Summer pasta with cherry tomatoes and goat's cheese.

By throwing seeds everywhere in spring I had hoped that the north-facing garden bed that gets full blistering sun would develop a wild, cottage garden-like appearance and grow its own canopy to protect the bare soil from the heat. The strategy worked. Zinnias and marigolds were rioting alongside mini tomatoes; there were even a few swelling corn ears. However, some vines, zucchini and pumpkin, looked like going out of control and tendrils were already climbing nearby trees ...

The tomatoes had to be hunted amongst all the foliage. The hidden ones seemed to be ripening first. Years ago, we used to eat these at just-picked temperature at the height of summer, cut in slices with salt and vinegar and served on lightly-toasted ciabatta touched with olive oil lightly infused with garlic. The salty acidic sweetness contrasting with the earthy garlicky bread, alternating with sips of chilled white wine with the sun almost down was a building block, if not the entire edifice, of late summer 2001.

That was long ago. There is no longer as much time to make bruschetta, and that cool tessellated veranda with its airy paneless wrought iron windows and white-washed stone walls brushed by flowering crepe myrtle is a memory; like the Miles Davis track that floated that night down the hot darkened hallway from the small hi-fi in the living room, and out into the garden, where it split into two solos, a sax and a trumpet, that drifted lazily around the garden like night moths.

*

Late summer pasta with miniature tomatoes from the garden and goat's cheese.

I couldn't extricate the tomato vine from the rose bush because the branches might break and I should lose the fruit. Rose varieties have different thorns and these (Duet) were enormous sharp beak-nosed things. I emerged with a good handful of tomatoes, but bloodied.

While the pasta was cooking (I used farfalle - butterfly) in plenty of salted water, I halved the tomatoes and set them aside. I did the same with a large handful of pitted Turkish olives (the oily ones) and diced an avocado.

When the pasta was done I threw the lot together and added parsley stalks, parmesan and grated black pepper. Crumbled goat's cheese over the top. Cold white wine.

And that track ... So What ... with John Coltrane on tenor sax ... from twenty years ago ...