Here’s to summer, to fresh ingredients, to simple meals that come together quickly. And here’s to summer reads! I hope you’ve found a few good ones for those beach days or backyard afternoons.

It was a wild and crazy apricot season, with my little tree netting 75 jars of jam. This meant picking apricots daily, checking the ground (some of which is the community greenbelt) for fallen fruit usually twice daily, and making 3 batches of jam per week. It was, by all accounts, exhausting, but the jam is delicious.

I don't recommend books very often. Partly because writing books of my own cuts into my reading time, but mostly because rarely is one so remarkable that I feel the need to take to the streets to recommend it.