DKNY Women

 

Unfinished business: I did five minutes of research on Tasha Tudor after yesterday’s post and came up with the family website, which is worth a look if the topic has piqued your interest at all. It’s got photos and text and illustrations and depending on your perspective is either charming or creepy — or (for me, anyway) a little of both. Here’s an excerpt from the family biography section: “Marjorie Tudor is Tasha Tudor´s daughter-in-law, having married Tasha´s elder son, Seth. She has four children who grew up at her feet as she carved wooden pieces for the marionettes and sewed frocks for the lady dolls.”  Also the family business seems to be Seth, Marjorie, and their various children/grandchildren — no mention in the company section of the other three children, I think another son and two daughters.

Okay, today’s post. After complaining for years about how awful the store-bought tomatoes are, I got busy this spring and planted some of my own, having been told by a gardening friend that all I need is sun, heat and a lot of water. I planted them in barrels in my driveway, far away from my magnificent but plant-killing black walnut trees. So far they´re looking pretty awesome — huge with lots of green fruit. I have a cherry tomato, an early ripener, and Brandywine, that purple heirloom one that´s so tasty. I thought brandywines were the ugliest thing I’d ever seen until I ate one. Also, now I understand the obsession you all have with the smell of tomato leaves, which is featured prominently in Christopher Brosius´ Memory of Kindness, and if you´re so inclined, go read his lovely story of the scent and his beloved aunt.

All of this crossed my mind when I ran across Donna Karan´s DKNY Women (in the long, prism-shaped bottle rather than the black and gold robo-duck). I smelled it a year or two ago in some duty-free, which is the only place I´ve ever seen it, and was immediately impressed by its … well, what the heck is that weird smell?

According to Basenotes, the 1999 fragrance “uses headspace technology to capture the scent of freshly laundered t-shirts and wet cobblestones. The bottle is designed to echo skyscrapers.” I´m sure there´s a great story out there from the DKNY marketing machine explaining Donna´s inspiration, etc., but I´m too lazy to look. Instead let´s gaze in wonder at the notes:

blood orange, chilled vodka, tomato leaf, waterlilies, green coral orchids, daffodils, freshly laundered t-shirt, wet cobblestones, white birch, tulip tree bark.

Okay, I know some of you are a little jaded about the lists of notes, what with all the molten rivers of wood and living black orchid and all the rest of that bs. But I can´t help it; I love that list. La Donna rocking the wet cobblestones back in ´99! Also, look at what it doesn´t contain: pink pepper, white/pink musk, and/or frozen litchi (and thank you, Jesus).

I cracked up reading the comments on Basenotes, because a number of folks were complaining (?), this fragrance is not sexy! Well, they´re right. If you want to bring a man to his knees, pick something else. However, I remain entranced by DKNY Women´s almost CdG-esque peculiarity. It´s also a great fragrance for summer – it´s weird, but it´s wearably, enjoyably weird, like CdG´s inky number 2.

I never know what I´m going to get first with DKNY Women – sometimes it´s all citrusy, and sometimes it opens with the laundry, but always with the tomato leaf, and the combined smell is so peculiarly compelling I can´t stop sniffing it. DK´s tee shirt is nothing like, say, Clean Laundry – this isn´t a soft, musky, girly Tide smell. It´s a tee shirt in the rain, left hanging on the branch of a tree with something sharp and herbal growing nearby. In any case, the detergent morphs pretty quickly into a bitter, bark-y floral. The whole thing is pungent and peculiar, and delightful in the heat. This scent contains so many familiar things (once you know what you´re looking for) but juxtaposes them so brilliantly I´m charmed. It´s like a scent tape you´d give to a Martian – here are some random all-American smells, my little green friend!

How much this would appeal to you would probably depend on your tolerance for quirky scents, and whether or not your nose is overwhelmed with a tidal wave of Tide (mine is not, and I hate laundry scents). I like its resolutely non-perfume-y smell, like I´d picked tomatoes and some herbs from my garden and was wearing all the evidence on my rainy-day walk in the woods, smiling to myself.

