There is a particular pleasure in basing dinner on ingredients available from the garden. We had a recent dinner in our backyard with local friends to honor a sister’s visit. Everyone brought dishes inspired by the production of their gardens. Jars of homemade kraut and kimchee, and dishes of crepes with fresh squash, blackberry cobbler, fresh peach pie, raspberry daiquiris, roast pork and a crowder pea salad covered the table. After the daiquiris made an exit a gallon of blackberry wine helped wash down the massive plates of food.

The crowder pea salad was my contribution and worth fixing. You can use any crowder, black-eye or cowpea variety for the base: Texas Creams were my choice, a delicious variety grown to excess last year.

Ingredients:
• 1/4 or more cup fresh lime juice
• 1 cup chopped parsley
• 1 cup canola
• 5 cups cooked crowders
• 1 Vidalia onion chopped
• 1 bell pepper chopped
• 1 tomato chopped
• 1 cucumber chopped
• 1 Poblano and 1 Hatch pepper seeded and chopped
• Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
This is the basic outline. You can substitute the quantities on any of the ingredients based on what you have available. Mix the parsley and lime juice together and whisk in the oil. Add all the other ingredients and toss together. Put in the fridge for at least an hour to cool. Eat.

And we did, sitting outside eating and talking until long after the late spring sun had gone to bed. Then some of us arose from the table and moseyed up to the top of the hill. There our friend Sara impressed us with her knowledge of the heavens: a knowledge which included actual names other than that “small blinky one”. After admiring the night sky we moseyed back down to the house. Soon afterwards our guests dispersed down the valley to their own homes and farms carrying empty platters and full bellies.