What we think of when we picture our favorite summer moments in Michigan happen in August.
Those hot, humid days, Lake Michigan is finally warm (if it hasn’t flipped). The nights start to cool slightly so evening fires start to creep back.
As the sun starts to set, the fire flies slowly rise out of the tall grass and brush and make their way into the trees.
In the spring in East Tennessee, synchronous fireflies emerge during mating season. Thousands of them. They light up and then slowly flicker out in unison. They fill the woods with this extraordinary sight in Elkmont, a former logging town, now luckily in the middle of the national park. There are only a handful of places on earth to see them, one in East Tennessee and the other in China, at the polar opposite side of the planet. It’s so popular now, you have to join a lottery to get the chance to experience it.
If, like me, you’re lucky enough to have seen them, years before the tourists heard about it and cram themselves into the park for a peek, it will become a permanent reminder of just how special these mountains are, and how many secrets wait to be discovered. I think of them every August, as the fire flies start to float in Michigan.
For cooks, August means vegetables and farmer’s markets. As the weather warms in the spring, we immediately want to see what the farms have for us, but for maybe half the summer or so, it’s a slow start. Spring brings some berries, maybe some wintered over spinach. Some farmers might have cold storage crops from the previous fall’s harvest.
It’s not really until the end of July, early August, that vegetable harvests begin in earnest. Zucchini and summer squash, the first cured garlic, sweet corn, potatoes, cucumbers, dill flower and basil, young sweet onions, eggplant, fresh sweet peppers and hot chilis. All coming at us so fast it’s hard to keep up.
But the queen of summer is tomatoes.
Some people think I hate tomatoes because I spend the majority of the year pulling them off my sandwich or ordering my salads without them. But the truth is I could not love them more. In August. When heirlooms have turned summer into greatness in ways a warehouse ripened supermarket tomato will never match. They may actually be my favorite. Once you’ve pulled an old, flavorful varietal raised with care by a knowledgeable and probably obsessive grower, off the vine still warm from the sun, cut it and lightly salted it, or perhaps just bit into like an apple and let their juice run down your chin, you can never go back.
There are so many tomato recipes I can share, but the one that’s been on my mind (and table) a lot lately, is bread and tomato salad. August is also smack dab in the middle of grilling season, and this salad will pair like a gem to anything you pull off it. A slow smoked half chicken, pork shoulder steak, planked salmon, sausages. All fantastic. It probably sings the prettiest with a nice fat ribeye.
The salad will benefit from a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, so don’t be afraid to go a little overboard at the farmer’s market. If you end up with too many, catch me at The Southerner and I’ll pass on our recipes for raw tomato soup, pain au tomate, mussels with cherry tomatoes and wheat beer…it goes on and on.
For me, tomatoes are another food best eaten only in season. Eat a lot of them for as much of the summer as you can, and build anticipation for next year.
Remember not to skimp on the quality of the oil, vinegar, and olives. Iggy’s can help you here. We retail the good stuff.
Bread & Tomato Salad
Serves four.
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4 thick slices of excellent sourdough bread (I think the porridge bread made by my buddy Joel at his restaurant Quarantino’s is worth going out of your way for) torn into 1” pieces
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½ cup of good olive oil
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A few dashes of good balsamic vinegar
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1 TB sherry vinegar
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6 to 8 ripe heirloom tomatoes
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12 leaves of basil
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¼ of a sweet onions, very finely sliced
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2 cloves of garlic
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6 pitted olives, quartered
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Your favorite local fresh cheese
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Salt and pepper to taste
Toss the bread in just enough olive oil to coat it. Cook in a 400 degree oven until good and toasted on the outside, but the interior is still squishy. Do this a couple hours before you want to serve.
In a large bowl, combine the garlic with a few pinches of salt and two of the basil leaves. Smash it to a paste with a mortar and add about three tablespoons of olive oil, the balsamic, the sherry vinegar, and the sweet onions. This can also be done a little early so they can get to know each other.
About an hour before you serve, cut the tomatoes into chunky pieces, the more random the better, but keep them to generous bite size at most. Halve any small tomatoes. Add them to the vinegar, oil, and garlic mix with a little salt and pepper, and then go do something else.
About fifteen minutes later, you’ll see the tomatoes have released a lot of their liquid. Taste it for seasoning and balance. If it’s too sharp, add a little olive oil. If it seems flat, add a little salt or maybe a splash of vinegar. But don’t get too carried away with condiments. Let the tomatoes and their juices be the star.
Once the juice is where you like it, add the bread, basil and cheese, and toss well. The goal is to have some of the bread relieved of its crunch, but not all of it. The bread and tomatoes should sit together long enough for the bread to absorb some of the juice, but not make the bread soggy.
Keep tasting and serve when it makes you happy.