The Pearly Snaps: Rosie Newton, left, and Stephanie Jenkins. (Photo by Lesley Greene)

BY ALL APPEARANCES recent college graduates Stephanie Jenkins (Cornell ’10) and Rosie Newton (Ithaca College ’10) seem like atypical standard-bearers for old-time music.

Yet they weren’t long in Ithaca when, still in their teens, they proved to be skilled practitioners more than able to accompany (and become inseparable from) such stellar local players as Richie Stearns of the Evil City String Band, Thomas Eaton of Hobson’s Choice, and Steve Selin of the Hogwashers.

In their own duo, The Pearly Snaps, they play together as much for fun as for glory, and they often join in wherever old-time players of any age are gathered.

“I started playing double fiddle with Steve; we’d get together two or three times a week when I was a freshman and sophomore,” Newton said. “Then the Pearly Snaps combined with –’’

“Subsumed?” Jenkins interjected.

“ – with Steve and the Hogwashers, and with Evil City,” Newton finished.

As for Jenkins, she had played bass in a jazz band long before playing stand-up with Evil City; she has a love of sad old country songs, and although banjo is her main instrument in the ‘Snaps, she also plays guitar and ukulele.

“I played bass when Ben [Gould] couldn’t come to town,” Jenkins said. “I think the world just gets really small when you play old-time banjo. By that I mean, while there aren’t as many opportunities to join a band, also that old-time music is a small community.”

The Pearly Snaps have documented their partnership by recording their favorite fiddle tunes and traditional songs on a new 17-song self-titled CD. To mark the project’s recent release, the duo – Jenkins on banjo, Newton on fiddle, both on vocals – is ready to play out in Ithaca a few more times before moving on for the foreseeable future.

“The Pearly Snaps” shows the pair to be excellent musicians on the instrumental opening track, and on the next, to possess voices that blend together effortlessly, bound by a love of timeless traditional song. All of the tracks on the album are public domain material, and they have chosen some of the most beautifully mournful American music ever created, songs that have been passed down for generations such as “No Depression in Heaven,” “Silver Dagger,” and “Sugar Babe.”

“When we first started the project, a friend of mine from IC wanted to record me,” Newton said. “So we were thinking, we’d take the opportunity to record us, and have a record of what we’ve done over the years.”

“We went through a lot of our material, and then it was just paring down,” Jenkins said. “We did everything live, and gave the best of what we did in our live shows a second chance.”

Selin plays fiddle and guitar on much of the album; the only other guest is Abby Newton, Rosie’s mom, on cello.

“It was good to record with Steve, because we’ve played so much together that I think we really complement each other on old-time fiddle,” Newton said.

The duo’s friendship and musical kinship predates college by a few years.

Both come from musical families; Jenkins played in a family band in Manhattan, where her kin hosted house concerts with performers including fiddler Mark O’Connor.

“The first time I saw Rosie play, she was on stage with The Mammals and Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival,” Jenkins said. “And I remember saying, ‘Oh, Rosie’s never going to be my friend…’ And then we met at Ashokan’s [Fiddle and Dance Camp] Southern Week when we were 15 or 16. I took banjo from scratch; Rosie was already a fiddle rock star.”

Rosie said her “mother is a Celtic cellist, my father’s an accordion player in the Northeastern style of folk music. We always had music parties, playing Cape Breton and traditional stuff. I’ve known Ruthie Ungar [of The Mammals] all my life.”

“I certainly knew about the music scene here,” said Newton, who majored in Music at IC. She had crossed paths with the Horse Flies, so “I knew Judy [Hyman] pretty well, her and Jeff [Claus].”

Jenkins was a College Scholar at Cornell, where she designed her own course of study including English, Anthropology and Art History. She also played electric bass in a Motown cover group that rarely gigged off-campus.

“I’ll probably never have the chance to play Motown again,” she said.

Now ready to take on the world beyond Ithaca, Jenkins and Newton are on a “farewell-for-now tour” of the area with four upcoming shows over the next week. Selin recently said that playing with Rosie and Stephanie while knowing that they will be leaving town soon has evoked “a lot of laughter and a lot of heartbreak.”

