Red Fruit Bowl

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

July 27, 2011

It’s just to hot to cook, to bake, or indeed, do much of anything. One of the few truly appetizing things I can think to eat this summer is Red Fruit Bowl, a desert I had many years again London, in a restaurant on Walton Street, that little bit of magical enclave off the Brompton Road that still feels like a small enchanted universe of good things. Simple to make, for one, festive for a party, it’s pool of raspberry colored liquid staining all the fruit, it needs only vanilla ice cream, or a vegan alternative and a crisp cookie. I would like to see it in a pedestal white stoneware bowl, or glass dish, where it could be decorated with candied violets or fresh mint:

Red Fruit Bowl

1 package organic frozen raspberries
A mixture of fresh red raspberries, blueberry, chopped figs, red and Rainer cherries(especially good if simply halved), plutos and of course, peaches or apricots if they are ripe and fragrant. We don’t often see red currants,but they can be added if found.I have found good cherries and figs in supermarkets and at Whole Foods, but for those who have stone fruit and fresh berries at farmer’s markets, this mixture is a simple showcase of abundance. I add the very good vegan sugar found at Whole Foods,to taste and chill the mixture. The defrosted berries lend their juice to the mix, creating a desert in a beautiful shade of rosy red.

Plutot Crisp with Walnuts

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

July 11, 2010

When the Whole Foods produce man said “Those are the best stone fruits we have”, I was happy to full a large plastic bag with beautiful rosy plutots. I’m such a apricot girl, that I sometimes think other stone fruits don’t receive the attention in my summer crisps that they merit. The plutot, part plum and part apricot, was surly created to bring some of apricot’s elegance to the plum, gaining greater durability than the fragile apricot manages once parted from it’s tree.

W.F. was out of sliced blanched almonds, so I thought, let’s try the crisp without nuts, but,when the time came to put out all together, I found a handful of walnuts in the refrigerator, which turned out to be an excellent addition.

This crisp is made with only a little flour mixed into the fruit with the sugar, vanilla and salt. I use a white granulated sugar from W.F. that is labeled vegan. Is it well known that sugar used some animal industry products in it’s processing? I am so glad of this alternative; every vegan food choice benefits an animal somewhere, and this is simply very good quality granulated sugar.

The topping has both ground ginger and vanilla mixed with the standard ingredients of flour , sugar and butter- Whole Food has an excellent vegan butter that bakes beautifully and crisply. Before the crisp goes into the oven,a sprinkling of Penzey Vanilla sugar adds a coating of white with tiny flecks of black vanilla bean.

This crisp baked to the most beautiful color imaginable. Does anyone remember reproductions of Spanish Still Life I and Spanish Still Life II, by Henri Matisse? When I visited the Hermitage in Leningrad many years ago in the 1970’s,these paintings were never even reproduced in Western art history books. Their background color was a revelation, a pumpkin tinted rose, glowing as if stained with some magical wine. A similar color is found in the exquisite David Austin Rose “Abraham Darby”, a stunning mix of yellows, apricots and pinks in random graduations within a complex composition of petals.
The plutots turned exactly this color while baking and the desert ,was as the saying goes, almost too beautiful to eat. Almost! In honor of the crisp, I am ordering an Emile Henri scalloped tart dish in a cheerful yellow and white from the Kitchen Works, a charming shop in Litchfield, Ct. The yellow and white porcelain dish filled with the rosy crisp, a small bouquet of summer flowers in a green glass vase and I will have picture worth a thousand words.

The fruit in the crisp is a bit on the tart side, the crisp is crunchy and sweet. Walnuts are a perfect pairing with these plutots.

PLUTOT AND WALNUT CRISP

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and prepare a square baking pan.

Crisp topping:

Make the topping and refrigerate while putting together the fruit.

1 1/4 cup flour

1 skimpy teaspoon sea salt.

3/4 cup vegan granulated sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

4 ounces or 1/2 cup vegan buttery spread

1/2 tsp. ground ginger, or more to taste

1/2 to 1 cup chopped walnuts

Mix flour , ginger, salt and the sugar, over which the vanilla extract is sprinkled . Add cold butter and blend with a pastry blender or blend by hand to a crumbly texture. Add the chopped nuts, mix well and refrigerate.

Fruit mixture:

A 12-16 plutos, unpeeled

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract sprinkled on the sugar

1/4- 1/2 tsp sea salt to taste

1 large Tbsp. of flour.

