Fruit Slinger

The melons this year are running about two weeks behind. Of course, try telling them that.

They got a late start, and then a long streak of cool days. Lupe thinks the soil in their section of the field is particularly hard, too.

But we might finally have some this weekend.

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Please enjoy the following supplemental reading material:

• The first link comes from a Kickstarter contributor, to whom I am grateful. Her blog, Second Dinner, even contains a welcome to readers who click on that blog from this blog. How many blogs can you say that about? Thank you, Katya.

• TimeOut Chicago has a brilliantly conceived and executed piece written by Lisa Shames and photographed by Martha Williams. It's on semi-secret or request-only items at farmers markets. There are a few on here that I didn't know about. And a few I know about that aren't on here. (Everyone loves a coy fruit blogger, right?) Also, our farm might be on here. Or not. It's hard to say. Which farm do I work for again? (OK, now I'm starting to annoy myself.)

• Chow has an item called "Cobbler, Slump, Pandowdy, Buckle: Cook up your summer fruits and give them funny names." (Those funny names are entirely responsible for my purchase of Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More.)

• Finally, Salon has an interesting piece by Sarah Karnasiewicz on canning: money-saver or luxury craft? The answer, of course, is both. . . kind of. You should read the piece — especially before I give away the ending:

Maybe for the downsized and jobless, the appeal of all this preserving and pickling and curing is not that it's a money-saver but rather that it's a time-spender. In my new freelance life, I pass more hours in my pajamas than I'd care to admit, and have succumbed to the allure of procrastination in the shape of a canning kettle. But there's also no denying the satisfaction that comes with holding one of those hot little jars in your hand, imagining the pop of the lid and the bright memory of summer months from now. Amid whatever other uncertainties the day brings, it is a little moment that rings of the physical and the nourishing, the productive and reassuringly tangible. That story pitch I spent three hours writing this morning? I may never hear from the editor. But a jar of apricot butter? That I can hold in my hand. That I can swallow.