On Friday from 5 pm to 8 pm, the Pearly Snaps will celebrate their CD release at Felicia’s Atomic Lounge, and they will be part of Porchfest on Sunday in Fall Creek. They will play Monday Old-Time Night at Simply Red Bistro at Sheldrake Winery in Ovid, and then, a final appearance (for now) with the Chicken-Fried String Band at Maxie’s Supper Club, Tuesday from 6 to 10 p.m.

“The Pearly Snaps” CD is available at their gigs, at Ludgate Farms, and at Ithaca Guitar Works. For more on the Pearly Snaps, see http://myspace.com/thepearlysnaps .

Local electro-rockers Jimkata will celebrate the release of their new EP "Ghosts and Killers" with a show at The Haunt Thursday, September 9. Photo provided

LOCAL BAND JIMKATA has been building a following throughout the northeast, thanks to powerful live shows and its excellent 2009 CD, “Burn My Money.” This week, the band will be releasing its latest recording, an EP titled “Ghosts and Killers,” online at its web site, www.jimkata.com. And they’ll also be playing an EP release show Thursday, Sept. 8 at the Haunt, where they’ll be joined by local favorites Black Castle for the 9:30 p.m. show.

The band once again worked with Matt Saccuccimorano, who produced their last album. “This time around I feel like we relied a little less on post-production stuff, and really just tried to get everything right,” said lead singer Evan Friedell. “The right sounds right off the bat. We also had a better idea of what we wanted going in; everything that we wanted was written into the songs already. Last time, we’d say we wanted this song to sound like this, and then Matt would say he’d do this and that to get it. This time, it was already there, so we just wanted to get it to sound as true to us as possible.”

The band, which also includes Aaron Gorsch (guitar/keyboard), Dave Rossi (bass) and Packy Lunn (drums), has moved in a more electronic sound in the past couple of years. “We’re pretty influenced by hiphop and electronic music, which uses a lot of sampled sounds and synthesizers,” Friedell said. “Once Aaron picked up a synthesizer, a mini Korg, we went from there. And then he got lustful toward another synth, an analog one, which is pretty featured on this record.”
Over the past couple of years, Jimkata has made leaps and bounds in becoming a more powerful band, both on stage and in the studio. “The songwriting itself has gotten better,” Friedell noted. “In the earlier years, we’d have a lot of philosophical arguments about what direction to go in, and what we liked and didn’t like, and a lot of talking. Then it finally gets to the point where there’s less talking and you’re actually making the sounds that you had been talking about. That’s the roll we’re on now.”

The band is coming off its second appearance at Camp Bisco, the annual festival run by fellow electro-rockers the Disco Biscuits. “We got a really good time slot at 8 p.m., and played to a great crowd,” Friedell said. “It’s cool, to say the least, to be backstage with these artists you grew up listening to. Occasionally you see someone and you’re a little star-struck.

“Two years ago we played at noon, and as we started, they opened the gates and the crowd rushed to our stage. It’s a unique feeling, it’s a center for a lot buzz.”

Through its touring, Jimkata has built up relationships with a variety of bands around the region. “We play a lot of rock and roll so we find ourselves wedged in between in the indie scene and the jam-band scene,” Friedell said. “And we’ve found that we can pair up with just about any kind of band in those scenes.”

To learn more about the band, visit www.jimkata.com.

The Running to Places Theatre Company will present "Wind in the Willows," its last show of the season at the Community School of Music and Art September 10-12. Photo provided

A Letter from the Ithaca Post Stage Editor

WITH THE ITHACA AREA SCHOOL SYSTEMS facing huge cuts in its budget, arts programs once again find themselves on the chopping block. When it comes to the performing arts, however, one particular group is filling a vital gap for the young people of our community, and that group is called Running to Places Theatre Company (R2P.)

R2P is a nonprofit theater company that provides a place for middle and high school-aged artists to explore and hone their crafts onstage and off. In addition to producing several big musicals and other theatrical pieces each year, they provide opportunities for collaboration across Tompkins County: rural and city, public, private, and home schooled. While excellent theater is the goal of R2P, it is also acts as a vehicle through which young people can grow as they participate in shows that mirror those produced in adult theater companies.

One of the things that makes Running to Places unique is that all young people who are able to commit to the process are invited to participate. This leaves the company dependent on full houses and donations. This year, R2P, like most arts organizations, was hit hard. While the public’s interest in R2P shows continued to rise, donations fell below the company’s goals. “It’s not easy providing this level of professional theater to the kids with such a limited budget,” said Joey Steinhagen, co-artistic director and R2P founder, “but we are confident the community will come through to help us make sure next year’s season is as spectacular as our past seasons.”

