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When mid-July rolls around, my thoughts turn to a story I clipped from the New York Times back in 2003, specifically a recipe for a blueberry chiffon pie created by the Times‘ former food section editor, Amanda Hesser. The first time I tasted it, I swooned inside. The marriage of a cornmeal-based crust with the tart blueberries and tangy lemon in cold-creamy base of fluffy egg whites and rich cream … it’s simply the perfect pie for a hot summer day. So every July, I make it. I’d make it more often, but frankly, it’s a little fiddly and time-consuming, plus I’m the type of cook who likes to flip through her recipe notebook in January, gaze at this pie, and think, “I can’t wait for July!” Anticipation is a secret ingredient in my cooking (and baking!)

Yesterday I picked up a quart of organic blueberries grown about a mile away. It’s a self-serve/honor system place. You drive up to the stand, where boxes of berries are on display, pick the one you want and leave your $7 in a metal box. Next time I’m there, I’ll take a picture. Some people are amazed places like this exist. They’re all over New England. What about your neighborhood?

As I mentioned, this recipe come from the Times. I haven’t made any changes to the recipe, so you’ll have to go there to look at it. If you start making the crust very early in the a.m., you can have a chilled slice of pie for dessert; otherwise, you’ll have to wait until the next morning for your slice. (And yes, we eat pie around here for breakfast. Sometimes for lunch and dinner, too. Don’t you?)

ETA: The pie contains raw egg whites. Since we get our eggs, fresh, from local farms, I’m totally comfortable eating raw egg whites. I’d be more cautious with battery chicken eggs. And you’ll notice the crappy crust on this pie — it was so hot yesterday that the crust kept melting under my fingers. No worries — it might look messy, but it sure is good.

Friday is our pickup day at Bear Hill Farm. We’ve been CSA members for three or four years … can’t remember the exact number of years. But I can’t imagine not being members.

The first few weeks are a little slow, which I actually appreciate. It gently acclimates me (and my refrigerator) to the preparation and storage of vegetables. Tender lettuces must be quickly washed and chilled, lest they wilt — not to mention that having washed greens ready to go for my lunchtime salads makes life pleasant. By mid July, harvest time hits and I appreciate having a system in place for all the greens, squash, beets, kohlrabi, beans, tomatoes, corn, and more … so much more.

So this week our share started to look substantial. In my basket there’s a pound of beets (plus their greens), a head of lettuce, a bunch each of rainbow chard and curly kale, 4 summer squash, 3 kohlrabi, and 2 bok choi. Something else, too, but I forget. (ETA: collard greens! How could I forget my beloved collards?)

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After I finished filling our basket, we noticed a beautiful bird making a loud racket in the field. Anne, who owns the farm with her husband Mike, told us it was a Guinea Hen, a native of Africa. They’re feral and roam the farm at will. This hen had chicks with her. Can you see the one by her leg? “They’re terrible mothers,” Anne said. I guess the mothers kind of wander off, letting their chicks fend for themselves. Already this mother has lost one of her babies. I felt kind of sympathetic toward this hen, because not five minutes earlier, I’d lost track of the Oyster, who’d been sitting quietly at the picnic bench while I dithered about buying some local cheeses available from a local cheesemonger.

On Fridays we clean out our fridge and bring past-due foodstuffs to feed to the pigs, chickens, and goats. This week we didn’t have anything for them. When the animals figured this out, they refused to pose for photos. However this ameraucana hen did deign to pose for us. Ameraucanas are the hens that lay the lovely blue-green eggs I call “Martha Stewart eggs.” I once heard someone at a farmer’s market ask a vendor if the yolks were green. When I spoke to the vendor later, he said he got the question at least once at every market.

