This is the time of the year when old friends come to the Cape on vacation.  Yesterday afternoon I spent with my BFF Elise, whom I’ll also see this evening.  I made her a lunch of our tomatoes vinaigrette [mix of red, yellow, dark crimson and pink] and an Italian tuna cannellini dish. Madeleines my neighbor baked for dessert – after all I live on Swann’s Way. It has been hot and then it rained rather violently, and now it’s hot again.  Hot and humid. I no longer endure heat as well as I did when I was younger.  I weeded the herb garden for a while this morning and just about melted.  Tomorrow I hope it’ll be cooler, but especially drier.  I started a number of fall cole crops inside some weeks ago – brocolli, bok choi, radicchio, two kinds of cabbage.  Also cilantro and Genovese basil.  I start cilantro in the spring but it never lasts all summer.  Like dill and chervil, I need to start it a second time to have enough. I did some minor revising on my novel ms. and wrote a Rosh Hashonah poem.  It’s coming so early this year.  I hate when it’s right after Labor Day.  Gives me no time to do the selfscrutiny that’s needful.  Also where the local havurah holds High Holiday services is not airconditioned, and when it’s hot, it’s almost unbearable in there with the building crammed full. We canned eight pints of Italian tomato sauce. I can’t stand canned sauce from the supermarket. Tastes tinny to me.  Last year was an incredible tomato year and we still have some sauces and canned tomatoes left over.  I have to count them tomorrow to judge how many more we need to can of what kind [I can three kinds] to get us through to the 2014 tomato season.  I froze beet greens [we harvested our last beets] and peppers, sweet and hot.  I’m basically a farm wife this season. Another friend called me while I was out in the garden this morning; I’m waiting for her to all back so we can set a time to get together while she’s in Wellfleet.  Two other good friends are coming for a vacation next weekend and we’re having them to supper.  I’ve known all three of them since the late 60’s in the anti-war movement.  Stayed friends ever since, even when they were underground. Woody and I are joining a board that will try to organize and fundraise for Outer Cape Health to build a full facility in Wellfleet. The Cape Cod Hospital is opposed, but if you have a stroke, as my mother and brother died from, you can’t get to the hospital from here in time for the best results.  It’s just too far on only one highway mostly two lane and always crowded much of the year, traffic often backed up.  There is an aged population here and we need local facilities that don’t take an hour to reach. I’m giving time to three organizations and Woody to two.  Probably I’m a little overextended, but all three are important.  Better to be too busy than too idle. I have been searching out eggplant recipes almost daily.  We had a big harvest of Oriental eggplants and now without the Orientals slowing down at all, we are getting many Italian eggplants – the bigger pear shaped ones. The Orientals are long and skinny.  Each kind is good for different recipes.  I just finished off black currant vinegar, one of my favorites, and ginger-garlic-cilantro vinegar.  I started that last month before the cilantro bolted and died.  Today or tomorrow I have to make tarragon vinegar – I make that on white rather than red wine vinegar. It’s that season when everything comes tumbling out of the garden and overwhelms us. You should see our diningroom.  There are four huge platters of tomatoes waiting to become something.  I just have to figure out what.