Mix the dry ingredients first then quickly chop fruit into sections and gently toss. Pour into a baking dish, sprinkle with the topping and bake at 375 degrees for 30- 45 minutes. When the fruit bubbles and top begins to brown, the crisp is done. Delicious warm with vanilla ice cream or vanilla soy frozen desert.

Boxing Day Toasted Sandwich with Watercress and Avocado Salad

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

December 13, 2009

One of few culinary privileges of living in South Florida, if one is a vegetarian and not always going on about crab leg season, is the winter Greenmarket, where heirloom tomatoes, upland cress, flavorful herbs and citrus fruit abound. While not making August in Florida any less miserable, it is pleasant to have a glut of real tomatoes when everyone else in America is on squash and rutabaga rations. However, I think this grilled sandwich is a terrific antidote to whatever huge meal was eaten on Christmas Day- light but flavorful, and as as simple as turning on the toaster.

Sliced whole grain bread
good Stilton cheese, crumbled- not hard and yellow but creamy ( sometimes available at Whole Foods Market in the holidays)
Sliced tomatoes
Torn basil leaves
Salt and pepper

Layer the sandwich with cheese, then the tomato slices and the basil. Salt and pepper. Put in the toaster under broil and watch carefully. The cheese will melt quickly and you won’t want the basil to burn. It will all melt nicely together like any toasted sandwich. Serve immediately with a watercress and avocado salad, flavored with a light vinaigrette- I like raspberry vinegar in mine, and a sprinkling of fresh or dried tarragon.

Voila!

Mrs. Madigan’s Winter’s Best Gingernaps

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

November 22, 2009

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup shortening (Crisco)
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. cloves
2 tsp.ginger

Cream butter and shortening. Gradually add the 2 cups of sugar and molasses very thoughly.Beat in eggs. Sift dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture, beating well. Batter will be soft. Make balls of small gob of dough and roll in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Let stand 1 minute then remove to wire rack to cool. Makes about 95-100. do not try to make in very warm weather.

Good Luck.

They freeze well.

This is exactly as Mrs. Madigan wrote the recipe for me some 29 years ago. Like so many ladies of her era, she remembered the family farm and cooked, gardened, canned and baked, as a normal part of her long life, as did my Grandmother Bess Montgomery, whose cookies tasted very much like Mrs. Madigan’s. I love my continuing connection to their traditions.

Time to Order for the Holidays

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

November 12, 2009

November heralds the arrival of one of my favorite annual excursions- into the mail order world of holiday goodies. I am always looking for new alluring products to add to the old favorites.

Firstly, UNICEF Holiday Greeting Cards are a must. It’s one of the main fund raisers for this charity, that needs so much support and frankly, gives me that feeling that once again I am observing a generous tradition. This year, I liked the deer in a winter landscape. Cards are available in many stylistic motifs, homey to sophisticated,. Their catalog is lovely and inspiring.

Wild Rice is a pleasure at every time of year, but it seems especially delicious in fall and winter. It is of course, not a rice, but a grass. The place to order it is Native Harvest in Ogema, Minnesota, tool free (888) 274-8318. It comes from a collaborative of the White Earth reservation in Norther Minnesota, home to the Ojibwe people. Their catalog, from www.savewildrice.com, features various food and craft products as well as information about the People. The usual flavor comparisons for wild rice, ‘toasted’ ,’ nutty’, ‘chewy’, all apply, but beyond the perfect texture is this wild rice’s rare flavor . It is the centerpiece of my “Wild Rice Salad with celery, avocados, yellow peppers and pine nuts in a Peach Chutney dressing”. Anyone who has ever had a meal in my home has almost certainly been served this salad, which is easy to prepare- ridiculously so- and can serve quite a lot of people.

Froghollow products, sold at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco, are available through their website, www. froghollow .com . Ordering still doesn’t equal eating their fruit filled pastry, and admiring the range of products that aren’t shipped. But lucky us, they ship their conserves, chutneys and some frozen pastry. Their apricot conserves, for apricot lovers, is a thing of beauty in it’s too tiny jar, easily consumed in a single Sunday morning breakfast. The other ‘can’t live without’ product for me is the peach chutney. It’s the other big flavor part of my ‘Wild Rice Salad’. Sure, you could use any old chutney in the dressing, but why would you? My usual order is a dozen jars of the conserve and half a dozen of the chutney and, unsurprisingly, they don’t last long. Try them just once!

