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until vegetables are partially blackened; you may want to use grill basket for
onions and peppers.
2 loaves French bread (16 to 18 inches)
2 8-ounce balls mozzarella
3 large tomatoes
Basil leaves
Cut loaves of bread lengthwise. Arrange bread on baking sheets and
layer with grilled vegetables first, slices of mozzarella next, and slices of tomato last. Drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and place the baking sheets
under a broiler until cheese is melted. Garnish with leaves of fresh basil.
Cut in pieces to serve.

y C H E R RY

SORBET

2 heaping cups pitted cherries
3
⁄4 cup sugar (or honey to taste)
2
⁄3 cup water
While one person pits the cherries, another can combine sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved completely
(syrup will be clear at this point) and allow the mixture to cool. When cherries are pitted combine them with syrup in a blender. Blend on low until
smooth, then refrigerate mixture until you are ready to pour it into an ice
cream maker.

y DISAPPEARING

ZUCCHINI ORZO

⁄4-pound package orzo pasta (multicolored is fun)
Bring 6 cups water or chicken stock to a boil and add pasta. Cook 8 to
12 minutes.
1 chopped onion, garlic to taste

3


194

a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e

3 large zucchini
Olive oil for sauté
Use a cheese grater or mandoline to shred zucchini; sauté briefly with
chopped onion and garlic until lightly golden.
Thyme
Oregano
1
⁄4 cup grated Parmesan or any hard yellow cheese
Add spices to zucchini mixture, stir thoroughly, and then remove mixture from heat.
Combine with cheese and cooked orzo, salt to taste, serve cool or at
room temperature.

y ZUCCHINI

C H O C O L AT E C H I P C O O K I E S


(Makes about two dozen)
1 egg, beaten
1
⁄2 cup butter, softened
1
⁄2 cup brown sugar
1
⁄3 cup honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Combine in large bowl.
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1
⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1
⁄4 teaspoon salt
1
⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
1
⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg
Combine in a separate, small bowl and blend into liquid mixture
1 cup finely shredded zucchini
12 ounces chocolate chips


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Stir these into other ingredients, mix well. Drop by spoonful onto

greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350°,
10 to 15 minutes.
Don’t tell my sister.
Download these and all other Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recipes at
www.AnimalVegetableMiracle.com
S Q UAS H - S E AS O N M E A L P L A N

Sunday ~ Braised chicken with squash, corn, and cilantro
Monday ~ Grilled vegetable panini, served with green salad
Tuesday ~ Sliced cold chicken (cooked Sunday) and zucchini orzo
Wednesday ~ Grilled hamburgers with grilled green beans and squash
Thursday ~ Egg-battered squash blossoms stuffed with cheese, served
with salad
Friday ~ Pizza with grilled baby squash, eggplant, caramelized onions, and
mozzarella
Saturday ~ Lamb chops and baked stuffed zucchini


13

•

L I F E I N A R E D S TAT E

August
I’ve kept a journal for most of the years I’ve been gardening. I’m a habitual
scribbler, jotting down the triumphs and flops of each season that I always feel pretty sure I’d remember anyway: that the Collective Farm
Woman melons were surprisingly prissy; that the Dolly Partons produced
such whopping tomatoes, the plants fell over. Who could forget any of
that? Me, as it turns out. Come winter when it’s time to order seeds again,

I always need to go back and check the record. The journal lying open
beside my bed also offers a handy incentive at each day’s end for making a
few notes about the weather, seasonal shifts in bloom and fruiting times,
big family events, the day’s harvest, or just the minutiae that keep me entertained. The power inside the pea-sized brain of a hummingbird, for
example, that repeatedly built her nest near our kitchen door: despite her
migrations across continents and the storms of life, her return date every
spring was the same, give or take no more than twenty-four hours.
Over years, trends like that show up. Another one is that however
jaded I may have become, winter knocks down the hollow stem of my
worldliness and I’ll start each summer again with expectations as simple
as a child’s. The first tomato of the season brings me to my knees. Its vital
stats are recorded in my journal with the care of a birth announcement:
It’s an Early Girl! Four ounces! June 16! Blessed event, we’ve waited so
long. Over the next few weeks I note the number, size, and quality of the


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different tomato varieties as they begin to come in: two Green Zebras,
four gorgeous Jaune Flammés, one single half-pound Russian Black. I
note that the latter wins our summer’s first comparative taste test—a good
balance of tart and sweet with strong spicy notes. I describe it in my journal the way an oenophile takes notes on a new wine discovery. On the
same day, I report that our neighbor wants to give away all her Russian
Blacks on the grounds they are “too ugly to eat.” I actually let her give me
a couple.
As supply rises, value depreciates. Three weeks after the **First Tomato!** entry in my journal, I’ve dropped the Blessed Event language and
am just putting them down for the count: “10 Romas today, 8 Celebrity,
30 Juliet.” I continue keeping track so we’ll know eventually which varieties performed best, but by early August I’ve shifted from numbers to

pounds. We bring in each day’s harvest in plastic grocery sacks that we
heave onto a butcher’s scale in our kitchen, jotting down the number on a
notepad before moving on to processing.
At this point in the year, we had officially moved beyond hobby scale.
My records would show eventually whether we were earning more than
minimum wage, but for certain we would answer the question that was
largely the point of this exercise: what does it take, literally, to keep a family fed? Organizing the spring planting had been tricky. How many pumpkins does a family eat in a year? How many jars of pickles? My one area of
confidence was tomatoes: we couldn’t have too many. We loved them
fresh, sliced, in soups and salads, as pasta sauces, chutneys, and salsa. I’d
put in fifty plants.
In July, all seemed to be going according to plan when we hauled in
just over 50 pounds of tomatoes. In August the figure jumped to 302
pounds. In the middle of that month, our neighbor came over while I was
canning. I narrowed my eyes and asked her, “Did I let you give me some
tomatoes a few weeks ago?”
She laughed. She didn’t want them back, either.
Just because we’re overwhelmed doesn’t mean we don’t still love them,
even after the first thrill wears off. I assure my kids of this, when they
point out a similar trend in their baby books: dozens of photos of the first
smile, first bath, first steps . . . followed by little evidence that years two