R2P’s final show of the 2010 season, The Wind in the Willows, will be performed at The Community School of Music and Art (CSMA) off the Ithaca Commons on September 10 and 11 at 7 p.m, and September 12 at 2 p.m. The cast highlights a bevy of talented young people.  Young Mole (Ally Mirin), adventurous Rat (Alexandra Crenshaw), and curmudgeonly Badger (Max Mollenkamp) try to keep wild Toad (Saia Meyerhoff) out of too much trouble, especially when Weasels and other Wild Wooders are around.  Meyerhoff shines as Toad trying hard to resist stealing and crashing cars, dressing up in disguises, eating all the food, and generally being the wonderful Toad so beloved in the original story.

This frolicking ride is appropriate for the entire family. Director Joey Steinhagen and producer Gail Belokur are joined by a talented design team including Marthe Hoffmann (Scenic), Max Doolittle (Lighting) and Lori Levine (Costumes), as well as a great cast of Tompkins County’s promising young talent.

Seating is general admission, and all tickets are $8 in advance and $10 the day of the performance.  If you’d like to purchase tickets to this show, or are interested in supporting R2P, visit www.runningtoplaces.org.

Eliza VanCort

Stage Co-Editor

The Ithaca Post

The Porchfest, an afternoon-long festival in the Fall Creek and Northside neighborhoods returns Sunday, September 12. Image by Nina Maniscalco

PORCHES WILL SERVE AS TEMPORARY STAGES for a diverse array of acoustic musical acts Sunday, September 12 for the fourth annual Porchfest, an afternoon gathering of over 70 local bands throughout Fall Creek and Northside neighborhoods. Three waves of groups will perform from 1:00-5:30 p.m, as many of Ithaca’s finest musicians sing and play for free on their porches and front stoops. Pick up a schedule at Greenstar, Guitar Works or Gimme! Coffee on Cayuga Street or visit www.porchfest.org, and then walk or bike around the neighborhood to take in the sounds of this free event.

“It all started when my husband an I were playing ukulele out in front of our home and my next door neighbor Gretchen came by and said it would be fun to have a festival throughout the neighborhood,” festival organizer Lesley Greene said. “We knew many musicians lived nearby and we envisioned an entire afternoon of socializing.”

A diverse array of musical acts, from Dixieland to opera, bluegrass to country will be included, and will participate in three time-slots, at 1:00 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. “On a number of blocks, there are so many musicians that if they all played at once it would be cacophony,” Greene said. “So some neighbors worked out a schedule among themselves.” At the 200/300 block of Utica for instance, three groups, the country Black Walnut Band, the old-time of Edna Brown, Marek Przezdziecki and Dave Wentzel and the gospel of Edna Brown and Susan Lytle will play one after another.

Greene said she expected hundreds of people to attend. “The first year, we didn’t know what to expect, and turned out to be a glorious day and we were just flabbergasted by crowds of people walking around and enjoying the music.” Greene added: “Even less than perfect weather but it didn’t stop the crowd at all.”

There will also be chances to join in: Emoretta Yang is professor for the required course “Ukulelese as a Second Language,” your chance to learn to play the uke, and storyteller Lee-Ellen Marvin will involve listeners in tales for children and adults.  This year also features the first-ever Porchfest band swap:  Cleveland, Ohio’s Larchmere Porchfest is sending us The Waxwings String Band.

Following the festival, at 5:30 p.m., organizers encourage attendees to grab a picnic dinner and your instruments and head to the Auburn Street “triangle” park for more fun and music.

Ayad Alkadhi's "I am Baghdad XI" (2008) is one of the pieces currently on view at The Johnson Museum as part of the “Tarjama/Translation" show, which runs through October 3. Image provided

A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY ART FROM THE ARABIC SPEAKING WORLD, an early 20^th Century photography exhibit, two striking new sculptures, and a host of work from the permanent collection just barely scratch the surface of a wide variety of art currently on view at the Johnson Museum at Cornell’s campus this late summer and early autumn. Though the museum is currently undergoing a massive $22 million expansion, all but the fifth floor galleries remain free and open to the public. On Friday, September 10 from 5-7:00pm, the Johnson will welcome the general public to an opening reception, featuring free refreshments and live music.

