Ingredients:
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 baguette, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
5 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup raw, unsalted almonds
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
3 cups water
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 cup grapes, halved

Instructions:
1. Prep the garlic and baguette. Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. When it’s warm, add the almonds and cook, shaking the pan often, until they turn brown in spots, 3-5 minutes. Transfer them to the food processor.

2. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. When it’s hot and shimmering, stir in the garlic cloves and bread cubes. Cook, shaking the pan and tossing the bread and garlic until they brown in spots, 3-5 minutes. Transfer the bread and garlic to the food processor.

3. Process the garlic, bread and almonds until smooth. Drizzle in the sherry vinegar and process until combined. While the machine is running, drizzle in the remaining olive oil and then the water until it’s the soup’s a creamy consistency.

4. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If you have the time, chill 1 hour. Serve topped with the halved grapes and a drizzle of more sherry vinegar.

Are trees more dangerous than jelly? According to the brilliant lunacy at Emma, yes. Vote yes for trees now.

The NYT is repeating its pulse-checking Home Economics series this year. Four writers providing “quartery snapshots of their local economies” so that we can all get a good sense of how Americans are doing.

I’m not sure we’ll get a good sense of how Americans are doing, but with Lee Smith, Jonathan Raban (must read: Bad Land), Deirdre McNamer and king of the dead-beat Thomas Lynch submitting the snapshots, we will get good prose.

Ingredients:
4 thick diagonal slices baguette
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon quality olive oil
2 ripe avocados, cut into small cubes
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Ingredients:
1. Preheat a broiler. Broil the slices of baguette on both sides until crisp. Rub the tops of the pieces of bread with the clove of garlic and drizzle them with olive oil.

2. Cut the avocados in half and discard the seed. Scoop out the flesh into a bowl and slice the halves into small cubes. Add the vinegar, salt and red pepper flakes and mix until blended but chunky. Spread some of the avocado mixture onto each piece of bread. Drizzle with a little more olive oil.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons dried oregano
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
leftover baguette, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound ripe tomatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium cucumber, cut in half lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch slices
1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
10-15 basil leaves, torn into large pieces

Instructions:
1. Whisk together the lemon juice, red wine vinegar, oregano and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Add the olive oil in a thin stream, whisking constantly, until the dressing is emulsified. Prep the baguette and toss the cubes with half the dressing.

2. Meanwhile, prep the tomatoes, cucumber and onion. Toss them together in a large bowl along with the bread. Toss with the remaining dressing and sprinkle with the basil leaves. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Elizabeth has a reading tonight in Providence, and I’m tagging along. (Her Aunt Elaine is there to see friends and catch the reading.) I was excited to finally visit Farmstead, as I never got a chance to during my full-time cheesemaking days. But they’re closed on Sunday.

So now I need a replacement trip. Can anyone recommend another food store I should visit, a dish I should try?

This week’s root source on artichokes has 1) given us an excuse to drink a lot of wine (in order to test the relative incompatibility of it with artichokes), 2) led to an internal debate on the efficiency of calling the entire edible interior the “heart” (as opposed to the “heart” and the “bottom”), 3) opened our eyes to the excellent roastability of frozen artichokes, and 4) allowed us to use the non-word “roastability.”

In our eyes, that’s a good root source. If you’re not getting the root source every week, start now. It’s free, easy and (figuratively speaking) delightfully roastable.

Researchers from UC-San Francisco may have maybe found a possible reason that may partly explain what may be causing the tentatively-named Colony Collapse Disorder. (It’s all very uncertain.)

Among other things, the bee situation has been blamed for what looks to be a very light plum/pluot crop in California this summer. Unlike peaches and nectarines, most of which can pollenize themselves, plums and pluots (and almonds) tend to be self-sterile — meaning they require the pollen of another variety in order to set fruit. For that pollen to get from one tree to another, bees must carry it. When there’s a shortage of bees, there’s a shortage of pollen going from tree to tree. When there’s a shortage of pollen going from tree to tree, there’s a shortage of fruit.

Meanwhile, an entirely separate plague has struck Hawaii. A varroa mite infestation has beekeepers like Michael Kliks terrified.

“When I saw that mite I knew exactly what it was,” Kliks told a reporter from the AP. “I knew exactly what it meant and I fell to my knees and almost began to weep because it’s inexpressible what that sea change is for us in Hawaii.”

The mite problem is especially upsetting in light of Hawaii’s ban on importing bees. No one knows where the mites came from, how they got there or how to stop them.

For this week’s root source, we have two types of recipes: 1) one that calls for a whole artichoked boiled (or steamed), and 2) ones that require you to trim all the way down to the heart, removing many if not all of the leaves. (For simplicity’s sake, we refer to the entire edible interior of the artichoke — the soft, inner leaves and the meaty bottom — as the “heart.”)

As Chip mentioned in his post yesterday, whittling a raw artichoke into a torch-shaped or bottomish form (method #2) takes a lot of work given the amount of edible interior you come away with. Frozen artichoke hearts are a solid, practical substitute, and we’re not sure we could ever justify carving the heart from an artichoke again, at least on a weeknight.

For that reason, we’ll focus on the prep for a whole artichoke (method #1) and (for now) spare you the gory details of the deeper prep.

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Speaking of San Francisco, our good friends Katherine and Duncan live in Mill Valley. They’ve got a beautiful Meyer lemon tree in front of their house. This morning, I went to pick up the mail and there with all the bills and fliers was a box from them. I assumed it was something related to babies or poetry and left it for Elizabeth to open.

In fact, it was the single coolest piece of mail we’ve ever received. Thank you, K&D.

Now that we’ve got a box of Meyer lemons, we need to use them. Please leave suggestions in the comments.