Brandywine tomatoes: ugly, but good eatin’ — tradewindsfruit.com

  • jane says:

    I love DKNY Women and I always thought it smelled a bit like the black walnut’s green husk. Honestly, check out your black walnuts when they first fall off the tree and you might catch a familiar whiff.

  • fraise says:

    DKNY Women is my favourite perfume. I wonder if DNKY To Go is the same pefume(the bottle is exactly the same) Has anybody tried it?

    • March says:

      I *think* it’s the same, but you can’t hunt me down and kill me if I’m wrong. I think I’ve seen To Go in the duty frees?

      • fraise says:

        Yesterday I found out several reviews of the DKNY To Go, which presented it as a new fragrance, introduced in 2007(!!), which gives a new froral twist to the original version…
        I was suprised, because I thought that it was the same, even though I felt that sth had changed, and I did’t like it as much as I did before..:-?

  • moi says:

    Good God. Not only do those notes have me itching to pull out the ol’ BofA credit card RIGHT NOW, they have me hungry as well. Dang it.

  • Dusan says:

    Francesca, figs and cheese with tomato sounds wonderful! And – you can dip almost anything (a kitchen cloth if you will) in balsamic vinegar and I’ll eat it up. 😉 It seems like your recipe can’t go wrong, thanks! 🙂

  • Dusan says:

    Just remembered that Lacoste Essential (I think) I sent you is veeery tomato-leafy – in mainstream fragrance terms, of course.

  • Cait says:

    I remember buying this perfume when it came out. That was when I was already obsessed with perfume but hadn’t yet found internet friends who loved it. DK Women is kind of stealthily weird as its strangeness wasn’t tryin to be perverse or rococo. That is refreshing amidst today’s market, kind of in the same way Prescriptives Calyx is. I think I wore it right after smelling some of the Demeters that rendered grass and tomato leaf and some of these ambient notes that combine in DK women. Thanks for reminding me! I am remembering it all now. Then there was Carolina Herrera 212, then the Diors that were staged to eclipse Diorissimo, then I discovered Goutal for myself(as opposed to my mom)… ah! the memories!

  • MattS says:

    My summertime lunch staple during the heat is a tomato sandwich made with homegrown tomatoes. Nothing finer.

    I like the sound of the DK approach to a laundry scent. It’s usually not one of my favorite smells either, unless it’s actually clean laundry, but that usually ends up smelling like whatever I spray on it.

    • March says:

      BLTs. Tomato and bacon. Tomato and eggs. Tomato and basil. Tomato and tomato. Tomato over the sink with salt. :d

      I use unscented laundry detergent, only because I hate all the scents they come in, but then the laundry actually smells kind of funky. I’ve been experimenting with different additives (recommended online so you KNOW they’re true) — baking powder, vinegar, etc.

  • Gretchen says:

    “Scent tape for a Martian”. . . perfect!

    But vodka and tomato notes (all right, tomato leaf): Bloody Mary, anyone?

    You can never have too many homegrown tomatos, but you may want more recipes. Salsa fresca is good– maybe next year you’ll plan ahead with a salsa garden: tomatos, peppers, cilantro and onions. Prettiest when the tomatos are of many different colors. Or if the crop is really huge, cook lots of tomato sauce and freeze in useful-size portions. There’s a welcome base for a winter meal!

    • March says:

      It IS kind of bloody Mary-ish, which is a good thing, right? And I am hoping I’ll have too many tomatoes, but now people on here have me worried all the wildlife is going to get there first… I can trade a lot of favors and pay a lot of debts with homegrown tomatoes! 🙂

  • Erin T says:

    I eat tomatoes like apples, but have not done enough investigation of the heirlooms. You have encouraged me to give some ugly duckling varities a shot – and DKNY Woman, too. Thank you!