The most striking show currently on exhibit is “Tarjama/Translation,” which includes the work of 28 artists from Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Turkey among other countries. Featuring contemporary artists whose works use different methods of translation, the show, which runs through October 3, encompasses a variety of media and artistic strategies, examining the different ways that artists engage with people, objects, images, and ideas traveling across geographic spaces, media forms, histories, and personal contexts.

Organized by ArteEast, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, and curated by Leeza Ahmady as well as Cornell professor Iftikhar Dadi and Cornell Art History PhD Reem Fadda, “Tarjama/Translation” treats the multiple processes of translation as dynamic and complex, from linguistic and textual devices to the persistence of historical memory and the transformations engendered by increasing globalization.

According to Alexander, the exhibition “focuses on the common yet complex theme of cultural, artistic and critical translation, while making connections between these artistic concersn on translation and other trends in contemporary art.”

Though a viewer is first confronted with Sharif Waked’s wall-sized stencil and John Jurayj’s abstract canvases, virtually a third of the show encompasses video work. These vary from the documentary, to the comic to the obtuse. Esra Ersen’s “I am Turkish, I am Honest, I am Diligent…” depicts a group of schoolchildren and includes 48 separate school uniforms. Gulsun Karamustafa’s piece “The City and Secret Panther Fashion” is playful and subversive, depicting an ensemble of female characters secretly meeting where they dress up in panther patterns. Mitra Tabrizian’s piece comes off as a send up as a Hollywood movie, as a hitman follows around a dissident writer. The most impressive aspect of much of the work is the way in which the artists grapple with their own locations and disclocations: these include not only the national but also linguistic, gender and sex.

(John Jurayj, one of the artists in “Tarjama/Translation” will speak at the Johnson Thursday, September 9th in the gallery space.)

DOWNSTAIRS FROM THIS OVERWHELMING DIVERSITY, a more focused show depicts 20^th Century pictorial photography as the medium was slowly adopted as an art form. At the end of the nineteenth century, Alfred Stieglitz changed the way artists approached the photographic process, pushing them and himself to create works that would place photography among the fine arts, beyond its traditional role as a mere recorder of events. The exhibition explores the work of Stieglitz, his friends and colleagues, and the next generation of photographers who were inspired by them.

The exhibition, which draws from the Johnson’s permanent collection and is on view through October 10, focuses on the point at which photography was becoming appreciated as an art form. Taken together, the 1886 exhibition of art photography, the “New York, Philadelphia and Boston Joint Exhibition Series” and the 1901 Steiglitz-curated show at the Arts Club in New York, which included the work of Gertrude Kasebeir, Clarence White, and Max Weber, the photography of over six hundred European and American photographers was thus introduced to an appreciative audience.

In addition to these two shows, the following are also noteworthy.

“Monumental: Contemporary Figurative Sculpture” (through September 12). Two life-size figurative sculptures by Dutch artist Folkert de Jong and American sculptor Will Ryman that were recently donated to the Museum show that the figure is alive and well in contemporary sculpture, addressing a wide variety of topical issues.
“Sublime Form: European Decorative Design (1900-1920)” (through October 3). At the beginning of the last century, many artists trained as painters, sculptors, and architects recognized the need for good design in the decorative arts and began to create works that could be used and lived with. This exhibition will highlight the work of the Wiener Werkstätte from a private collection, alongside works from the Museum’s collection.

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, located on the campus of Cornell University, is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free. The Museum is accessible for mobility-impaired visitors, and a wheelchair is available in the lobby. Metered parking is available in the lot next to the Museum. For more information, please call 607 255-6464. Visit the Museum’s website at www.museum.cornell.edu.

Saturday, September 4, Ithaca Beer Company's Dan Mitchell is hosting Ithaca’s fourth annual Brew Fest, which features microbreweries from throughout the state and across the country.

THE FINGER LAKES REGION IS KNOWN AS WINE COUNTRY producing world-class Rieslings and Gewürztraminers as well as a handful of stunning Cabernet Francs, but a little-known fact is that the area is home to some fine breweries as well. Thanks to the efforts of Dan Mitchell, the founder and president of the well-regarded Ithaca Beer Company, Tompkins County and New York State may be soon be known as beer country.

