Homage To Summer Tomatoes

Holding on for dear life to the end of summer?

Sure, summer is officially over. Fall is settling in and It won’t be long till the bounty of summer tomatoes is gone until next year. Don’t miss their last hurrah. Accordingly, in a rare burst of energy, and with a surfeit of late summer produce from the farmers market, I made dinner last night. I fixed this dish as an homage to the fleeting season, I pass it along as my contribution to your weekend happiness and well being.

Summer Tomato Zucchini Halloumi Bake

I think the last time I made this concoction was when I originally posted it back in 2020, there had been much water over the dam since then. It’s got a lot of ingredients but none of them require much prep and the cooking is simple. I seldom have the energy to do much of anything let alone cook so if I can do it you can do it. Trust me on this, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.

So if you find yourself lucky enough to have a lot of tomatoes and zucchini I highly recommend you throw this together.

Be sure to toast some good bread to soak up the succulent juices. The recipe makes a lot so you can freeze half of it to enjoy on a cold winter evening when you’re feeling lazy but most likely you’ll eat it all before it ever sees the freezer.

Recipe and notes:

Summer Tomato Zucchini Halloumi Bake

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pound ground spicy sausage  - I’ve used Italian sausage in the past but only had Bob Evans breakfast sausage this time and used it with some red pepper flakes. I might like it even better.
• 1 small sweet onion, diced
• 2 medium zucchini, thinly sliced into rounds
• 4-5 medium heirloom tomatoes or regular, roughly chopped  (big chunks work well, skin and all)
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• kosher salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup red wine  (I only had white)
• 1-2 large handfuls fresh baby spinach  (or more, it shrinks a lot)
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped
• 1 block halloumi cheese, sliced  - you can use fresh mozzarella and it will be fine but halloumi is especially good and elevates it to another level
• 1 cup heirloom or regular cherry tomatoes
• toasted ciabatta bread, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Heat a large, oven safe skillet over medium high heat. Add the sausage and onion and cook until the sausage is browned all over, about 8 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook 2-3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and any juices left on the cutting board. Add the paprika and season generously with salt and pepper. Stir in the wine. Add the spinach, cover and simmer 5-10 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft and have released their juices. Stir in the basil. (I add the spinach and basil after the tomatoes cooked  down as it only takes a minute or so)

3. Arrange the halloumi in an even layer over the sauce. (I put mine in individual casseroles) Sprinkle the cherry tomatoes over top and transfer to the oven. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is golden and the sauce has thickened slightly. Serve warm topped with fresh basil and toast for dipping.

You will have all next week to enjoy righteous retribution. For now, slow down and smell the tomatoes.

We’ll Take It From Here

The world is too much with us  - William Wordsworth

RIP Charlie

If asked what I miss most about my youth my response is the optimism. It’s easy to be unwaveringly upbeat before life and experience have beaten you down repeatedly. Life’s successes,victories, achievements and joys are tempered by disappointments, defeats, heartbreaks and losses. It’s a rare individual that arrives at their septuagenarian years without some degree of cynicism and some loss of optimism.

Before you know it it’s the autumn of your life.

Optimism alludes us when our time allotment is running out and days and opportunities are limited. And then along comes a Charlie Kirk. He was the epitome of optimistic: an intelligent, fearless, charismatic man who would take on all comers willing to participate in civil discourse. He routinely beat the left ideologues, who couldn’t win an argument in an empty room, with rationality, logic and good humor while they resorted to canned responses and ad hominem attacks. 

Thank you Charlie, for restoring my faith in the upcoming generations and returning optimism to this world weary soul and many like me.

Rest well good and faithful servant, we’ll take it from here.

Charlie, How We Will Miss You

I’m so old I remember when college campuses were considered safe harbors for intellectual debates over controversial subjects. Disagreement was not only tolerated, it was expected. Even unpopular ideas were analyzed and argued with out fear of retribution. Free speech was understood to be a right and a privilege practiced by student and faculty alike.

Fifty years hence anyone on campus who doesn’t strictly adhere to the left’s orthodoxy is ridiculed, shouted down or canceled. Academic freedom, open discourse and institutional neutrality are concepts that once were admired but now receive lip service at best.

Charlie Kirk tried to change that; he tried to get people to engage their brains to question and think about critical issues. The left’s dogma does not hold up to this standard and as always, when they can’t win the debate they must silence the debater.

Charlie once said he wanted to be the Rush Limbaugh of his generation; that he was, briefly. God sent us Charlie Kirk to continue and enhance Rush’s message. Trust He will send someone to fill Charlie’s shoes as well, possibly thousands of them.

