Carrying on?

In case you thought I was being melodramatic.















This was my table during the heatwave. And there was at least a bucket a day coming in still. The harvest's pretty much done now. So much so that I even felt able to pick up a few windfall peaches and apples on Gordon St today.

But I also wanted to show you something I forgot from my stone fruit crazy faze - these delicious apricot tarts from River Cafe Green.












The recipe was for one tart but made a huge amount of pastry and filling. They were very buttery and very satisfying. Worth turning the oven on during a heatwave good. Sure they did give a certain nephew a tummy ache but hey, we all have to learn somehow. And Shannon's stomach was very robust so she was a great help eating leftovers.

Call me the Nectarine Crazy

An autobiography of my last two weeks might well be titled Sweat and Nectarines. Or, Excuse me for being in my undies but I have to deal with 400 kilos of Nectarines and it's 45 degrees.

It was hot, very hot. And fruit was dropping like flies. And flies were drawn to dropping fruit. And I was spending every morning gathering said fallen fruit and picking juicy big yellow and red Neccas and wandering around Nekkid and then dealing with a table ridiculously laden in fruit which wanted to go mouldy if only I would give it 5 minutes alone. Did I mention I also got 4 bags of Apricots from Ruth to deal with? Yes, sweaty and sticky. Nude. Just how I like to be. Except for when spattering jam hits my bare skin.

So what are we talking food wise?

• Nectarine Salsa. Hell yes. Cucumber, neccas, red onion, lime juice, chilli. Maybe some tomatoes. This started me off on a big Mexican period which continues still.

• Crumble. Of course.

• Nectarines in the freezer. Yes I have tubs and tubs of poached neccas so that when the weather cools down enough I can bake you a million treats.

• Dried Nectarines. After eyeing off dehydrator's for a week I did some of these just in the sun and they are delicious. Afterall it was a heatwave so solar energy was plentifull. I'm not sure if they'll last but I'm keeping a good eye on the jar for signs of moisture. Oh, and I put one of those "oxygen absorber - do not eat" things in there. Might help?

• Nectarine hot sauce - different to salsa cos it's blended and hot hot hot with jalapeno's from the garden, onion, lime and coriander. It's good with sour cream. But what isn't?

Oh and I made this cake:
This is the Pastel De Canela Con Moros from Dona Tomas. They suggest using nectarines instead of berries when seasonal so I took em up on that idea. I didn't really believe this cake would work - the batter seems so huge, the recipe warns that if you use too much fruit it won't cook properly and has other ominous warnings. Plus it has 2 cups of sour cream in it and could have been heavy as hell.

But it was great. It's quite puddingy in the middle where the fruit layer keeps it moist and then the top is a crunchy layer of nuts and cinnamon.

Yes it was a crowd pleaser and I do like to please the crowds. Some people go out and pick up to prove they are well liked. I bake. Killer said "this is the best cake I have ever ever eaten." I scored.

I kinda decided against re-writing other people's recipes onto the internet. What do you think? Want the recipe?

i miss nyc

These whimsical lego pictures are from Christoph Niemann at the Times. So good.