    • March says:

      You’re welcome! Let me know if either works out! BTW I weighed in again on yesterday’s comments…

  • Anthony says:

    You know March, I love this article because it reminds us of two things… one, never stop investigating the mainstream fragrance market, past and present… there are some gems out there to be discovered… and two, many of us “get your freak on” scentophiles searching for notes and accords such as “wet cobblestones” are reminded that there is a lot of ingenuity to be found outside the niche market. It seems like Donna Karan fragrances dip much further into the daring side of perfumery than most designer houses and good for them! 🙂

    • March says:

      Yes. I don’t love all of the DK scents, just like Estee, but I think several of them are really good, and certainly DK does some interesting ones. And given your name, hey, have you tried Azuree? The Estee classic for, like, $35? Because Matt was waxing all poetic about it somewhere, and it strikes me as something that would smell great on a man.

  • violetnoir says:

    Great photo of your tomatoes, March! I bet they taste so yummy. Our tomato plant is coming along, so I am hoping for some good eatin’, too.

    DKNY Woman is a real sleeper. It was on the retail shelves for about a year or so and then disappeared. I was thinking about what happened to it the other day and then, voila!, you posted about it. Say what you want to say, but I think DK has had some interesting fragrances over the years, much better than most designers.

    Oh, and by the way, sorry that I did not have time to post yesterday, but I want to tell you that the photos of you and your children in Maine are lovely.

    Hugs!

    • March says:

      I never even saw it in the stores — I only picked it up because it was such a cool bottle. She does do some interesting bottles. The one that baffles me the most though is Delicious MEn — seriously, what man is going to buy an apple-shaped bottle? Don’t you think it’s too cutesy?

      And thanks for the compliments!

  • Marla says:

    I found the Tasha Tudor website a bit charming, a bit odd, but somehow it struck me in a more positive way than the Mary Jane’s Farm enterprise with its ethos of “Farmgirl” and all of those heavy, bready skillet bakes.

    My writing groups have always hammered someone about anthropomorphizing and over-romanticizing animals (the noble wild turkey, the patriotic sparrow etc.) and perhaps consequently I have some discomfort over-romanticizing the farmer and marionette-carving wood dweller too (some of whom will be awful people, on the law of human averages, and in 2008 all of whom will share our mundane financial and other worries too – not so romantic in reality).

    Ugly tomato = tasty tomato. Those black and purply heirlooms from Russia and other parts can be dang tasty with freshly ground pepper and salt…

    • March says:

      The Tasha Tudor site inspired (in me) an interesting combination of admiration and the willies. I mean, in all those photos, when you consider that she’s not acting in some movie — that’s HER, that’s how she DRESSES… or dressed, rather. And the quote I included made me cringe a little — and some of the others about the family members. Sweet and a little giggly at the same time. An interesting conundrum.

      • Marla says:

        And you know, people weren’t exactly clean back then (what with wearing that one dress for 6 months, then taking it apart and sewing it back together inside out again and then wearing it again for another 6 months).

        • March says:

          I figured that’s what those long, giant aprons were for … shudders. And in a lot of photos she’s barefoot. She loved being barefoot. Which I understand in Miami Beach, but Vermont?!?! She must have had some seriously tough feet. Of course I am the quintessential foot wussy. :”>

  • tmp00 says:

    I am going to have to run down to the trust discounter on Broadway and see if they have this one. I love tomato leaf.

    BTW- if you bring your tomato plants in before the first frost they will continue to fruit in Winter. My sister did that when we were kids to our amazement..

    • March says:

      No way?!?! Although the barrels are huge … wonder what it would take to get the Big Cheese to lug them in? Any ideas? 😉

      (where’s whistling guy when I need him?)

