Sometimes the fourth of July weekend is hot and crowded and not much else. I did not know it until this week, but it is true. Between the heat and the crowds, sometimes there is nothing to do but eat melon and popsicles and try not to sweat on anyone. Even carrying one's favorite shady parasol may deplete one, it turns out.
And if one is standing, flushed and damp, in one's kitchen, crazed with heat and holding a small bagful of sugar snap peas, it is also true that one should pickle them quickly, unthinkingly, using Deb's easiest of recipes (Oh, Deb! She of pickle brilliance!), and then eat the whole batch 24 hours later and then begin again. Between pickled sugar-snap peas and mornings spent in cold baths, one might make it through the weekend. Then again, one might not.