Holiday baking runs in my blood. An aside. I have been fascinated by a certain molasses cookie that I encountered in three different households of kitchen elders, all bearing resemblance to the others. As a child, visiting Grandma and Grandpa Montgomery in Buchanan,Michigan, little Cara headed straight for the cookie jar and Grandma Bess’ molasses cookies. Soft but chewy, spicy in an ineffable way, they have that imprint of childhood that makes a taste linger in mind and heart. I then met this cookie at the home of my first mother in laws, Mrs. Madigan,in upstate New York, who gave me her recipe,as Mrs. Madigan’s Best Winter Gingersnaps. Although it calls for Crisco, I wouldn’t alter a thing! The cookie was so familiar, so right in the setting of a family kitchen. Did all ladies of certain age make this confection? When I went to the farm of my second mother in law, Mrs. LeBlond , outside Cincinnati (some years latter, naturally), the cookie jar was filled by her cook, with the magical molasses cookie. In all three cases, these weren’t cookies among others, but the biscuit tin staple. They must have a quintessential American farm history, for their ubiquity sets them apart. Maybe someone has an idea about this? A dream project is to make all the subtle variations on the molasses cookie to see if I can capture the flavor and texture of memory. Stay tuned for that in the remote future ,when all those special projects there is no time for now take place!

My other grandmother, Bessie Zonnis of St. Louis, my mother’s mother, who came from a Jewish heritage, also made cookies, but these came once a year in a festive tin, separated by paper cupcake holders. Oh, the tantalizing mixture! . Each one tasted of butter and nuts or chocolate and were the result of an blitz of baking. Somewhere these cookie recipes are hiding in an old file or envelope: time to search them out.

Such a generous cookie legacy made me a baker, although I don’t often have molasses cookies on hand. What I do have, in the Holiday season are Apricot Walnut Bars, and for these only once source of dried apricots will do. Andy’s Orchard, the jewel- like one man band (amend that- Lorene at the Orchard says that’s a one man band, with a one woman backup) fruit operation based in California is the place to go for unparalleled dried fruit. His apricots and those Crawford peaches- unbelievable. When I have a Fruitcake Year,all of the dried fruit is his premium select and it’s all chopped by me, by hand. This time consuming and expensive specialty is the best thing I have ever made in the kitchen; after forty years of fiddling with the recipe, its pretty dammed good. Perhaps another year I will dwell on it. For now, my focus is getting my order in for the apricots. This year, too I am haunted by a Deborah Madison’s recipe for a Persimmon Tea Bread in her book “Local Flavors”. I’ll order some dates and raisins , as per her recipe, but probably throw in some dried Crawford peaches, if they have any left, and apricots. Andy’s web site www. andysorchard.com., makes wonderful reading, as it reveals an farmer closely engaged by his orchard, committed to quality and good growing practices. If you’re even thinking about dried fruit this year, have look at his web site.

Once the fruit is ordered, I have the pleasure of turning to White Flower Farms Holiday Catalog. This is a treacherous step as everything in it is desirably and would make splendid gifts for family and friends as well as moi. For the paperwhite growers, there are plenty of choices, but what mesmerizes are those amaryllis doubles, singles, rainbows of color, huge and lush. I have gone through many white flower Christmases- when decorating my home, prefer white amaryllis, arrangements of white roses and ranaculus and pure white- not creamy- poinsettias. With twinkling votives, it’s a festive look. This year I can’t resist “Artic Nymph”, a seductive as it’s name. There are plenty of other plants, as well as exquisite holiday greens, trees, boughs and a good selection of bird feeders in the catalog.Finally, this year’s little Meyer Lemon Tree surly has my name on it. See it all at www.whiteflowerfarm.com.

I will save recipes for the Apricot-Walnut Bars, Wild Rice Salad and Mrs. Madigan’s Best Winter Gingersnaps for another posting. In the meantime, if anyone has comments with their own favorite mail order sites, please share them.