  • Eileen says:

    Oooh – home-grown tomatoes! Wish I could grow them — the @#$%*& squirrels and deer take care of my plants so quickly that I’ve just given up. Nothing I’ve tried yet has slowed them down – if I can get the the deer to leave the plant alone long enough to fruit, the squirrels sneak in and take bites out of the green tomatoes.. grr! Thank goodness for farmer’s markets.

    And DKNY Woman? Sounds like something I need to try. I’m always up for something quirky and fun!

    • March says:

      You’re scaring me with the squirrels. I hadn’t thought of the squirrels — or the deer! Perhaps I’ll have to tie my poodle out there every night to protect them?

      I kid, I kid.

      • Eileen says:

        All I can say is don’t underestimate them critters! Maybe my local wildlife is particularly determined or very ferocious — or just plain crazy. I’m glad I tried, though. as it is a low-risk high-reward scenario. Maybe you’ll get bushels and bushels of tomatoes with not one nighttime raid — I hope so!

      • Francesca says:

        We had to stop putting out our bird feeder in Connecticut because it attracted a bear, who demolished the thing. Our neighbors kept putting out more and more Rube-Goldbergian feeders but finally gave up when they arrived home one evening to find two bears lounging nonchalantly in their driveway, picking their teeth on the remains of the last contraption.

  • Felicia says:

    There is nothing more delicious than home grown tomatoes!

    • March says:

      If the squirrels eat mine I’m going to be bummed. Wonder if I should net them?

      • Musette says:

        Yes,

        cage and net them.

        • Louise says:

          How do they taste :-& ?

          • Musette says:

            =)) it took me a minute!

            I have a recipe for squirrel stew that El O’s mama gave me, thinking I would make this for him – but here’s where I think he should get his mountain man behind in the kitchen and make his own!

            But if you like I can send it to you – squirrel, though I have only eaten it in 4-star game restaurants, is okay. It’s one of those things you have to get used to, if all you usually eat is chicken and fish…

            xo

          • Shelley says:

            Ladies, you need an older version of The Joy of Cooking, before they removed the squirrel and possum meat recipes. I happen to have it, if anybody has … are you ready??? … got game.

            :-j

          • March says:

            Laydeez, that is BRUNSWICK stew. And I have an old Joy of Cooking with all the offal and brains recipes… and a wonderful cartoon drawn by my father to my mother inside the front cover (she was 19 and couldn’t cook a thing). I should figure out how to scan it. She blew up the eggs. (They’re hard, right? You must need to cook them for an hour….)

            And also you are invited to join me on the Eastern shore for the annual muskrat skinning and eatin’ festival, google Muskrat Queen and it will probably come up. And there’s also the nutria. None of it tastes remotely like chicken, btw. <):)

          • Musette says:

            Oh, yeah! Fergot about the Muskrat Festival. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How did we go to ONLY eating ~:>3:-o:@)…(obviously I’m talking the masses, not ‘everybody’)…I’m sure there was some concentrated marketing effort to do so…but why chicken, instead of squirrel?

            Just wondering….~:>3:-o:@) (so are they!)

          • March says:

            Yeah, where’s my squirrel emoticon? Or … raccoon? 😉

          • Shelley says:

            …or, nutria…

  • Louise says:

    Wow-the DK scent sounds purfect for the heat-and it also sounds like a fabulous summer drink-‘cept the t-shirt and cobblestones might cause dental issues.

    Odd coincidence-I just got back from the gym where I met a new gal in the aerobics class-and turns out she’s a tomato farmer from Pennsylvania, down to hit the farmer’s markets. She comes with the farms owner to class sometimes…we talked tomatoes for a good long while :d/

    • March says:

      Talking tomatoes … that sounds like fun. And good for you going to exercise class! I need to get back over to Pilates.

  • Elle says:

    High tolerance for quirky scents – check. Ongoing quest for any scent w/ tomato leaf note – check. Great curiosity about wet cobblestone note and probable love of it – check. Real appreciation for DK’s bottle designs – check. So how on earth have I not sniffed this yet? How do I not already own it? Must remedy this immediately!

