We just got back from the Lobster Shack. We knew that they’d be closing after Columbus Day, so this was our window of opportunity.

Lobster rolls are a quintessential summer food. Sure, I could get a lobster roll in any of a dozen seafood shacks hereabouts any time of the year, but they’re just not the same thing. In much the same way that I like to cook turkey only at Thanksgiving, I like to eat lobster rolls only in the summer (okay, this is early autumn, but you get the point).

As is often the case with things that are truly sublime, simplicity is the key here. Lobster meat, butter, a toasted split-top hot dog bun. Perhaps the faintest splash of fresh lemon juice. That’s all there is.

And now that it’s over for the season, we’ll turn our appetites toward heartier fare. I’ll keep an eye on the calendar come spring, though.

Life has conspired to keep me from updating for a while: we’ve had a hospitalized cat, we ran to NY on a work night for a concert (and paid for it the next day in lost sleep), and have been beset by other sundry details of living. My weekly menu planning has become slightly disorganized — we’re eating, and we’re eating well, just not as predictably. Nonetheless, we’ve managed to keep tabs on the garden, which is in its full-blown August fury of overgrowth and bounty.

Some of the week’s highlights include: eating the first tomatoes from the garden (delicious, in a light salad with fresh mozzarella, a sprinkling of olive oil, and the barest touch of salt and freshly ground pepper), we have harvested (but not yet eaten) four gorgeous zucchini (one more to come inside today), and the jalapenos look like they’ll be ready for picking within a few days. A week or so of hot, sunny weather has caused things to riot in the garden (although, sadly, still nothing that looks like an eggplant). Oh, and there are bell peppers beginning to grow, too.

When we were in NY on Monday, we stopped for dinner at P.D. O’Hurley’s, an Irish-type pub on the upper west side not far from the Beacon Theatre (our eventual destination). We’ve been there before and the food is decent and reasonably priced. Jim ordered a piece of banoffee pie for dessert. We had no idea what it was before he asked the waitress for details, and we thought it sounded good. Good doesn’t really begin to describe it. I’m making one today. Will report later. For now, there are two unopened cans of sweetened condenesed milk simmering in a pot of water on my stove top. That sounds crazy even to me.

I don’t plan on making a habit of posting non-food-related content here, but this was so breathtaking it needed a place to go.

Last night we had our first tai chi class at Someday Farm. The farm is beautiful and offers a great big view of the sky from a large field adjacent to the house. Anyway, we arrived shortly before 7:30, on the heels of a fast-moving storm. In the sky above the field we caught this spectacular double rainbow:

I can’t remember ever having seen a double one before (the one on the left is quite a bit fainter than the one on the right, which was truly spectacular). It was a nice prelude to an otherwise wonderful evening.