The tomolives and tomatilla salsa are going to have to wait. I rushed in to my neighborhood Whole Foods yesterday just to pick up some flour but ran smack into a display of Key limes. I love, love, love limes and Key limes in particular and restrained myself by buying only one bag (although I'm thinking I'll go back for more). I juiced the limes last night while watching the Philadelphia Eagles lose to the Baltimore Ravens, a game in which both teams displayed rampant mediocrity. (As an aside: Yay! Football season is here! Go Bills!)

Anyway, I'm saving the juice to make Key Lime Pie and just a few minutes ago whizzed up the rinds in my food processor. These are now marinating in salt (Fleur de Sel, specifically) and tomorrow while become some lime chutney. My plan is to cook up the salted, minced rinds with some vinegar, golden raisons and cherries (stolen from my son's snack bin) and dark brown sugar. This sounds to me like it will be pretty delicious and easy to do. Since I am rapidly approaching exam week, and my quantitative methods exam is promising to be a killer, easy is what I'm looking for.

Did you ever have Key Lime Pie on a Stick? It's quite amazing - a wedge of pie on a stick and covered in chocolate. The play of flavors and textures is really neat and one of those things that, while you might think it initially strange, you wind up thinking about all the time. I haven't been to the Keys in four years, but I'd go back in a heartbeat if I was promised some Key Lime Pie on a Stick. While I was there, I'd be sure to visit Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden which is always in danger of being razed for a parking lot, condos or some such developmental monstrosity. Nancy and her friends have collected an astonishing array of amazing plants and they have cool birds, too, just lounging about.

The Key limes I bought were grown in Mexico. I don't think Key limes are actually grown in the Keys any more. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure I want to find out. Usually when I hear the story behind why some item is no longer produced in the area to which it is/was native, I end up very sad. It's usually a story of greed, overdevelopment, staggeringly bad weather or some combination of all three. Still, the limes I bought looked healthy and smelled incredible so perhaps it's not a horrible story, after all. A girl can hope.

In addition to chutney and pie, one can also make Caipirinhas with limes. Caipirinhas are a wonderful, refreshing cocktail made with limes, sugar, and, in Pennsylvania (home of draconian liquor control policies that outlaw the purchase of any item not on an official "o.k." list), vodka. I was introduced to Caipirinhas by Luciana, a young Brazilian woman living with us as an exchange student and au pair. In addition to her sense of humor, intelligence, good nature and love of children, she has brought to our household the Caipirinhas and we will forever be grateful. There are variations which, instead of limes, use mangos, pineapples or other fruits. On a hot summer night, I can't imagine anything better than a Caipirinha in one hand, a pitcher full on the table and a house full of friends with whom to share.

Must run. The banana bread is just about to come out of the oven. We had a bunch of really, really ripe bananas that I refused to waste. The answer, of course, is banana bread. The house smells incredible and I'm looking forward to that first slice to have with a cup of tea. It's a quiet day here today and that seems like just the thing.

I went to visit my friend Anna and her new baby yesterday. It's funny that although I know a newborn will be small, I'm always suprised that they're small. This baby is now, at about two weeks old, not quite as big as my son was at birth. So, in a real sense, I don't remember my son being so small because I hadn't met him yet. I really don't have a lot of clear memories of those initial postpartum weeks and the squirmy, squeaky infant that relied on me for so very much. Now my "baby" is almost two and sitting next to me playing Duplos with his dad and saying things like, "Here ya go!" and "Cool!" In a blink of an eye the baby I met yesterday will be doing those same things and his mom will get misty remembering his first days. But for now he's small and squeaky and just adorable.

In addition to a couple rompers (sized 12 and 18 months - any parent will tell you that kids grow fast and will need these sizes before you know it) I took over a half pint of mango jam and a pint of strawberry sauce. Anna seemed pleased - I'll have to remember to remind her that this is my first year canning, just in case. Even though I specifically started canning as a way of sharing my love of life and food with my friends and family, I really had to talk myself into taking those jars over. I guess it's a sort of "having your cake" problem. If you start giving it away, then you don't have it to give. To paraphrase the old commercial, "Don't worry, I'll make more." I'm going to get on that right away because when I opened the pantry this morning to make the baby's (uh, I mean "my son's) breakfast, the two spaces where the jars had been seemed gaping. It's becoming clear to me that I'm a full-pantry kind of girl. So maybe there'll be more mango jam coming soon, if I can get a good price.

The tomatoes canned up well, as I knew they would. They're very reliable, but not too heroic. One doesn't get the feeling of having produced something really amazing like I did with the cranberry chutney. Still, I know they'll be useful to have around and will get us through more than one night when no one wants to fuss for dinner and going out is too much of a bother. So now that I've produced something so pedestrian, I'm on the prowl for a really sexy canning recipe.

