Cool As A Cucumber

"Cool as a cucumber, cool as a cucumber...who knows why cucumbers are cool"? This was the question Chef Michelle posed to our young culinary class and the answer that I gave him was that cucumbers are generally 20 degrees cooler internally than their external temperature. Once he realized that I had the answer because of a friend in a previous class he deemed me as sneaky. He also said that might be a quality that would be advantageous to me later in my career.

Regardless of the Frenchman's commentary on my means of satisfying his curiosity, the humble cucumber has been a favorite vegetable of mine since that exchange. We enjoy them now at Jim 'N Nick's in salads and also have a particularly satisfying salad of cucumber, tomato and red onion marinated in our vinaigrette that is a favorite of our summer time offerings.

The snapshot attachesd is of a myriad variety of cucumbers harvested from Jones Valley Urban Farm. These beauties are on their way to becoming bread and butter slices that will crown a feast of whole hog barbecue. They are crisp and refreshing but at the same time a perfect canvass for sweetness and acidity to cut right through rich, meaty, whole hog barbeuce. The bonus that they are local and from our friends at Jones Valley just adds to why they are so special and why we should appreciate their summer time offering.