Saturday, September 4, Mitchell is hosting Ithaca’s fourth annual Brew Fest, which features microbreweries from throughout the state and across the country. The event, which will run from 3-7 p.m. for general admission, with a sold-out “VIP” tasting an hour before the event, will feature a total of 40 makers of craft beer as well as three bands and food pairings provided by Wegmans. In addition to the breweries, three local bands will perform the Brew Fest: the Sim Redmond Band, Kevin Kinsella, and the Mutron Warriors. For more information please visit www.ithacabrewfest.com.

Local attendees include Ithaca’s The Bandwagon Brewpub, Trumansburg’s Bellwether Cider, Watkins Glen’s Roosterfish, and Cooperstown’s Ommegang. Though breweries from as far as California and Europe are attending, the event focuses on microbreweries and other craft beer makers from the region. Craft-made beer is made in smaller batches and have more flavor options than most mainstream beer, and microbreweries are those that produce 15,000 barrels or less per year.

The Ithaca Beer Company, which currently produces approximately 7,000 barrels a year will be joined by the regional breweries like Magic Hat and Brooklyn Brewery, which produce hundreds of thousands of barrels, but maintain a devotion to the craft of beer making.

Krissy Leonard, the “curator of curiosities” for Vermont’s popular Magic Hat Brewing Company explained, “local brewer’s festivals like the Ithaca Brew Fest give brewers the opportunity to come together and share what we are working on and proud of in our own respective worlds.”

“This sort of festival acts as gallery of sorts where we come together to experience what each of us has to offer and share perspectives on the craft that we all respect and admire,” Leonard continued.

Craft beer is one of the only segments of the larger beer market to have experienced growth in recent years, Mitchell said. While wine and alcohol sales are on the rise compared to sagging growth for beer’s market share, a growing market segment are recognizing notable local and regional producers as connoisseurs are beginning to take to craft beer like oenophiles think of fine wine.

Mitchell, a Cornell University graduate, said he “hopes to open consumers’ eyes to what American beer is all about.” He hopes most of all that folks will come out to have a good time, enjoy the food and music, and sample the best of what beer offers. “People should come down and be safe. It’s a sampling event, not an all you can drink event,” Mitchell underscored.

The festival will wrap-up at 7:00 p.m. and festival goers will have a variety of transportation options. From the traditional designated driver or downtown shuttle van to TCAT public transportation, local taxi service, overnight parking, and, of course, the summer stroll.  Ithaca Ale House has sponsored an official Brew Fest T-Cat bus service. Brew Fest attendees should show their ticket to the driver on the way to the festival and their wristband on the way back.

Admission to the Brew Fest is $35 in advance and $45 the day of the event. VIP tickets are $75 and can only be purchased in advance at the Ithaca Beer Company, State Theatre box office, all Wegmans stores and online through the event website, ithacabrewfest.com.  No one under 21 will be admitted.

The Cornell Concert Commission presented its first show of the semester Saturday, August 28 with a free performance by the DJ cum video artists Super Mash Brothers. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Photo by Heather Ainsworth

FOR THE FIRST FULL WEEKEND after the students’ return, a smattering of events occurred throughout Ithaca. While the Cornell Concert Commission presented the DJ trio the Super Mash Brothers (in the first free show of the semester), Castaways hosted JSAN and the Analogue Sons, one of the most popular local bands–quickly becoming a regional hit. The Ithaca League of Women Rollers hosted a double header at Cass Rink, and Ayurveda hit the Chapter House. – Post Editors

Jay Spaker of JSAN and the Analogue Sons, who hit Castaways Friday, August 27. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Lee Hamilton, Keir Neuringer and Jay Spaker of JATAS. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Mike Stark of JATAS. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Felicia's Atomic Lounge is located at 508 West State Street in Ithaca's West End. The blog "Drink My Words" is located here http://bit.ly/cIGCBC

WHEN WE WERE ELEVEN YEARS OLD, my best friend Melissa and I decided we should jog. It was the 80s, and everybody was doing it. I even owned a little yellow-and-white terry cloth jogging suit. Our “jog” consisted of a ¾ mile walk-trot up the road to the shopping plaza, where we landed either at a) the donut store; b) Burger King; or c) Carvel Ice Cream.