A Wonderful Pear and Almond Crumble

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

October 28, 2009

On my way to a season of Apple Cake baking, I stumbled once more into the wonderful world of the Pear Almond Crumble. This was for several, significant, reasons. Firstly , I still had the bottle of expensive, barely used eau de poire- I used Williams Chirst Pear Brandy, you know the brandy where the pear is grown in a bottle,- and when baked with fresh pears , gives off the most haunting aroma and subtle flavor. Then there was the almond paste lurking in the cupboard, along with some very fresh Penzeys Spices ginger and as always, Froghollow Apricot Conserve. Fresh flour, plenty of sugar and a freezer full of Stonywell Vanilla ice cream and it was a no brainer. But the clincher was finding aromatic, ripe pears. I used about 6 large, peeled and sliced pears, but frankly this recipe could have accommodated more.

Does anyone remember Julia Child’s recipe, not in “Mastering”, but one of the other books, which sadly I no longer seem to possess, for a simple pear crisp with some apricot jam on top with crumbled macaroons over it? I think it was one of those dinners in 30 minutes- at any rate, a simple, weeknight desert. This Pear and Almond Crumble is a simply a more sophisticated version of that,a bells and whistles cousin. Pears, unlike apples, do not require a lot of peeling, and my pears were so ripe the skin practically slid off. However, there is a point at which a pear is too ripe- it’s an intuitive thing, isn’t it- and then it’s no longer worth the effort to go into production. If the pears are fragrant and soft- not too - then it’s a good moment , and although pears may be sold all years long, they taste ineffable for only a few months. Enough said!

The Topping:

6 Tbsp. butter or non daily style butter substitute
1 cup all purpose unbleached four
good pinch of sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 to 1 tsp ground ginger depending on how strong you like the taste- I use less
a few drops of almond extract
1/2 cylinder- about three ounces of almond paste,grated on a large grater
1/2 cup slivered, toasted almonds.

For the apricot mixture:

1/4 cup- generous of Froghollow Apricot Conserve or other apricot jam
1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt
grated rind of a lemon, preferably organic

For the pears: 1-2 Tbsp. lemon juice, plus a little to keep sprinkling the pears
1- 2 Tbsp. eau de poire
6-8 large , fragrant pears- any kind, ripe but not overripe, peeled, and sliced
Penzeys Spices Vanilla Sugar

Heat oven to 400 degrees and butter an oblong glass baking dish. Grate the butter on a large grater and blend with the flour , mixed with the sugar , the ginger, the salt and the extracts using a pastry blender. Add the almonds and the almond paste, also grated with a the pastry blender and then use your hands, blending well. Be careful when toasting the almonds, they burn quickly and should just have begun to turn a caramel color when removed from the toaster oven. Mix well and put the mixture aside in the refrigerator.Don’t omit the extracts and use sea salt and real extracts for the best flavor. It’s the combination of all the little things in this pear dish that gives it the final aroma and flavor- and that means almond and vanilla extract, eau de poire, lemon juice and zest,sea salt, ginger and almond paste.

Mix the apricot conserve, vanilla, salt, sugar and lemon rind. Set aside.

Peel, core and slice the pears then turn into a bowl into which the lemon juice and eau de poire have been mixed. Add lemon juice to the pears a little at a time to keep them from browning as you peel and slice. Mix the pears well with the lemon juice mixture. Now mix in the apricot mixture until well combined. The pears are now ready to turn into the baking dish.

Remove the crumble topping from the refrigerator and spread over evenly. It’s an extra touch , but I like to sprinkle Penzeys Spices Vanilla Sugar over the top, for it’s ‘finish’. Bake for 30 minutes, then check it. The almonds can burn very quickly and ruin the desert, so I don’t leave the kitchen while this is baking. It may take another 10 minutes or so to complete, but watch carefully. I actually baked mine for 40 minutes, but had to remove a few black spots from the top. If this happens before the fruit mixture can be seen bubbling below the crumble surface, I would cover with foil to protect it.

The desert should cool for at least 15 minutes. It is like a little slice of heaven warm, with ice cream, or a non dairy vanilla product. If a butter substitute is used, it is vegan and just as delicious.

My own thought is this: if we can create something without animal products that is essentially identical to something that has them, I use the non animal products. This time I had butter, so I used it- always Organic Valley unsalted- but for crisps and crumbles, a good quality non dairy substitute, available at Whole Foods,works just as well.

Enjoy this, lovers of autumn fruits and flavors!

