Another week of healthy lunches successfully negotiated. This week I made a salad that consists of chick peas, green beans, tomatoes and feta cheese. It’s dressed lightly with a red wine vinaigrette, and it’s quite tasty. I borrowed the inspiration from the nice folks at La Cuisine, where we tried some of their chick peas and feta with Friday night’s takeout. I packed our chick pea salad lunches on a bed of mixed greens and accompanied mine with a small bag of red grapes.

Tonight is tai chi, which means quick dinner — leftover corn chowder from last week, and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Over the weekend I re-potted the herbs I started from seed and set them out on the deck thinking the warmth and sunshine would accelerate their growth. As it turns out, not so much.

Last night Jim suggested that we head to the garden center this weekend and get some potted herbs — the started basil plant we bought is thriving nicely out on the observatory deck, and I think it’ll be yielding pesto before too long. What I’d really like is to have some cilantro on hand for entirely home-grown salsa later this summer — you know, when the tomato crop is in and the jalapeno plants are producing, she says optimistically — and perhaps some parsley, since I buy it at the grocery store every week anyway. Maybe some fresh rosemary would be good too. And I guess while we’re there a pot or two of cat grass would be good to have on hand.

Anyway, a trip to buy potted herbs sounds good. And it doesn’t sound like we’ve been defeated. It sounds more like we’re being practical.

Jim and I started a vegetable garden this summer. It’s our first ever. We aren’t garden people. We’re not even houseplant people. I have no idea what possessed us to embark on this little project, but it’s been fun so far (and a bit of work).

Our garden is a raised bed, 4 feet by 8 feet by 12 inches high. We figured it would be easier to do this than it would be to attempt to till the soil in our backyard. Our house and yard are set over a granite ledge, so it’s hard sometimes to dig a hole for tulip bulbs, much less dig an entire garden. We spent about $30 on the lumber for the bed, and considerably more for the 800 lbs of top soil and compost we filled it with. And that doesn’t take into account the started plants we bought.

We’re trying to keep the garden organic. Before we left for vacation, we noticed that something was snacking on the plants, so I sprayed with something called Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew. Yeah, I like it too.

Besides keeping the bugs away, vegetables need to be fertilized, and that was this evening’s project. In keeping with the organic scope of this project, I fertilized the garden with something called Neptune’s Harvest which is, as far as I can figure out, fish-in-a-blender. Yeah, somebody put fish in a Bass-O-Matic so that I might feed my tomato plants.

Last week I made my first batch of homemade granola. I’m not sure what the hell took me so long — it’s not like it’s difficult. But as it happens, the Morning Glory Farm cookbook that Jim picked up on the Vineyard had a great recipe in it. I followed it more or less faithfully the first time, although I cut it in half (and thank goodness I did, because half a recipe made more than plenty for two people for an entire week).

But this week I strayed off the beaten path. Having a recipe for something like this is a good idea because it gives you a sense of what proportions of ingredients you should have, so with that as a base, I developed this recipe. We’ll be enjoying this for breakfast this week.

Apple-Cinnamon Granola

Ingredients

• 5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 2 cups raw sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup wheat germ (I used Kretschmer’s toasted wheat germ)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbs vanilla
• 3/4 cup maple syrup (Please only use 100% maple syrup — ever. On anything.)
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup dried apples, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl except for the almonds and the dried apples.

3. Add the vanilla to the maple syrup and stir. Add maple syrup/vanilla mixture and canola oil to dry ingredients and mix thoroughly so that the syrup and oil are evenly distributed throughout the mixture. Pour into one or two roasting pans or onto two baking sheets with sides. You’ll need to be able to stir throughout the baking process, but you want the granola to be spread in a reasonably thin layer, so choose your vessels accordingly.

4. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through. Reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees and continue to bake for another hour or so, until mixture is golden brown. Stir frequently.

5. Add sliced almonds to pan, and stir thoroughly. Continue to bake for another 30 minutes. Remove pan(s) from oven and stir in apples. Cool mixture completely and then store in airtight container.

This granola is wonderful — it’s not too sweet, which I like. You can enjoy this as a cereal with milk poured on top, or you can mix it with yogurt. We’ve been enjoying ours with yogurt and fresh fruit, and of course it makes a nice snack for eating out of hand.