Thirty years later, my style of exercise hasn’t changed much. I’m trying to get used to the idea that I should exercise to lower my cholesterol or to prevent cancer or because I’m 40, but I still require a reward-based motivation of some sort to move my legs faster than a lollygag.

Food remains a primary motivator for me to get off my butt, though what I consume after my workout has taken on a more grownup tone. Instead of If I jog to the plaza, I can have an ice cream, it’s now more like If I spend an hour on the treadmill of torture, I deserve a gin and tonic.

Take for example my summer hikes with my girlfriend in the National Forest: proximity to food and drink is the key. All of our hikes revolve around an accompanying sandwich and hazelnut coffee at the Grist Mill Café in Burdett. Which means we don’t walk on Sundays and Mondays when the Grist Mill is closed, nor do we walk after 3 p.m. Sometimes when we eat there, we don’t make it into the forest at all.

Though the gym is so close to my house that I can hear it laughing at me, working out eludes me, perhaps because the gym has no adjoining restaurant. However, it tempts me with television. My reward for running is an hour with the Real Housewives of New Jersey or Stephen Colbert. I’m also fostering a meaningful connection with FitTV’s Bollywood Workout babe.

If I’m going to be walking somewhere unusual, far from TV or a place to eat, like on railroad tracks or along a desolate dry creek bed, then I identify off-color reasons to keep me interested in moving. Like maybe I’ll find a dead body, which I’ve wanted to do ever since I watched Stand By Me.

My most surprising adulthood exercise initiator is a dog. As a kid, I wasn’t allowed to have any indoor pets. (Now that I’m the one cleaning the house, I understand why.) I got my first dog when I was in my early 30s, and that’s when I found out that a dog gets my ass out of the armchair where I can otherwise sit for days on end with my laptop computer.

When I ask my dog, Eesah, if he wants to go for a walk, he does a hoppy little dance like he just won the lottery. How can I resist? A walk around the block – past the same houses he’s walked by hundreds of times before, and the same lilies he always prefers to pee on, and the same squirrels he pauses to point at – is the most rewarding experience in the world to him. This exuberance is matched only by his reaction to occasional car rides and his regular daily meals, the same Purina One chicken chunks he’s eaten for the previous nine years.

Eesah eats, walks, pees, runs, sticks his head out the car window, and he’s happy. He doesn’t think to himself, I should walk today so I don’t get osteoporosis, or Let’s see, I ran six miles. That means I burned 176 calories, so I can eat all of my dog food without guilt tonight. Wait a minute, how many calories are in these chicken chunks?”

If only I were so easily pleased. The dog does not require an additional treat at the end of his efforts. The walk itself is reward enough.

Amelia Sauter is a freelance writer and the Food Editor for the Ithaca Post. The recipe for the “Drink My Words” column is a mix of humor, cocktails and insight, garnished with a dash of bitters and a sprinkle of wit, and concocted thanks to Felicia’s Atomic Lounge.

Jill Swenson has a suggestion for what to eat when it's too hot to cook anything. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

I WAKE UP SWEATING. This is as cool as I’m going to get today, I think. I lay there exhausted on waking before the sun rises. Is it dew or a fog? I’ll be in a flop sweat all day. Again.

Doesn’t take very long mowing lawn or gardening outdoors to work up a real hunger; even if the heat is nauseating. Searching under vines, I find lots of cucumbers have ripened overnight.

I’ve got one hard-boiled egg left in the fridge for breakfast. Cold comfort. Happy tummy. Makes the morning last when there’s no air conditioning and no fan. I’m certainly not going to turn on the stove to prepare meals. So what’s good to eat that soothes the stomach and doesn’t require cooking?

Take cucumber slices and spread Greek-style plain yoghurt between them, then roll the edges in freshly minced dill. It reminds me of my heritage; Swedes love cucumber sandwiches, and Grandma Swenson baked sandwich cookies with real butter and sour cream. Takes me back to cool summer memories of swinging in the backyard hammock.

Time for morning sun tea. No need to boil water. I cut a fistful of mint leaves early in the morning and toss them into a quart or gallon glass jar full of water. By placing it in the sun I have homebrewed iced tea before 10 a.m. The longer the sun infuses the mint oils into the water, the more potent the flavor.  Mint counteracts the sweltering day.