    • March says:

      I never see it anywhere, although it’s easy enough to find online. Like so very many other things, I would put it in Sephora in place of something already there, if I were queen.

      Here’s hoping you don’t get too much Tide! 😉

  • kathleen says:

    March, your tomatoes seem to be out early (lol, sounds a bit rude). My wee recipe: Chunk up some cukes, tomatoes, & watermelon. Basil, tad of mint, sprinkle on some Cyprus black flake & white flake sea salt. Bob’s your uncle. You could also tear in some day old Ciabatta bread and add olive oil but not everyone likes the bread addition.
    Another fragrance that has the lovely tomato leaf note is Neil Morris’ Swoon.

    • Kathryn says:

      Yum. Another watermelon/tomato recipe from Whole Foods in Portland ME:
      Diced watermelon, diced tomatoes (preferably yellow heirlooms), a sprinkling of feta, pine nuts, and fresh basil (but why not tomato leaves?), drizzled with a balsamic syrup made by boiling down balsamic vinegar to half its volume.

      • Shelley says:

        Oh! Or do the oven roasting trick…tomatoes on a tray, drizzled with the balsamic vinegar & a bit of sea salt…bake to half mass, when they get all yummy intense sweet…then toss together the roasted and the fresh. (Also is a nice topper for a summer pasta salad.)

        • March says:

          Well, that’s how I deal with our crappy store-boughts all the time — roasting or sauteeing them (I’m spelling that wrong?) brings out the natural sweetness. It can save most mediocre tomatoes.

          I love roasted veggies anyway. I roast asparagus that way all the time — 15 minutes at 450 or whatever. Yum, I can eat a whole bunch myself!

      • March says:

        The yellow tomatoes would be perfect visually, wouldn’t they? And I agree with your substitution of the tomato leaves, which hadn’t even occurred to me until you all suggested it.

        I have that urban/suburban disease wherein I assume everything that doesn’t come in plastic wrap from Giant is poisonous. :”>

    • March says:

      Weeelll… those up there aren’t actually *my* tomatoes, which are still on the vine, but the pic of my tomato plants was boring, and I wanted to show the weird purply color of the brandywines. Hence the photo from some heirloom seed website.

      And that does sound like some weird double entendre, made me giggle!

      These are some really great recipes on here today, anyone else hungry?

  • Francesca says:

    Hmmm, my earlier post was very nearly written-while-asleep.
    DK Woman sounds very interesting. Don’t know if I’d like it to wear, but I certainly want to give it a sniff. I do seem to be in the minority with Black Cashmere, which makes me go GACK.
    Dusan, your description of Brandywines with black olives and feta makes me almost want to wish away the next 7 weeks of my life til the fabulous tomatoes start showing up at the farmers’ market in the town where I spend my weekends. Alas, since we are only there sporadically, I can’t grow my own tomatoes, as they would simply become deer food.
    On the subject of food: Combine tomatoes, fresh figs, paper thin slices of red onion, and some cubes of ricotta salata, with a good balsamic vinaigrette . . .
    March, yes, how *is* your poor foot?
    And this post makes me want to run right to my perfume cabinet and spray on some Sisley Eau de Campagne, another tasty tomato-leaf fragrance.

    • March says:

      Mmmmmmm, your recipe sounds like a treat too! I’m writing these down in my salad book… I love a summer salad, and figs are fabulous, aren’t they?

      Yes, given how fast those plants dry out, it’s only a working proposition if you’re there for them.

      Black Cashmere is legitimately a love-it-or-hate-it. I mean, it’s so STRONG. I love it, but I’ve put it on a time or two and had to go shower. FWIW the body lotion is the same smell but much more low-key, for people who like it in theory but find it overwhelming. (sounds like you just hate it 🙂 )

    • dinazad says:

      I’m told that the combination of watermelon and tomatoes is beyond delectable, too. Might be nice in that combination of yours!