Apple Cakes of Fall

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

October 4, 2009

For some reason, this is the year that I am Apple Cake crazy. That is not to say I am not enamored of the ever popular apple crisp/ crumble, among the great deserts of all times. I have made one of these this year, with apples brought back to Florida, at much inconvenience , from a Labor Day weekend in St. Paul and Minneapolis. St. Paul is my favorite city because my son lives there and he very kindly drives us around all the food and flower, garden and bakery sites I can find. One of my favorite St. Paul experiences- the St. Paul Farmers Market with it’s dazzle of heirloom tomatoes, apples galore, incomparable dahlias, apple donuts, strange Humong vegetables, unusual garlic and much more. This is an irresistible market- and it is just outside James’, my son’s ,loft window.

On this visit we went to go to the Mill City Farmers Market, which we enjoyed and turned into an excursion to the Flour Museum. But this blog is about apples, and everywhere, apples are what we found.

I seemed to buy multiple variates but was quite impressed with the Golden Gingers and the Zestar’s , both of which went into the apple crisp. A wonderful find was the Apple House, sponsored by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and just around the corner from it. It is open only for apple season and they sell the variates, including unnamed ones, that are developed at the Arboretum, as well as apple gadgets and frozen pies and crisps. How nice to have an Apple House in one’s community.

At any rate, those apples disappeared before I could start on the cakes. Macintosh looked quite good in the market, so I made the recipe for “Mimi’s German Apple Cake”, p. 124 of “Rustic Fruit Deserts” by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson. It has lots of lemon rind, which gave it a wonderful flavor. The apples were a good choice as they got soft, but not mushy and kept their shape. Warm with Sonnyfield Farms Vanilla Ice Cream, the cake met criteria for simple to prepare, delivering a lot of flavor.

It was nice to have something with apple that didn’t have nuts as walnuts or pecans are such a natural pairing and a crisp without nuts doesn’t seem very crispy.

All of the recipes in “Rustic Fruit Desserts” that I have tried have been total winners.

Next on my Apple Cake list will be the recipe I found today on Zoe Bakes http://www.zoebakes.com . A Minneapolis based baker, she has the most alluring looking desserts on her web site, with good pictures and clear directions. Her apple cake has a layer of pears that I will skip, but I’ll definitely go for the Calvados Carmel topping. It’s a big ,silky looking Bundt cake- can’t wait.

The perfect apple cake seems to me like the little black (or in my case, navy) dress, the perfect pearl necklace, the perfectly cut sheath - all classics. I will continue to reflect on the Apple Cakes as I try them- if not now, in season, when?

Cherry Almond Loaf

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

September 22, 2009

This Cherry Almond Loaf is a tribute to those two bright stars of vegetarian cooking, Deborah Madison and Anne Sommerville, who both have written recipes in their cookbooks combining these sublime flavors.

This summer, my local affiliate for NPR announced one morning, that there were so many cherries on trees in Washington State, the glut was too much to pick. In short , cherries were cheap. At my local Whole Foods, large bags of bright and succulent reds were ridiculously priced. An Apricot and Cherry Crisp from earlier in the summer begged for a repeat, but apricots seemed scarce- (in Florida, in summer- what did I expect?)- and the ones that did arrive did not sing. They are not a stone fruit that holds up well to travel.

How well I remember, some 40 years ago, staying with a friend near San Francisco, whose neighbor didn’t want her smothered tree of fruiting apricots. We made a jam that went from the tree to the pot, and I have never again tasted anything like it, although Froghollow Farms Apricot Conserve comes close(http://www.froghollowfarm.com). This is a kitchen staple I would never be without and one of the secrets to the “Worth It’s Weight in Gold” Fruitcake, my consummate secret recipe.

Enough about apricots. Without them, it was cherries, cherries and cherries or nothing!

I use a lot of almond paste in baking. Including this in the Cherry Loaf seemed a good idea and supermarket almond paste has always been pretty acceptable. However, a wonderful new summer cookbook “Rustic Deserts” by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson, mentioned a source for really fresh almond paste. In fact, their web site http://wwww.mandelininc.com illustrates on it’s home page a cherry tree in blossom- you had me at hello! They grow their own almonds and manufacture their own almond paste.
Then the confusion started. What kind of of almond paste did I want? A glance at their web site shows a range of choices. When faced with this situation in , say, an electronic store (“What kind of radio do you want”?) I usually simply walk out. With Mandolin, I’m going to opt for Premium, before sampling more esoteric choices.

