Things I've learned this month

1. Don't cook an eye of round steak like you cooked up that gorgeous prime rib steak in your cast-iron skillet. It really is a different cut of meat. Listen when they tell you (marinate it, cook it slow like).
   
2. That said, do cook up a nice steak in your skillet. There is no shame in not having a bbq. And that pat of butter at the end, that you thought might be excess? It's not.
3. If you process a lovely batch of something (say, hypothetically speaking, pickled roasted red peppers) and then in the night (but within 24h) realize that while you followed the recipe, in a sense you didn't really follow the recipe, take those suckers out and repack and reprocess them immediately, because it will make you really sad to have to throw them out later because of botulism (or botulism paranoia) (who can tell the difference?).
4. Those peaches? Those peaches you can still taste, from that day you had to walk across the court to pick up your sister at the Hamiltons'? That were so intensely the essence of peach they had you turn around and beeline it straight to the kitchen not once but twice (for a total of three peaches) before you ever made it there? Those peaches? They're Blazing Stars. No doubt in my mind. Don't buy one basket. Buy three. They won't be around next week.
5. For some reason, you can't assume there will be bushels of Romas at the SLM. It is not the Jean-Talon market. Go early. Be there at 5am.
6. Despite having said this for the past five years, mean it next year when you say: Don't be a sap. Draw up a plot outline for the 3-day novel contest.
   

I seem to recall learning all kinds of other things this month, but they are not coming immediately to mind. One thing I can add is that if you are going to spend the day cooking (arancini and eggplant balls and roasted peppers (hot and sweet) and then a soup of roasted peppers and fresh sweet corn and other exciting things, and also another stuffed baked eggplanty thingy and some random peach cleanup dessert sauce and also now, incredibly, handmade, hand-rolled pasta?!?!) and you also happen to pretend to have a food blog, you might want to make sure that the batteries for your camera are charged.

Just sayin'.