Defending the Indefensible

George Orwell

Only a master class troller can get the left to defend so many indefensible positions so often for so long. They have so much hate they’ve lost touch with reality .

…Trump is once again baiting his political opponents into defending the indefensible. He has a singular talent for making the Left clutch onto wildly unpopular positions and take the wrong side of clear 80-20 issues. It's political jiu-jitsu at its finest…

        Trump knows that when he floats these proposals, Democrats and their corporate media allies won't respond with nuance. They'll respond with knee-jerk outrage -- just as they did in 2020, when Trump sent federal agents to Portland to stop violent anarchists from torching courthouses. The media framed it as martial law; sane Oregonians saw it as basic governance…

        This dynamic plays out again and again. When Trump highlights the border crisis and the need to deport unsavory figures like Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Democrats defend open borders. When Trump attacks gender ideology indoctrination in schools, Democrats double down on letting teachers hide children's "transitions" from their parents. When Trump condemns pro-Hamas rioters in American cities, Democrats can't bring themselves to say a word of support for Israel's war against a U.S. State Department-recognized foreign terrorist organization. When Trump signs an executive order seeking to partially recriminalize flag burning, Democrats defend flag burning.

Call it the art of the 80-20 issue. Along with his sheer sense of humor, Trump's instinctual knack for picking such winning battles is one of his greatest political assets. And this time, the winner won't just be Trump himself -- it will be Chicagoans and Baltimoreans as well.

 

Labor Day 2025

Put away those white shoes and slacks and get your mukluks out, as we’re headed in that direction.

Very busy here as we’re down to our last few days before departing for Michigan. So chat away and enjoy your Labor Day!

Bring A Fork To A Knife Fight

The August heat, the political hypocrisy, journalistic dishonesty - is anyone else feeling a bit stabby these days?

If so, I have the perfect tool kit for you.

Practical, portable, legal (for now) and effective. Just use judiciously.

Set also doubles as a useful picnic accessory. And since summer is regrettably – for some of us – coming to an end that could be a good thing.

So stick your feet in the sand, your stablery into some melon or potato salad, your scooplery into a big bowl of ice cream and watch your anxiety and agitation melt away. Summer’s too short to go without the essential utensils.

Too Many Idiots, Not Enough Dignity

Although a lot of the therapeutic effect has been negated by the constant liberal outrage performers ala the Sydney Sweeny eugenics “controversy”  the outrage culture has devalued a scream to the point it isn’t worth more than a Biden buck.

As Marshall McLuhan noted decades ago “moral indignation is a technique used to endow an idiot with dignity.”

I would like to report it’s no longer working.

The vegetables are oppressing me!

And it’s all Trump’s fault; he’s trying to squelch our freedom of speech, put minorities back into a racial caste system and destroy the pillars of democracy. The Nazi!

Stay Resilient And May You Stay Forever Young

Whelp, it’s time to visit our Western bunker. Well past time actually, we haven’t been back since April of ‘22. Yep, 3+ years – for many reasons, all related to cancer. I finally feel strong enough (I think) to make the trip and deal with the physical and emotional trepidation. So, we’ll be in Park City for the next few weeks. It’s glorious this time of year with warm days and cool nights and very little rain. That part will be grand.

My apprehension revolves around all the maintenance and repair projects that we know about - and who knows what we don’t – combined with my inability to do much of anything. We hired a very reliable neighbor to check in on the  house every week so it’s not as if it’s been totally ignored, which is fortunate as he discovered the furnace not running on one visit in the middle of winter. I shudder to think of what would have happened had he not checked at the right time. Still, the “to do” list is long’ and much of what has to be done must be contracted out, as old age, old joints, old vertebrae and poor health change everything, as many of you know. It’s hard to swallow as it seems we were able to do almost everything ourselves just yesterday.

Such is life. We will be busy with contractors for everything from window washing to major stucco repair. Plus we need to meet with some realtors to find out what’s involved in proceeding with a sale, another daunting job as we have had this home for 25 years and now have nearly as much “stuff” here as we do in Michigan. It will be a long process.

Anyway wish us well, we will be busy and time will go fast. I know there’s only so much that can be accomplished, especially on my part, in such a short time period but you have to start somewhere. This is just the first of many trips to get things in hand and I’m very grateful to finally be well enough to begin the process.

As they say, “life comes at you fast.”

Be prepared. Stay resilient my friends.

And may you stay, as America’s best minstrel wishes, Forever Young.

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young
May you stay forever young