Day 126 -- Hooray, Hooray, It's The First Of May!

It's May Day!   After a long winter, I wondered if this day would ever come -- but it has!  May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. The day is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility (of the soil, livestock, and people) and revelry with village fetes and community gatherings.  I'm having my own little celebration today.

Though summer doesn't officially begin until June, I've always considered May to be the beginning of summer.  Spring is that time between the last snowstorm and the first really warm day.  Once I can go outside regularly without a coat, it is -- in my mind -- summer.  This is a good thing since our summers in the Midwest are always too short.

This is my first summer as a vegan (and hopefully not my last) and I'm looking forward to the bounty of fresh fruits and veggies that summer brings. The modern day supermarket can supply me over the winter months with a nice variety, but now I'll be able to find golden beets and zucchini and sweet corn and cukes.

My father plants a huge garden and is always happy to share.  And I'm ashamed to say that I've never visited our local farmers' market.  In truth, until I started eating vegan, I was never very interested in vegetables.  Vegetables were like vitamins -- something you should be eating but something that got pushed aside for something more tasty.  I hadn't yet learned to cook with the ingredients I had at hand.  Instead, I would always cook what I had a craving for -- often ignoring the veggies I had in the fridge.  Sad to say, man of them ended up in the trash.

This year, I'm going to dig up a corner of my perennial garden and plant a few tomatoes, some basil and maybe some peas.  Nothing big, but it will be nice to eat sun-warmed tomato and basil sandwiches.  I have the perfect whole grain bread!  The farmers' market doesn't open until the June 2nd, but I can wait.  It's not to early to start looking for new recipes, though.