Kitchen Notes: Summer Squash Salad with Fennel and Feta
First harvests, fresh salad, and summer's approach
It is technically still spring here in North Carolina, but the Memorial Day holiday this weekend marks the unofficial start of summer for most people in our region. In the field, it is summer already, or at least the work of it is. Daily harvests, earlier start times, and the skilled dance of the farmer who must harvest/wash/pack while planting, weeding, and preparing for the next, next season. It’s almost time for Summer Jamie to make his appearance.
The 84 beds that make up our lil’ Western North Carolina farm are full, or in the process of being flipped. Cucumbers climb their trellises. Tomatoes leaf out, inching toward the glorious and much anticipated fruiting stage. My husband and his two-person crew planted 450 okra plants yesterday, which we’ll harvest in July. Blooming nasturtium dots the field with its brilliance, bright oranges and deep reds interplanted with squash vines which began bearing fruit last week. Baby fennels, their perfect bulbs nestled atop the soft red soil, stand at attention with fronds waving and open like a pair of outstretched hands.
We almost always eat the first picking of squash raw. The bicolored zephyr variety we grow is nutty and sweet. My husband says, it tastes like “what crookneck squash wishes it could taste like.” Shaved thin and dressed with a simple vinaigrette, paired with the anise crunch of fennel, creamy feta, and the peppery pop of nasturtium feels a bit like a miracle, and it is. Every year, it is.
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