For lunch, salad from the day’s garden goodies. The Romaine style lettuces are now ready to harvest and I’m still picking arugula, spinach, and swiss for a pretty bed of greens. The sweet peppers and Sebring yellow squash are tender cut as julienne strips. Sungold cherry tomatoes and minced fresh green onions set the salad on fire. The blossoms from pansies, nasturtiums and calendula adorn the salad plate with the taste of buttery petals, peppery pods, and velvety orange and yellow confetti. Toss and serve with chilled salad dressing.

It’s time to pull out the squeaky cheese curds for a cool afternoon snack. My favorites are the sundried tomato and basil curds from Sunset View Creamery in Odessa, NY.  Yancey’s Fancy offers a killer horseradish curd, but that’s only if you subscribe to the theory that in order to feel cooler you have to get hotter.

There are those who would serve steaming hot sweet corn slathered in butter and salt for supper on a hot night like tonight. But I’m not. What am I making for dinner tonight? I’d like to make reservations, but I’m too hot to even go anywhere.

Growing up in the 1960s meant my family, like millions of others, would’ve piled into the Chevy Impala station wagon and headed to the A & W Drive-In. My sister, Barb, and I would sit in the “way way back” and hang out the window trying to catch a highway breeze. Dad would pull in, park, and order into the squawk-box like they used at outdoor movie theaters. Minutes later, out would come our burgers, fries and mugs of ice cold root beer carried by a sweet 16-year-old girl server who attached the tray to the driver’s side window. Just holding the frosty mug was a refreshment.

Tonight, Antipasto is an option. I could pull out all the pickle jars, find the good olives, slice up some cheese and pepperoni or salami, and cut up all the raw veggies. Bread and butter might be just enough to make it all work together as a meal.

Cold tuna salad sandwiches.  Tomato stuffed with egg salad. No, that would require I boil more eggs. No. Cold cuts on rye bread. Frozen cooked shrimp, barely thawed in cocktail sauce. Oops, no shrimp in the freezer.

When the heat really gets obnoxious, I know many who resort to a meal of breakfast cereal with cold milk. Dairy products, however, make my seasonal allergies and physical ailments worse, so I’m prone to finding new food combos sans milk. This summer soup recipe came to me as I stared into the fridge wasting electricity, contemplating my cold food options.

Summer supper soup for when it’s too hot to cook or do anything

One quart of tomato juice (or V-8, a personal favorite) chilled

Cut up into small pieces a sweet green pepper, a small onion, a fresh ripe tomato

Mince ½ cup of fresh cilantro

Crush one clove of garlic

Juice one lime

Mix ingredients together in a pitcher. Pour yourself a bowl of unsweetened corn flakes. (You can substitute the leftover crushed tortilla chips from yesterday’s salsa fest.)  Pour soup over flakes and serve immediately (cold). Optional garnishes: dollop of sour cream, celery sticks. Try to chill out, relax and go to sleep in this heat. Wake up and pour another bowl of cornflakes and cover with the chilled leftover soup for breakfast in case it’s too hot to do this all over again tomorrow.

Jill Swenson lives in Mecklenburg on a self-sustaining, third-generation family farm, where she sells local, hand-harvested, untreated seeds and rents eco-cabins in the summer. On Warren Pond Farm and Seed Company can be found on the web at onwarrenpondfarm.com.

The moonflower, also known as brugmansia, datura, and ipomoea alba, can be spotted around Ithaca and the southern tier as summer turns to fall.

NOW THERE ARE MOMENTS WHEN WEATHER SEEMS TO HAVE TURNED and we hang in the hinge between summer and fall. The bee balm and Echinacea have browned and crisped, every last petal floated to the soft wet soil and dissolved. Heavy rains have started to slough off the last of the summer blooms, but before autumn foliage fully erupts around us, there is still at least one late summer sensation to enjoy: the last days of August, in my mind, have always solely belonged to the moonflower.

Or sometimes, the lack thereof. The three most popular and well-known plant varieties called by the enchanting name of moonflower are brugmansia, datura, and a strain of ipomoea. This last moonflower, a witchy nightbloomer, is related to its slutty sister of the same name, the morning glory. An old love once taught me how to bejewel a city balcony with summer blooms no matter what time of day: rig up lattices around the terrace, and below them plant boxes of morning glories and ipomoea moonflowers. Within just a few weeks the lattice will be covered with fat, heart-shaped leaves that hang like loose scales. Your view will be obscured, but that is a small price to pay for the personal privacy and near-invisibility awarded by a verdant wall that encloses a precious scrap of outdoor space in a densely packed urban area.

