There is no central theme to tonight’s post. It covers a wide range of topics, consistent with the diversity of my scattered activities right now, and all is amplified by the knowledge that I have not written anything here for nearly two months.

Let’s begin with a recipe my wife learned from the Library Cookbook Club. It was called Village-Style Carrots with Potatoes and Peas, a name that makes it very easy to decide if you want to make it, and if so, to prepare the dish for the table..

You probably did not start to read this blog with the intention of making a vegan dish from the north of India, but now that you are. here and into it, I suspect you will find it to be quite a pleasant alternative for a summer meal. You may notice a few changes scribbled in by my wife, since she does not tolerate spices very well, and these are her reductions for the first time she made it.

Now, without any sort of transition at all, we move to the garden, so I can show you the vivid blue hydrangeas which are enjoying the hot and humid weather here in New England.

There are many white ones as well to provide contrast, but we particularly enjoy the blue ones. That may be true because I have been throwing out my coffee grinds on ground by these flowers — on the myth or reality that the flowers thrive from the acidic waste. In any case it livens up my daily composting chores.

We return now to food again, with a very short story about a late night snack. I was hungry at midnight recently, so I rummaged around the refrigerator in search of leftovers I could turn into something delicious. A couple of slices of my sourdough provided a good base. Two items remaining from recent dinners intrigued me: parsnip purée and a little homemade tapenade. Putting them together on top of the sourdough turned out to be superb. The parsnips were sweet, creamy, and smooth; the olives and anchovy in the tapenade provided some oomph and color, so we had a winner! I intend to save the idea for future appetizers, when I can use it as an unusual bruschetta,

We close my meanderings tonight with another of my iconic beet salads. As usual, it was created on the fly. It featured 14 different ingredients. It was vegetarian, and it was delicious.