I've whipped up a couple of really excellent meals in the past few nights, ever since I got out for a run Monday in Beaver Brook.

Running makes a fellow hungry, and as the saying goes, there is no better seasoning than hunger to flavor one's food. That's not what made my meals great, though, nor do I credit my meager culinary skills.
It was the ingredients, most of which I gathered up at one of our fine, local farms.
Being in Hollis and in need of groceries, I stopped by Brookdales. I knew I'd want some corn, and beyond that I just let myself browse and grabbed whatever caught my eye. That turned out to be an assortment of fresh tomatoes, including some funny looking 'heirloom' varities, a big bag of organic baby spinach, and a handful of little purple potatoes.
I made an appetizer of sliced tomatoes on toast, garnished with basil, olive oil and fresh ground romano cheese, then made a fire and enjoyed some Dogfish Head Punkin ale (from the Hollis Market) as I waited for the wood to turn to coals. I grilled the corn (in the husk) and a steak on the fire, and ate them right there beside it.
The next night, after skating down to Groton and back on the rail trail, I made up a salad with the spinach, leftover corn, tomato, mushroom and sweet onion. I stuffed some of it into a pita with the leftover steak, and also baked up a couple of the bitty potato fingerlings. They cook quickly, and were delicious! The spinach, too, was far tastier than any fresh spinach from a supermarket, with a crisper feel to the teeth.
We have a great wealth of small, local farms here in the Merrimack Valley region, and this is a great time of year to visit them. The early apples are in, but they still have sweet corn and the most delicious tomatoes you've ever tasted... apparently, the homelier they look, the better they taste.