Summer Extravagance

Sometimes, a meal of winter veg and good meat gets a little "samey".  And when you have days and days of bread-and-cheese or chicken-and-potatoes or roasted-beets-and-cabbage-slaw staring you in the face, you start pondering a riot to protest the lack of fresh diversity.

Unfortunately, protests don't really work well when you happen to be the cook.

Lucky for me, there are opportunities of occasional splurges.  Local hydroponically grown basil and tomatoes offer the hint of summer flavors in the depths of winter.  The tomatoes are lacking that particularly perfect tang that they can only acquire during long afternoons of summer sunshine, but they are fresh and fragrant nevertheless.  And the basil...oh, the basil!  After making a lovely caprese salad to share on New Year's Eve with good friends, I was left with two little plants (yes, they have roots!) to nurse along for a few more days before I devour them at top homemade pizza.

Hmm...perhaps someday I'll have a little hydroponic operation of my own?  Right after I start my tilapia farm in the backyard, I believe.  After all, the floating roots of my basil and tomato plants will need all that lovely fish-poo generated nutrition to grown strong and lovely in the cold winter weather!