In yesterday’s post, I complained, a little, about the cool weather we’ve had in the past week or so. Perhaps the weather gods heard me because yesterday was a sizzler, too hot even for me, and by 4:00 in the afternoon, all I could do was lounge on the patio and read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. In between reading about Margaret Hale, the snooty young woman from the south of England who goes to live in the dirty, industrial north, I watched for hummingbirds at the feeders. There were none, and it is possible that they have begun their long migration south. No more whizzing of fast-beating wings, no more zipping of iridescent bodies until next summer, and I am always sorry when these ethereal birds are gone.

Luckily, given my propensity for lounging and reading, I had made dinner earlier in the afternoon. My tomato plants—Juliette—did not do as well this year as they have in the past. Too gray and rainy for too long. But I have gotten some to eat with my lunch, and yesterday, I even had enough to make a very small batch of sauce. I washed the tomatoes, dried them, and cut them in half. I tossed them into a bowl with some olive oil and some salt and pepper. Then, I spread them in a 9 x 12 and sprinkled oregano on them. I roasted them at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, until they were very soft and a little brown around the edges. When they had cooled, I blended them in the food processor.

In my vegetable bin, I had lots of good things from Farmer Kev to use in the sauce. Item: one small summer squash. Item: one large clove of garlic. Item: one small yellow pepper. I chopped the pepper and the squash and sautéed them with a tablespoon or so of oil in a small skillet. When they were done, I added the garlic and sautéed this for about 30 seconds. Then I poured the sauce over the vegetables. The sauce seemed a little thick, so I thinned it with a bit of water. I tasted the sauce, and it was certainly good as it was—to me, nothing beats the taste of sauce made with roasted tomatoes—but I had a couple of leftover hamburg patties, and I crumbled them into the skillet. I covered the skillet, and let the sauce simmer for about 45 minutes. Another taste, and I seasoned with salt and pepper.

Clif and I had the sauce over penne, and we had just finished when lightening began to flash and thunder began to boom. As the rain started to pelt down, I called for the black and white cat, and compact and purposeful, she bolted into the house. Just in time. Hail pelted against the windows, and our power went out, not to come on until 5:30 the next morning. But cats, the dog, and people were snug inside as the rain poured down.

I thought of the people repairing the lines in this fierce storm, and I felt thankful for their steadfastness and hardiness. The power seldom goes out when the weather is good. For us, the loss of power is inconvenient. For those who work on the lines, it is a test of stamina and even bravery. (Would you want to be out in a storm messing around with power lines?)

Anyway, just figured it was time to give credit and thanks to where it was due.

Mid-September is upon us, and Clif and I are thinking about putting up the screens and pulling down the storm windows. Already, we’ve been spot heating, something you can do easily with electric heat, one of our heat sources. Summer is pretty much over, and my lunches on the patio are numbered. I’ve resigned myself to a cold house and colder weather. After all, I live in Maine, not San Diego. I know I need to buck up and bundle up, which I am doing.

Still, despite the colder weather, there are many things to look forward to in September and October: weekend bike rides if the weather allows; apples and apple pie, which I love to make; walks on the beach when we visit Shannon and Mike in South Portland; tomatoes (more about them later); and more time to read Victorian novels.

Not long ago, a friend and I decided to form a Victorian book club of two via email. (My friend lives out of state, and we met at a Franco artists gathering, where we discovered we both loved Dickens.) We started with Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, which I thought was brilliant. Hardy took a hard, deeply flawed man—the mayor—and made him so sympathetic that I actually cried at the end. We are now reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, which is not as well written as The Mayor, but is still very much worth reading. Again, Margaret, the main character, is flawed—although not as deeply as the mayor—-and like the mayor she is achingly human and therefore a sympathetic character. Next we will be reading The Warden by Anthony Trollope, and I am looking forward to this. Those Victorians knew how to tell a ripping good story that encourages a reader to read on and on when really she should be doing other things such as yard work, housework, or her own writing. At the same time, the Victorian novelists had something to say, larger points to make along with their ripping good stories, and modern writers certainly could learn some things—pacing and compelling characters—from the Victorians.

Now back to tomatoes. The tomatoes, which were in the doldrums because of the cool, rainy weather we had this summer, have now come into their own, and this is definitely a case of better late than never. Oh, how I love tomatoes, and every day I have one along with whatever else I am eating for lunch. Winter tomatoes are not very good, and I am gorging on fresh tomatoes now while I can.

Yesterday, as I was perusing a few recipes on Yahoo, I came across a simple suggestion for using tomatoes, so simple that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself as it combines some of my favorite things. In fact, this recipe is so basic that it would make Michael Pollan, that advocate of simple eating, whoop with joy. As the title of this post suggests, this recipe includes a chopped hard-cooked egg, a chopped tomato (half or so of a small one), a splash or two of olive oil, and salt and pepper. Combine everything in a bowl and use the mixture on top of either toasted pita or toasted bread.

After reading this suggestion, I decided to make it for my lunch, and the results were so good that I will be making it not only today but throughout the month, as long as there are fresh tomatoes.

Apples, fresh tomatoes, and Victorian novels all come together to take the sting out of fall and encroaching winter.

After the feast we had on Saturday to celebrate Shannon and Mike’s wedding anniversary, Clif and I had leftover steak, potatoes, and corn on the cob. We have always been a family that has eaten leftovers. I get extremely irritated when something gets pushed to the back of the refrigerator, and I recoil in horror at what I see when I open the container. Throwing food away seems just plain wrong—a waste of money and a waste of resources.

However, it’s one thing to gamely eat what’s left in the refrigerator and have your husband say, “Well, that wasn’t too bad,” and quite another thing to eat with gusto and hear your (Yankee) husband say, “Pretty darned good.”

With the steak, potatoes, and corn, I was aiming for “pretty darned good.” After all, they were more than pretty darned good the night before when they were freshly cooked and served. All Sunday, off and on, I thought about what to do with those leftovers, and what came to me was some kind of simple cold salad with the addition of roasted garlic and olive oil.

Therefore, when evening came, I dry roasted a clove of garlic, let it cool, and minced it. I chopped the potatoes and the steak, stripped the corn from an ear of corn, and tossed everything in a big bowl. I added the garlic, a generous splash of olive oil, and salt and pepper. How did it taste? Not too bad but not pretty darned good. It needed something else to give it a little pizzazz. Balsamic vinegar, I decided, and that did the trick.

As the evening was lovely and warm, Clif and I ate on the patio. We listened to Talking Heads, and behind them, in a chorus, crickets added their lovely high voices. We had rum and Coke and toasted the end of summer. Clif’s verdict? Not only did he pronounce the meal “pretty darned good” but also good enough to make on its own.

Now that’s what I call success.