When I get home, I sketch a rough plan for our week’s supply of veggies as I wash and bag them. The beet greens were sauteed with garlic for our Friday side dish, and I made a marinated beet salad, which I’ll eat throughout the week. The bunch of kale was earmarked for a kale and potato soup for Sunday night supper. The lettuce — a no-brainer. That’s for my lunch salads. The squash I’d julienne and toss with warm garlic- and rosemary-infused olive oil, a recipe I’d tested from Carol Field’s Italy in Small Bites. The kohlrabi would be shredded and mixed with shredded Yukon gold potatoes for a latke dinner. Still haven’t figured out the swiss chard or bok choi. Any suggestions?

As I waited the six interminable minutes for my nail polish to dry — sitting still for longer than two minutes makes me antsy; six minutes is excruciating — I glanced over at the cover of the June/July issue of Domino, sitting on my manicurist’s coffee table. One coverline grabbed my attention: “A No-bake Strawberry Pie!”

It was something like 90 degrees that day. Strawberries were abundant at the local farms. I’ve been slaving away on fall and winter recipe assignments in my 100+ degree kitchen. I fell in love with the idea. As soon as the buzzer on my nail dryer went off, what did I do? I ran out of there — without looking at the recipe.

I realized my error later in the afternoon as the temperature in my kitchen crept up to 105 degrees. As luck would have it, Domino had the recipe on their website and last night, I got around to testing it.

It’s a fairly straightforward recipe. I was iffy on the idea of a no-bake graham cracker crust, but it turned out fine. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of graham cracker crusts, so if you buy graham crackers and smash them up yourself, this equals 18 whole crackers, or two packages. (Another tip: rather than using a spoon to pack the crust down, try a 1/4-cup measuring cup, which makes it easier to pack the sides of the pie plate.)

You make the crust while the strawberry filling cools — yes, you do have to use the stovetop — and indeed, your kitchen will be permeated with the smell of strawberries as the recipe promises. The pie must chill overnight (or for 8 hours; you could make it in the a.m. and serve it for tonight’s dessert). Before serving, you top the whole pie with sweetened whipped cream and fresh berries, which I didn’t do. Instead, I garnished each slice with a dollop of cream since I knew the pie wouldn’t be eaten in one session and I didn’t want the pie to get mushy with the weeping cream.

The verdict? The pie tasted wonderful. We all had seconds. As you can see, though, this isn’t a pie you’d want to serve to special guests. The filling didn’t hold its shape well at all and it looked like slop on a plate. I cooked it until it was thick and bubbly, for precisely 7 minutes as the recipe directed, but maybe it wasn’t enough. Whatever. Were I to make this again, I think I’d use a couple sheets of gelatin to give the filling more structure. And while my husband loves graham cracker crusts, I thought this one was too thick for the pie — but I begrudgingly admit it worked without the oven.

Earlier this year I did a week-long blog at eGullet. Unfortunately I was scheduled to blog in January … not a lot of fun when you live outside Boston and there’s not a farmers’ market scheduled for months. But I think I did okay.

I overheard my husband comment to my son about my cookbook collection. I believe the phrase “too many” was used. Sacrilege! There is no such thing as too many cookbooks.

This weekend I pawed through a few of them, and it’s sad to say but out of the (ahem) several hundred I have, I cook from 20 of them, tops. The rest just kind of sit there, gathering dust.

Most of them are wonderful books, don’t get me wrong. I bought them with the full intention of using them, but for one reason or another, didn’t get around to it. Or I cooked a thing or two and moved on.

I was thinking for the blog it might be a good idea to pick a book and cook a minimum of five recipes from it. If things don’t work out, then off to the library book sale it goes.

Right now, I’m leaning toward Debra’s Natural Gourmet Cookbook. Debra’s Natural Gourmet is actually a nearby market in West Concord, MA, that I frequent. It always smells so yummy in there, so of course when I saw they had I cookbook, I snapped it up. Unfortunately, I’ve never cooked from it, but that’s about to change. Flipping through it over the weekend I saw dozens of recipes that looked really good, as well as healthy. (I’m back on my triathlon training diet!)