Variations on a theme: The wonderful thing about a basic granola recipe is that you can make whatever kind of granola suits your fancy. Substitute whatever kind of seeds and nuts you like, or add them in addition to what’s here. Just try to keep the proportions the same (you want more oats than anything else). Use whatever kind of nuts and dried fruits you like. Omit the cinnamon. Think of other things to add. Enjoy.

Today’s Dining & Wine section is all about the drink, primarily summer drinks (and it includes the kick-ass graphic I reproduce here).

While we were on vacation, Bryan made mojitos from scratch, using fresh mint and homemade simple syrup. I’d tried restaurant mojitos and mojitos from a mix, but this was the first one I really enjoyed — it was minty and refreshing without being cloyingly sweet. The article has a lot of good tips in it (and a few recipes) for nice things to drink when the weather’s hot, and since we’re without AC for the foreseeable future, I’m probably going to want a bunch of these in my Friday evening repertoire. I especially like the rickey recipe for its simplicity, and am intrigued by the idea of using fresh chilies in summer drinks.

Here’s hoping that the weather does warm up a bit and the sun comes out, because we’ve got several jalapeno plants (and one habanero) that would probably do a bit better if they thought it was actually summer. A few of them may well turn up at cocktail hour later on this season.

Last week’s vacation has led to this week’s inspiration.

Jim bought a copy of the Morning Glory Farm cookbook while we were on the Vineyard, and it provided me with some inspiration for this week’s meal planning. I’m on a campaign to get both of us to eat better more consistently — better breakfasts and lunches more specifically, because our dinners are already well-balanced (and good). So since I had today off, I made the following: homemade granola, a lovely chicken salad with celery, red pepper strips, and walnuts, and the best corn muffins ever (with fresh corn in them — so good).

In the fridge there’s plain yogurt and lots of fresh fruit, so between that and the granola and muffins, breakfasts will be taken care of. I’ve already packed chicken salad (and some cherry tomatoes and baby carrots) for lunch, along with little bags of fresh cherries. We’re off to a pretty good start. I wish I could have a day like this every single week.

A vacation without some memorable food experiences isn’t much of a trip. We have some favorite places we like to visit every year, and this year we expanded our horizons a bit. In no particular order, these are some of the edible moments I loved about this trip:

• The clam chowder at The Net Result in Vineyard Haven.
• The zucchini ravioli at Lattanzi’s Pizzeria in Edgartown.
• The chiles rellenos in Oak Bluffs at Zapotec.
• The fried seafood and clam chowder from The Bite in Menemsha.
• The ribs at Smoke ‘n’ Bones in Oak Bluffs.
• The superb meal we enjoyed at The Oyster Bar Grill on our last night, also in Oak Bluffs.

There’s more to talk about, and I’ll be writing some more on this in the next few days.

One of the good things about vacation is the lack of rules. Food rules vanish in an anarchic haze.

This morning we feasted on banana bread, croissants, muffins, and apple fritters. The coffee was ground from fresh beans. After a morning of reading and chatting, we wandered into Vineyard Haven for some shopping. I bought an amazing bottle of 18-year-old balsamic vinegar imported from Italy.

When we got home we opened a bottle of sparkling wine and enjoyed it with some Boursin cheese and crackers. Tonight we’re heading to Edgartown for some casual Italian food.

I love vacation.

Down to the wire, and I really had nothing left in the house to cook. While doing errands this afternoon, I picked up a lovely bunch of broccolini at the supermarket, and on the way home from work we stopped at the fish market and brought home a nice piece of Atlantic salmon.

So dinner: salmon, brushed lightly with melted butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dill weed, and then roasted in a 425 degree oven for approximately 15 minutes. The broccolini was cooked the only way I ever cook it, which is to say I sauteed it in a wee bit of olive oil, along with some thinly sliced garlic. I cook the broccolini until it begins to caramelize a bit, and oh, yum. There were some ciabatta rolls in the freezer, so out came a couple, which I thawed and then heated in the oven for a few minutes.

Washed it all down with some Sam. Vacation, here we come.

I’ve been cooking on the same solid set of Farberware pots and pans for 34 years now. My mother-in-law gave them to me as a bridal shower gift, and they’ve seen heavy use over the years.

They’ve really served me well, and they’re finally, after countless meals, showing signs of their age (unlike myself, of course). So one day, when I have a thousand bucks just kicking around my wallet, I want these.