Summer salad is great for hot days. Crisp greens & cold fruit combine for a refreshing lunch or dinner side.

Summer salad is super simple to put together and serve. Outdoor bbq friendly and easily modified to your taste. Choose in season fruits and veggies to keep it tasting fresh.

I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. Getting my kitchen re-organized. Also, the temperature is too high here to be anywhere near a hot stove. The room where I write also feels a bit like a sauna right now too. Ugh. I have had to escape to the coolness of movie theaters and freezer sections of grocery stores to look for Otter Pops.

I’m also setting some time aside to think about the direction I want to go in. When I began exploring the ideas of sustainability, urban gardening, and permaculture my thought was to find a way to share affordable & nutritious food to food desert areas. I also want to find a way to get food to our homeless population.

There is still such a stigma attached to being without shelter. I watch the homeless being ignored or ridiculed pretty much daily and it is so disheartening. We should be helping the ones with less when we have enough, or too much.

Food desert:

Food deserts are defined  as parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas. This is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers.

This has become a big problem because while food deserts are often short on whole food providers, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, instead, they are heavy on local quickie marts that provide a wealth of processed, sugar, and fat laden foods that are known contributors to our nation’s obesity epidemic.

If someone handed me a million dollars right now I would convert a bus into a rolling farmers’ market and travel to all these areas. Providing locally grown produce and fruit as well as nutritional information & tips on small space gardening to help people on a budget grow their own food.

Summer Salad can consist of any fruit or vegetable in season:

• Beets
• Bell peppers
• Blackberries
• Cantaloupe melon
• Chayote squash
• Grapefruit
• Green beans
• Limes
• Peaches
• Shallots
• Sugar snap peas
• Tomatoes
• Watermelon

Imagine growing some of these for yourself? The difference in taste from store-bought is miles apart. Let’s say you have an overabundance of these healthy foods. Beyond friends and neighbors, there is a whole community around you which has a number of folks in serious need of healthy, nutritious food.

If you have no way to grow in your own space you may have community urban gardens that you can join. Seattle is working on a food forest, which I think is an amazing idea. Community coming together to create a viable permaculture.

” The Food Forest is set to include an Edible Arboretum with fruits gathered from regions around the world, a Berry Patch for canning, gleaning and picking, a Nut Grove with trees providing shade and sustenance, a Community Garden using the p-patch model for families to grow their own food, a Gathering Plaza for celebration and education, a Kid’s Area for education and play.”

The idea of this project excites me. I would like to organize something similar someday. Anyone out there have some acres to spare? Lol.

Cooking music: The Stooges – The Weirdness. Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers – Into the Void. Zero Boys – Vicious Circle.

Writing music: David Bowie – The Man Who Sold the World. The Replacements – Pleased to Meet Me.