More and more I'm having the feeling that I'll end up doing tomolives. My friend Jen loves these, and I suspect they'd be great in a martini. They're small green olives that are pickled kind of like an olive, hence the name. Since I have a couple tomato plants that are about to kick the bucket, tomolives could be just the thing to keep from wasting all the fruit that doesn't ripen. I think Jen would be pleased to get a couple of jars of homemade tomolives. Then again, I think her husband usually gives her a jar in her Christmas stocking and I wouldn't want to stomp all over his tradition.

Tonight the baby (scratch that, I mean my son), friend Kelly and I are heading out to our CSA for a summer social after spending some time swimming at her dad's house. The farm has asked everyone to bring a dish to share and I made a beet risotto. It looks kind of, well, fuschia, and at first I didn't like it. After a couple bites it grew on me, though. Just goes to show you that sometimes you have to keep trying things even after you think they're not for you. You'd think as a grown up, I'd know this by now. In case you want to make it, here's the recipe:

two or three beets, scrubbed and diced

two shallots, peeled and diced

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup arborio rice

1 cup of dry white wine

5-6 cups of warm vegetable or chicken stock

1 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese (not from a can!)

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the butter and oil together in a wide, shallow pan over medium heat until blended. Add the shallots and saute until translucent. Add the rice and stir so that the rice is coated with the fat. Add the beets and stir to blend with the rice. Stir in the wine and continue stirring until the wine is mostly evaporated. Add the stock, one cup at a time, stirring until nearly evaporated. After the last cup has been added, taste a grain of rice to test tenderness. The rice should be firm, but have some give. If the rice is still hard, add some more stock, wine or warm water. When the rice is done, the grains should be distinct, but bound together in a starchy "sauce." Stir in the cheese and rosemary. Taste and correct seasonings with salt and pepper. The beets will be tended, but still somewhat crunchy. The dish will be very, very red!

The cranberry chutney turned out great. Sweet, sour, citrusy and smooth all at once. Everything a chutney should be. I want to make more chutney and might try next with a recipe from one of Laurie Colwin's food books. Notice I don't say "cookbooks." Laurie Colwin wrote about food in all of its aspects, not just actually making it. Anyone interested in shopping for, preparing, enjoying, serving or just generally being around food should check out her books "Home Cooking" and "More Home Cooking." .

After chutney day, I realized that I had an abundance of tomatoes and decided to do crushed tomatoes next. I use a ton of crushed tomatoes (in chili, "Mexican" rice, vegetable stews, toppings for couscous, pizza, and so much more) so I thought that tomatoes would be a logical next thing to try. I remember my mom canning jar after jar of tomatoes and how messy the kitchen would be. The thing is, I know this is a false memory. My mother is a fastidious person and would not tolerate a mess on the part of the tomatoes. They simply wouldn't dare to be anything less than tidy. In my kitchen, though, all bets were off and there were tomatoes everywhere.

I had a bunch to process because, in addition to joining a CSA this year, we planted six tomato plants which have proven to be a study in victory over neglect. We seriously have not done a single good think to these planst except for maybe watering now and again and we have dozens and dozens of tomatoes. The CSA has sent home probably about another dozen or so. Since we simply could not eat them all the way I really prefer (just sliced and topped with a little parmesan), they had to be canned. Strictly speaking, they're not the "right" kind of tomatoes for canning. These are regular slicing tomatoes and all of the books specifically say to get the plum type since they are meatier and have fewer seeds. Well, bully for them. I don't have plum tomatoes, I have slicing tomatoes so that's what I'm going to use. So far, I've done the following:

1) Dip tomatoes into boiling water for 30-60 seconds, or until the skins split.

2) Dip hot tomatoes into cold water and slip the skins off (you know, I never knew what that meant until the other day. The skins really do slip right off as if the tomato had just been trying on a sweater. Strange.)

3) Put all of the peeled tomatoes into a big pot and smash, smash, smash them.

4) Refrigerate pot of tomatoes until after Wednesday night's Linear Programming class, when you can process them.

So this is where I am in the whole tomato experiment. I figure a little lemon juice and kosher salt, along with about an hour on Wednesday night should get me a couple of pints of crushed tomatoes. Once I figure out how I'm going to finish the whole business I'll let you know.

The CSA, in addition to providing such wonderful slicing/canning tomatoes, has also sent home a few dozen cherry and grape tomatoes in yellow and red. These, I'm not ashamed to say, I did not share with anyone else in the house. I sliced them, drizzled them with a bit of Chaivetta's Italian Dressing (which, although not available in most of the country, is worth ordering - it is hands down the best herby/spicy "Italian" dressing I have ever had - plus, if you buy it you'll be supporting a small business in the face of increased standardization in our food supply). A sprinkle of pepper feta and a few pine nuts later and I was in tomato heaven.