    • Dusan says:

      Francesca, figs and cheese with tomato sounds wonderful! And – you can dip almost anything (a kitchen cloth if you will) in balsamic vinegar and I’ll eat it up. 😉 It seems like your recipe can’t go wrong, thanks!! 🙂

  • Silvia says:

    I am so happy you are liking this, it doesn’t seem to get much attention. To me it’s a sparkling gin n’ tonic type of scent, where the gin is one of those highly aromatic fancy herby types. I often take a decant on holidays when I don’t want to focus too much on perfume choices.
    As to tomatos, CdG Harissa is a lovely one too.

    • March says:

      That is a perfect description of the scent — I wish I’d thought of it! And it does seem perfect in summer; refreshing and not insipid. It’s got decent lasting power too. I wish I saw it in stores. It would be a great vacation scent.

      Can you believe I’ve still not smelled Harissa? Must rectify that.

      • Shelley says:

        Well, now, here’s a fun way to create a shopping list: Already had “get one of those fun n’ fruity/aromatic gins” on my list…like a Hendricks for baseline, and then another more extreme for contrast…now, add a bottle of DKNY Woman for external self-scenting…

        …what shall I take from the garden in honor of? The tomato leaves have already been mentioned…could snip a few basil leaves…the mulberries are emitting way too vinegary an odor on the ground, but collect both honeysuckle and jasmine scents (as if) to toss in with the tomato leaves in honor of the gin blend…

        hey, this is fun to wake up to! ~o)

  • annie says:

    8-|Lord,Lord,Lord….I do luvs them vine ripened tomatoes that you grow yourself….We grew everything,and the neighbors visited us often,staggering home with zucninni,tomatoes,green beans.etc.(probobly it was due to our inate charm :):):):)…anyhoo…the wonderful fragrance of the earth,vines,and REAL sun-ripened tomatoes is with me still,along with the unreal ever-present scent of staggering numbers of roses my husband grew….the fragrance of queens,but,loved by peasants…..your musings,today brought me(again)down to earth…..I think maybee,you are part queen to us….who knew???!!….now I have to add another dratted perfume to try….Donna Karan is always interesting….we’ll see….carry on,carry on…:”>

    • March says:

      Oh, I always make friends with the people with gardens! And people with gardens to tend to be charming… where we lived before, more people gardened and grew a few things recreationally. Here I think it’s almost seen as eccentric. People are too busy and travel and are otherwise engaged.

      The twins are in the background quietly talking about handcuffing each other over their breakfasts …. hmmmm, maybe I should go investigate? Those two are up to more shenanigans.

  • dinazad says:

    Drat, March, honey, you did it again – now I have something else I just HAVE to go and try (tell me a fragrance is weird, and I want it), not to mention that I’ll probably break down pretty soon and order some Brosius samples and scents (I got some Wild Hunt from the lovely Maria, and was immediately hooked)…. I love Black Cashmere (and Chaos), but found Cashmere Mist and that other DK scent with the apples which I hate so much I try to forget the name completely, rather offputting. Hence I’ve never tried DKNY Women (or that roboty thingie). But I definitely will, after reading this!
    I don’t like raw tomatoes, but I cook with them so often that I’ve actually planted some on my balcony. Sicilian grappa mini-tomatoes and a cocktail variety calles “sugar mouse”. How could I resist that name? Love thes smell of the leaves (QuinnCreative, I will definitely try that recipe!) – DKNY Women, here I come!
    Hope your foot is better, too.

    • March says:

      Cashmere Mist’s popularity is completely inexplicable to me, and Be Delicious I understand its popularity but I don’t like it either. (And Delicious Night even less so). The robo-duck isn’t something I’m dying to wear all the time but it’s strong and interesting. Trying to think of the dominant note (suede?) that eventually emerges after the drama. It’s lovely. Not a sweet scent btw.

      Foot IS better. Still wearing my flats and orthotics, but you know what? There are so many worse things. I’m trying to let it go.

