: Recipes from Land to Table" by Tim Porter and Farina Wong Kingsley. It was produced by Marin Magazine and includes a forward about organic gardening.

Even if you don't grow or buy all organic, there are some wonderful recipes in this book. I was immediately drawn to one for a shaved zucchini salad with Italian sheep's milk cheese, which I will share below the jump.

If you want to win this beautifully illustrated, hardcover book, write in and tell me why you think you are most deserving of a little cheer on this Monday. I'll accept entries until 6 p.m. today. If you have won previously, you cannot win. Thanks!

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It's all Kathy's fault.

In other words, my friend and editor Kathy Lu is responsible for a warm weather craving that I haven't experienced so intensely since I was a child.

No, I am not pregnant. But Kathy is.

Early in her pregnancy, my friend started yearning for the ruby-red stuff. Its icy cold sweetness seemed to quell her first trimester discomfort in a way nothing else did, like an elixir for nausea.

She began to bring it in Tupperware containers to work, munching on big chunks of it in her office. I'd walk in to talk about an idea for a column and spy her hunched over her precious fruit.
When cookout time rolled around, Kathy didn't bring her signature cold sesame noodles. She brought fruit salad, with a 70-30 ratio of watermelon to other fruit.

One day, I brought in some fresh cantaloupe to share with my co-workers and Lu said, "Oh, good. I forgot to bring my watermelon." While reporting the ethnic market series, I told her one day that I was heading out to visit a few markets and see what I could find.

"I forgot to bring fruit today," she said. "Could you see if you can find me some?"

Okay, so her insatiable desire for watermelon this summer applies to just about any fresh fruit. But she isn't fooling me -- I know she'd take watermelon over anything else.

Gradually, I began to have sympathy cravings. I discovered that almost nothing tastes as good on a hot summer day than a freshly carved watermelon.

I don't eat it like I did when I was a kid, plowing my face into a big slice and working my way toward the rind, spitting seeds like an M-16, until my cheeks were sticky with juice.

Now I'm more dignified -- I buy seedless, organic watermelon and store it in the refrigerator for a day or two before carving it into bite-size chunks.

But oh, those frigid chunks are hard to stop eating. Biting down, I can almost feel every little cell of the flesh bursting between my teeth and releasing its cool, cucumbery sweetness.

I brought some for breakfast this morning, and I've got some at home in the fridge.

I know you're supposed to be nice to pregnant ladies and all, but Kathy isn't getting any of my watermelon.

I received a pretty little press kit this morning from the folks at Memorable Entertaining, a new Web site. It was a gold box wrapped in a purple ribbon which contained an invitation to visit the site.

Also inside the box was a package of two cookies and a tiny plastic baggie containing a strange green and pink ball. Was it animal, vegetable or mineral? It appeared to be vegetable.

My apologies to Memorable Entertaining (I will check the site, I promise), but it was this little ball that really drew my attention.

I found, after reading the attached pamphlet, that it is a Numi flowering tea. If you steep the little tea ball in hot water, it gradually unfolds into a beautiful underwater flower. I guess it wouldn't have the same effect if you tried to steep it in anything other than a clear glass teapot, though.

Still, these flowering teas are so lovely that it might just be worth it to buy a glass teapot and a collection of these teas for the tea-lover on your gift list. What a wonderful birthday or Christmas gift that would be.

Not only is it soothing to sit down with a hot mug of tea when you're chilly or tired, but now your private tea party can be soothing to the eyes, as well. Or better yet, invite some friends over, open a box of butter cookies, arrange a few truffles on a plate and catch up while your tea blooms in front of you.

Check out the Numi Web site to watch a tea ball flower before your eyes. You can also find flavors and ordering information there. Looks like a box of 18 tea balls can be had for only around $26.

Photo source: Worldpantry.com

It's been a while since I cruised all of my favorite food sites on the Internet, namely because my Google Reader crapped out on me for a couple of months, displaying nothing but a blank page.

When I finally talked to the IT department about it, they simply upgraded my Internet browser and everything magically reappeared. Genius me. Of course, by then, I had about 500 Serious Eats and Slashfood entries backed up to read. How in the world those people post more than 30 entries in 24 hours' time is beyond me.

Moving right along, here's a snapshot of some of the entries that caught my eye:

From the New York Times yesterday, a story about how affluent locavores in big cities like San Francisco are hiring companies to plant vegetable gardens in their own backyards. The gardeners plant and tend the garden, then harvest the veggies and leave them in a neat little box on the doorstep. I was amused by the photograph of folks hanging out on the patio, fiddling with a laptop, while some overall-clad fellow slaves away in the garden.
Oh, to have that much disposable income...

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