I hate to see summer go; it's long awaited and ephemeral. As Met fans say "wait till next year."

 A friend brought me some delicious pomodorini she had grown in her garden in Westchester so I paired it with a nice zucchina and the result was spaghetti with fried zucchina and pomodorini and basil. Needless to say the result was magic. 

 Woods, north east Pennsylvania. I used low res scan to get a more atmospheric photo . Medium format, Kodak Tri-X 120. 

 Another example of pasta  cu vruocculu arriminata  or pasta with stirred cauliflower. In Sicily we call both cauliflowers and broccoli vruocculi or brocculi. This is the piatto d'eccellenza of Palermitan cuisine. It's a rather tedious dish but the results are worth the effort. It has anchovies, pine nuts, raisins, chopped onion, real saffron,  fennel seeds, black pepper and Sicilian sea salt with the best olive oil available, not to mention muddica atturrata or toasted breadcrumbs.. The cauliflower is boiled in the water in which the pasta is cooked until very al dente and then added to the sauce in the pan and stirred. I found some high quality Italian fettuccine extruded through bronze plates and the result was a supremely tasty that recalled all the flavors of Sicily.  

 Begonias make supremely beautiful and delicate flowers. This digital image was made at the Planting Fields Arboretum in Long Island, NY. They have an entire greenhouse dedicated to these wonderful flowers that by the way make beautiful house plants.

 My daughter brought me a yellow tomato from a farm in New Jersey so I decided to concoct a nice lunch. I added green Castelvetrano, Sicilian, olives and Greek Calamata olives along with primo sale or Sicilian soft pecorino cheese. Primo sale means first salting. The cheese being very pleasant and not at all salty. Naturally the salt and origano were also from Sicily and the olive oil was 100% Italian extra virgin. You have to keep those nasty free radicals at bay. This is a delicious way to accomplish this goal.

 A vintage, 1975,  Ektachrome 120 of downtown Manhattan before my city was irreparably wounded. The camera was a Yashicamat 124, my first medium size format camera; one that made me fall in love with the formt.