Windowsill allotment rewards - Orkney bruschetta

Orkney bruschetta, amazing what you can grow on the inside of a windowsill even up here.

Yummy Orkney Bruschetta, with home grown food from my windowsill, now that was tasty! But first, before I lose myself in the delight of tomatoes, I want to document that the 6th of August at the weekend, was a 'nice day' with absolutely NO WIND. Its definitely one of the TEN days of the year that there is no wind in Orkney, I know, I've counted weather data for the past four years and the literature is right, its only totally still and calm here for approximately 10 days a year. We've had 3 this year so far, cool eh, we might even get more windless days, please?

With the giddiness that followed discovering a windless morning, we decided to amble out and eat our breakfast in the garden. How very novel in the summer time, dining outside without your dinner taking off in a force 7 gale, bliss. And, as you can see from the 'arty' shot - I had bruschetta for breakfast, not probably a normal breakfast food, but the windowsill allotment has been producing oodles of tomatoes and basil, so I thought I'd indulge. Very yummy it was too and most excellent use of home grown tomatoes and basil. In fact the only NON Orkney ingredient in this delightful morsel was the tiny bit of black pepper, totsy bit of sea salf (why doesn't Orkney produce sea salt, I wonder) and the olive oil (1/2 teaspoon) I used on the tomatoes. Mr Flowers, more sensible than me, had cornflakes, not of course local. Then again, I don't think I actually offered him the option of bruschetta, whoops it even made it to the bench and looked gorgeous!

Orkney bruschetta, or as my grannie would say 'mattees on toast', doesn't have the same ring does it?

A relative local feast grown on a windowsill in Orkney, brilliant. Its got me thinking more and more about 'The Orkney Diet' and the feasibility of realistically feeding a typical (ish, well we're not very typical except in size maybe) family on a diet of predominantly local food, and growing my own in the 'challenging climate' whilst being on quite a tight budget (we spend about £200-250 a month on household food for our family, but I'm always looking to reduce that but keep good quality eating). And, I say predominantly as I know we can't get everything locally to sustain our needs, Orkney does not have coffee plantations and chocolate groves, not yet! But, I'm curious to know how much local produce can we realistically incorporate into our diet, without breaking the bank....... I feel a local food eating challenge coming on and I do like a challenge and, um, eating. There are quite a few local food project out there, throughout the globe so there's lots to be learnt from these experiences and plenty of enthusiasm to do it.

Oh and today, um, 11 degree, 50 km/h winds, serious sideways rain (is there any other kind?), despite the elders still being in bloom, the willow hedge has a number of the plants blown over. I think Orkney has gone through a space/time/continuim worm hole and has landed in November. Really, I do. And if we have, I'll be quite cross. I'd like an indian summer please, if no one minds.