Back to the Cherry Loaf. Its a simple tasty loaf that would probably make equally good muffins. I topped mine with a little confectioner sugar icing of sugar , milk and a few drops of almond extract, to make it more of a cake ,then polished off the slices with tea. Here’s the recipe:

Cherry Almond Loaf Cake

1/4 cup slivered almonds, lightly toasted
2 1/2- 3 cups of washed and pitted cherries
1/4 lb stick unsalted butter, or vegetarian butter substitute
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 bar almond paste, roughly grated
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup unbleached four
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup whole organic milk
1/2 cup Sonnyfield whole milk plain yogurt

Wash and pit cherries, grate almond paste. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and lightly four a loaf pan. Toast almonds very carefully, they burn in a heartbeat.

Cream sugar and butter,add the almond paste and mix until well blended, then add eggs one at a time and add extract. Mix milk and yogurt together and add alternately with flour mixture- flour salt and baking powder - until lightly blended . Pour mixture into loaf pan and bake about 1 hour at 350 degrees. When cool, unmold from pan and ice with confectioner sugar icing if desired- 2 cups of sifted confectioners sugar with a few tablespoons milk and 1/4 tsp almond extract.

Vanilla Cake and Summer Boquets

From Cara Montgomery — Blog by Cara Montgomery

September 22, 2009

Gourmet Magazine illustrated the most beautiful vanilla cake this summer in an article title " Garden Party” in the August 2009 issue. I bought the magazine on a Friday and on Saturday evening, at a country club B- B -Q, it’s doppelganger was on the dessert buffet table; a large, rectangular white cake with vanilla frosting. Both cakes were sheet form, rather than layer cakes, emphasizing a charming homespun and informal quality. Of course, the perfect partners for this cake are bowls of fresh raspberries, or a raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream.

When I think of summer, the summers of imagination, a fragment of childhood, or of longing, I think of lakes, vanilla cakes and small summer bouquets. The lakes are based on my childhood summer home, called “The Cottage”, on Lower Straits Lake in Michigan. The house and all activities there possessed a magical energy; all summers should be composed of water ,grass and laughter.

I love to arrange flowers by season and passionately identify certain colors with times of the year. Spring is a range of pinks, very pale yellow , light violet and grass green- the idiom of tulip and daffodil. Autumn is fiery, with it’s amazing mix of rust seed heads, variegated leaves, the huge mop head dahlias in tangerine and wine, branches of purples, golds, damson, vermilion and shots of chartreuse green in shaggy “Envy” chrysanthemums. But high summer is, as Constance Spry suggest, the time for a red bouquet.

Like her, I had been no lover of red flowers until I read her chapter in “Flower Decoration” , suggesting a more original approach to them:

“A year of two ago I should have limited my appreciation of red to a few flowers dark roses roses, clear red flax and velvety-red gloxinias, and in arranging them I should have exercised care in keeping one shade of red to on one vase, and even to one room.

Now I am going to advocate an entirely revolutionary treatment of red flowers. Abandon all idea of being limited to different shades of the same colour, and mix together scarlet and crimson, vermilion, rose and magenta. All quite crude and strong shads of pink and reddish- purples , and you will achieve an effect, not harsh and clashing, but brilliant and alive. Above all things do not be sparing or afraid, and arrange four flowers so that the whole effect is of red and not red and green;in other words, keep the leaves in abeyance.”( Flower Decoration, by Constance Spry, p. 53)

Geraniums are, with roses, the archetypal red flower- easy to grow , commonly found and possessed of a tremendous red spectrum.In Florida, geranium time- horticulturly speaking, is winter. The red geraniums that can appear here in all there variety are both Zonal, with large flower heads and Vining, with flowers and stems that add a nice cascade element to an arrangement. I had acquired a collection of small colored Daum crystal vases, a rainbow of yellow, green, pink and white. Filled with mixtures of hot , clashing geraniums, as Constance Spry suggests, they are wonderfully lively and march down a a summer table with panache. And what could be simpler then a cluster of geraniums ? Although small in scale, the collective effect of the mixed reds and the vases is quite pretty.

So here is my recipe for a perfect summer: a terrace by the lake as dusk falls, with a mysterious absence of mosquitos, a table set with small bouquets of clashing, vibrant geraniums, a huge bowl of pasta with a rainbow of fresh, chopped heirloom tomatoes and red and purple basil and- yes, of course, a ridiculously large rectangular vanilla flavored and frosted cake, with bowls of raspberries and vanilla ice cream, which appear as the light fades over the water and the fireflies come out to play.