Summer is coming to an end. I'm trying not to think about it
because it makes me melancholic. I'm summer's child and there is something special for me about this season, about the long days, warm nights. Something that reminds me of the sea, of family, of childhood. I could not imagine summer without going back home. But all things come to an end, leaving us with precious memories, some of which i will share with you today. Let this be a summer farewell post.
The summer had been dry but olives have persisted. I brought to Paris a bottle of last year's homemade olive oil, thick and green, just as it's suppossed to be.
Part of the old olive stone mill.
Late summer is time to pick pomegranat fruit. There are a couple of pomegranate trees in our uncle's house just across the street. They're usually not ripe enough in the beginning of August. Years ago, in September, already back in the capital we used to wait for a package from the island with one or two ripe pomegranate fruits lying in the bottom of the opened box.
Sometimes a "package" like this one still awaits us on our table in the morning.
Before leaving the coastal region, a wise thing to do is to take some of the herbes and spices typical for the region and the climate. Our fence is made part of rosemary, part of lauriel leaves - which is in some places mistakenly called javor instead of lovor (croatian for maple and lauriel). These small bushes of rosemary reward us with delicate little lilac flowers in August.
An old gnarled almond tree in the yard is a favourite of mine. Its big trunk
rises high, holding a wide crown ending with the tiniest twigs. The
leaves are falling down even during the calmest summer days, rustling as
we step on them. Almonds are also hrvested during late summer. People hit the branches with a long stick so that the nuts fall from the tree.
See, September isn't that bad after all. There is as much beauty as there is melancholy in this season and we are to use it for the best. It's time to end our croatian story and go back to Paris, in both food and photography.
Farewell to the summer, or how the french would say, à la prochaine!