  • [Arching eyebrow to hairline] Does chilled vodka smell different from room-temperature vodka?
    [Allowing eyebrow to settle] I love the smell of tomato leaves so much that I gather the young leaves and shred them in thin strips with basil and dump them over pasta in which I pour a little heavy cream and grind black pepper. Now THAT’s a fragrance you can taste!

    • March says:

      Wow, that sounds tasty! I bet a small dose of tomato leaf in a salad would be awesome too.

      Oh yeah, I’m sure chilled vodka smells completely different. In their defense (I’m holding my game face) I think they were trying to convey something cool and refreshing, as opposed to a flask in your back pocket? And it is refreshing, someone else on here says G&T.

      Sometimes when I put in the list of notes I take the stuff like “chilled” out because it’s too painful to read otherwise.

      • Not to flog a dead tomato, but putting a bit of bruised tomato leaf in a Bloody Mary never hurt anything, not that I drink at all. And then the chilled vodka comes in handy. I also use those little leaves and tuck them into a brie sandwich for a bit of kick. I know the notes are not supposed to be literal, but I have a love/hate relationship. I HAVE to read them, but I also get to roll my eyes.

  • Dusan says:

    Brandywine is the best tomato. Ever. So meaty and delicious I could eat tons of it. Well, I *do* eat tons of it in summer, especially with feta cheese and black olives, mmm… Yeah, it can be really ugly, coming in all sorts of funny shapes, and tricky in that sometimes you need to carve/cut out a lot the green ‘veins’, but it’s so worth it! Can you tell I love tomatoes?
    I don’t have any recollection of DKNY woman but do very much like the Man. If I remember correctly, it also kicks off with a herbal note, lavender I believe, and something lovely and juicy I just can’t put a name to, after which it’s tobacco and juniper. What I love about DKNY, besides the fact that it’s so darn dee-licious, is it doesn’t feel synthetic at all which perhaps is (sadly) the reason why it won’t stick around for more than 2 hours.
    Hey, how’s the foot? Did Maine do it any good?

    • March says:

      The first time anyone ever gave me some brandywines, I thought: ug-ly. And I cut into one and it bled that purple stuff and I thought: I am not eating THAT. And then I did eat that and was immediately begging for more. Their texture is perfect, in addition to the flavor.

      I eat tomatoes your way regularly! Also with basil. Also just with salt, standing at my kitchen counter… :d The only thing that prompts SLIGHT restraint is the potential I’ll develop an allergy (I know a couple people who have) so I try not to kill myself. But if I have a successful crop, this may be my breaking pt.

      Another favorite summer recipe (I SWEAR it’s wonderful): feta cheese, very thinly sliced sweet onions, ripe cantaloupe, salt and pepper to taste. Et voila. Let it sit around for an hour or two. The contrast between the sweet melon and the feta is perfect.

      • March says:

        I need more coffee. Dice the cantaloupe and toss the whole thing in a bowl, like a fruit salad.

        Foot is okay. Better. Not perfect. But as long as it’s getting better I’m not complaining. And I should definitely try DKNY Man.

        • HelenV says:

          This reminds me of a fruit salad recipe I picked up a few years back: also toss in a bowl

          Feta cheese
          Fresh Basil
          watermelon
          olive oil
          Kalamata olives

          • March says:

            Who knew everyone had all these great sweet/salty/savory recipes?!? Don’t they sound grand for summer?

        • Dusan says:

          I’m already loving your salad as well as the one Helen below recommends, yum! Will try them when cantaloupes/watermelons are in season ’cause I hate these imported, bland/plasticky ones. Btw, Kalamata olives are to die for!

  • Francesca says:

    God, I can’t wait til the tomatoes start coming in. I still do love those tomato leaf fragrant smells.

    • March says:

      It’s a pretty great smell. I’m waiting impatiently for my little cherry ones to ripen; we’re getting close.