Morning glories are prolific, they spread and bloom easily; my favorites are the deep throaty purple varieties, but the pale blue ones have their own unique and quiet charm as well. Morning glories open in the morning and close up in the afternoon, but moonflowers will open at dusk or after dark in a spectacular display of unfolding petals, from bud to cleft to full bloom in about one minute. Even closed up these buds have a magnificent shape, like the carefully crafted spiral spire of a fantasy castle. As they unwind, each degree of crisp paper-white petal becomes increasingly visible; the dramatic event is so fast that you can actually watch the bloom open.

The end result, when the flower is open, is near-blinding. The blooms can be as big as my hand, with five whiter-than-white stripes that blaze down the center of their ivory petals, creating the effect of a five-pointed star. Multiple stamina thrust from the center have tiny caps shaped like the heads of pussy-willows that appear to be dipped in fine crystals like a piece of sugared fruit. Not surprisingly, the blooms, once fully open, crane on their stems to face the moon, which, if you turn off your porch light, will illuminate the petals so sensationally that they seem to almost glow in the dark. If they are specked with moisture from an early rain or recent watering, they will also sparkle, adding glitter and bling to their evening show. But each bud, once open, lasts only one night: it curls up and dies when it is first touched by morning light.

I mentioned the “lack thereof,” and by that I mean that the conditions must be specific for the ipomoea moonflower vine to actually bud. I’ve planted several, and only a few flourished enough to put out a series of several healthy blooms. The ipomoea moonflower vine needs full sun and warm soil to thrive, and the right kind of warm days accented by cool evenings, like the ones we may be about to experience, are important components of a benevolent environment for the blooms. In my experience, the years in which we plunge from the heat of summer right into a frosty autumn seem to truncate the blooming cycle of the moonflower vine.

Datura and brugmansia, conversely, are almost sinfully easy to cultivate and bring to bloom regardless of the climate. Majestic and grand, both of these do just fine in the Southern tier, and I’ve seen some spectacular ones around my neighborhood. Datura also grows like a vine, but low to the ground. It puts out big fat spiky seedpods and spreads rapidly in a single season, so it should have a lot of space around it when planted; otherwise it will trounce other, more fragile plants that get in its way. These blooms, when they come, protrude straight upward toward the sky. Their near-relation brugmansia, on the other hand, grows on a large, sturdy, leafy plant that can get upwards of five feet tall and shoots out blooms known as angel trumpets that open in the opposite direction: straight down, mouth wide open, face to the ground.

A woman I chatted with once described the ipomoea moonflower scent as White Diamonds, Elizabeth Taylor’s classic perfume. Wonderfully sweet but not sticky or overpowering, clean and fresh, bearing traces of gardenia or maybe freesia; it’s obvious why the moonflower is associated with intoxication and disorientation. Pagan practitioners advise heavy inhaling around the open bloom to induce trance before practicing divination or going to sleep (if your goal is to spark prophetic dreams). The brugmansia, too, is known to be endowed with strong hallucinogenic and toxic properties if ingested, and I’ve heard it said you can get revenge on an enemy by putting a blooming brugmansia below his bedroom window: inhaling the perfume of the open bloom is said to instigate horrific dreams and night terrors.

I know that the reason the ipomoea moonflower opens at night is to attract the moths that pollinate it, but I still like to think of them as the garden’s vampires, luscious and lusty at night, shriveled and dispatched by the light of the morning sun. And of course, moths are known to attract bats, so this analogy is not too far off the mark. I didn’t plant any moonflower vines this year, but I did dream of one recently. A dream symbol book said that a moonflower vine exemplifies the bountiful spreading of a singular spiritual deed. Mine, or someone else’s? I suppose that’s not important, and the symbol is so obvious as to be almost meaningless. But before fall fully envelops us, a few final garden metaphors still provide grist for comfort and reflection, while every day the light leaks out of the sky just a little bit earlier.

Danielle Winterton is a fiction writer, frequent contributor to The Ithaca Post, and co-founding editor of Essays & Fictions.