If you add blueberries to anything I’ll try it.  I love them, the tart blue globes that burst on the tongue when you close your mouth and the sweetness that is rich and perfect at the same time.  I think this love of the blue berry goes back to my childhood on a big blueberry field in Maine.  We had lowbush wild blueberries and come late July you could find me with my hand in the berries covered in the purple juices that flowed from them.  It was so satisfying to run down through those huge fields trying to keep my balance while leap-frogging rocks and stonewalls to find the best patch of berries.  The “best” berries were always dark blue, nearly black, and in clumps that i would squat down by and eat before my sister, older and more sensible as she was, would pick them to make pie – more berries made it to my mouth then my picking vessel (they still do for that matter).

I love to eat the berries popping them one at a time off the bush but I hate to rake them.  Raking seems like so much work to me with those awkward handles and the sharp tines which I would poke into my ankle or calf – drawing blood and attracting the early morning mosquitoes.  And the hours, the hours of a raker are awful, getting up at 5 or 5:30 and raking until 11:30 or 12 when the berries got to soft from the heat and would turn to instant jam in your bucket, I really hated those hours and always dragged my feet.  Not that it mattered I was a terrible raker, regardless of when I started.  I mangled berries and never got to the bottom of the bush, leaving behind more berries than I raked at times and raising the ire of whichever family member was heading up the crew to work the fields (usually an aunt or a cousin).

But in Maine it’s blueberry season again, and the rakers are starting to get all of the juice and fruit to Wyman’s or some other processor to be cleaned and eaten for the sake of everyone.  The Maine blueberry is my pride and joy – leading to great arguments with my friends from New Jersey who claim they have the better blueberry, we both know they’re just looking for something for Jersey to claim as it’s own.  It’s addictive and it you drop it in lemonade it’s just heavenly.  The tartness of the lemon and the sweetness of the blueberry marry so well that this is something everyone should have in their refrigerators all the time, especially if they are like me and obsessed with lemonade but are always disappointed with the store brand they come across.  I found this to be especially refreshing over the past week or so while we all baked in the greater Boston area.

Blueberry Lemonade
Note: If you want to add ice cubes to this lemonade please count them as water or it will be too watery.
Adapted from The Betty Crocker Cookbook circa 1950

1 1/2 cup lemon juice (about 9 lemons squeezed)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup water
Rind of 3 lemons, cut into eighths
1/2 -3/4 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen but they better be from MAINE

Combine the water, sugar, lemon rind and blueberries in a saucepan and just bring them to a boil.  Boil for 3-4 minutes, creating a flavored sugar syrup. Strain the syrup into a medium bowl trying to press the juices out of the lemon rind and berries as you do.  I used a vegetable steamer for this – it worked perfectly.  Add the lemon juice to this mixture and you will have your lemonade base.
Using your syrup as a base add water to flavor, I like 1 part syrup to 3 parts water.  To dress it up use club soda or a lemon sparkling water for that refreshing tingle.

Summer has descended upon the fair city of Boston, with steamy streets and humidity that makes you want to hide somewhere air conditioned ALL THE TIME.  With this heat comes the need to NOT COOK.  I want to avoid turning on the oven like nothing else, I haven’t baked in weeks and poor boyfriend has been living on things that are flash fried or grilled.  And while that’s fine, in theory, I’m still learning about grills (mainly how to light mine… who knew that charcoal was such a tricksy creature?).

So in my efforts to “beat the heat” and not break the bank I have been focusing on cool easy to make foods in my kitchen, sweet potato hash, ice cream (boyfriend got ma a late birthday gift of an ice cream maker, he must love me), and this Summer Panzanella.  Now panzanella is something I’ve been wanting to try out with simple enough seeming directions and always a mouthwatering looking image at the end.  This first attempt was no exception.  And the best part? I spent maybe 10 minutes standing in front of the stove – total.  Most of this salad was just chopping and tossing.

A bit about my sordid past of lusting after panzanella:  One day while in college and living in dorms equipped with full cable access and the food network I saw the sweater-vest clad Micheal Chiarello prepare this “rustic” bread salad in his perfect studio kitchen with the promise that anyone would love it, well – given that they don’t have a gluten allergy.  I promptly forgot about panzanella until about three years later when boyfriend’s father went to California on a business trip.  The night before as he began to fall asleep on our *awesome* fold-out couch he asked if we wanted anything from Cali – I asked for a cookbook that captured some local cuisine (honestly thinking independent published and intimate a la The Enchanted Broccoli Forest ).  He brought me Micheal Chiarello’s Easy Entertaining*.  And there was a picture of the same panzanella I had seen him make years earlier on the food network *swoon.*  I immediately googled Panzanella recipe and came up with about a million (ok there were probably only 500 results) among the results were Smitten Kitchen, Cheap Healthy Good, and epicurious (though they have everything so that’s not really surprising).  I decided to tuck it away and forgot about it AGAIN for a year.  Which brings us to this my first (perfect) attempt at panzanella.

Summer Panzanella with Pea Tendrils and Prosciutto
Inspired my Micheal Chiarello and the frickin’ heat
Note: All ingredients can be omitted at your preference except the tomatoes and bread as they are really the foundation of the whole salad.  Unless otherwise specified I chopped everything to a 1 1/2-2 inch cube

1/2-3/4 loaf of day-old  crusty bread (I used Ciabatta)
3-4 vine ripe tomatoes or 1-1/2pts of grape tomatoes halved
1/2 pound pea tendrils
1/4 pound prosciutto
1 Sweet pepper (Red, Yellow, or orange whatever color you’re feeling)
1 Zucchini
1 Red Onion, a Vidalia or scallions would work as well though not as pretty
3-4 cloves garlic, minced fine
1/3 Pound Kalamata Olives, whole
1/2 Pound Mozzarella, chopped to 1/2 inch cubes
10 large leaves of basil, chopped into fine strips** (you can use more if you really like Basil)
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar (I used blueberry because it’s delicious, but any decent quality balsamic is fine)
Flaky Sea Slat (if you have it it’s prettier but regular is fine)

Toast the bread cubes with a healthy glug of olive oil in a pan until they’re crispy -about 5 minutes then put them in a big bowl and set it aside.
Saute the red onion, zucchini, and garlic in the same pan with a little more oil (if you need it) – another 5 minutes and add those to the toasted bread.
Chop all the other ingredients and pile them in the bowl, see why I had you get a big bowl now?  Add about 2 glugs of olive oil (2-3 Tbs) to the salad and gently toss, drizzle balsamic over the whole thing (1-2 tsp) and gently toss again.
Let it sit for about 20 minutes in the fridge before eating (I like this salad better cold).  Watch something ridiculous like Invader Zim (so GIR can teach you how to make waffles!) or an episode of Micheal Chiarello’s show on Food Network, make fun of the sweater vest, please.
Serve this salad with a light sprinkling of sea salt and a basil sprig on the side (because it’s pretty).

*A note about this book – he asks that you have very specific very expensive ingredients fully stocked in your pantry at all times (something I JUST CAN’T GET BEHIND) so I looked at the pictures and planned to make the recipes in a more wallet friendly fashion.

**I find the easiest way to do this is to roll the basil leaves up in a tight cigar and slice from leaf tip to stem,it’s called chiffonade!