Foodies and gourmets be warned: exit now, you won’t enjoy this post. But if you can handle or even occasionally crave comfort food, please stick around.

Summertime and that classic sandwich, the bacon, lettuce and tomato are perfectly paired. The gardens and farmers’ markets are bursting with “real” tomatoes and tender leaf lettuce.

The locavores are with me to this point, but here’s my heresy. I am usually making a homemade meal after getting home from work at a late hour. Assembling B.L.T.’s on toast takes time. So I speed up the prep time by making the B.L.T.’s on rolls toasted en masse in the oven, and I buy the cheapest most Wonder Bread kind of hamburger or hot dog rolls. I wouldn’t dream of using these rolls for any purpose other than a B.L.T.

I have pondered why these atrocious rolls work so well in this situation. I believe it’s because you eat this particular sandwich to showcase the tomatoes, lettuce, bacon and Hellmann’s mayonnaise. The bread is only a vehicle to hold that combo together. Bad rolls are all air and squish down to about 1/4 inch allowing the star ingredients to take center stage.

More confessions…..since we don’t eat meat, we use soy bacon. I’m the first to admit that it will never take the place of real bacon. And we also butter the rolls. You butter everything but ice cream when you are from Wisconsin.

Mr. Tom doesn’t purr. We know that he is a happy cat. Every time we approach him, he flops down, rolls over and wants a tummy rub. He also kneads exuberantly when petted. Only happy cats do that.

But Tom doesn’t purr and we don’t know why. All of our other cats can turn on their motors with varying degrees of decibels. Neko’s purr is so loud that he can’t be a bed cat…we wouldn’t get any sleep.

Big and little wild cats and our little domestic cats share an amazing number of features and behaviors.  Purring is the exception. Big cats roar but can’t purr. Little cats (both wild and tame) can purr but not roar. The exact mechanics of the little cats’ purr are still a zoological mystery.

Perhaps Tom’s lack of a purr is related to his mysterious past. He used to be Miss Kitty. One day, over two years ago, a beautiful, long haired, well groomed cat showed up in our yard. We assumed that this glamour puss was a “she” but couldn’t get close enough to check. For months we saw her daily, but she would streak away if we came anywhere near her. When winter came, we concluded that she had no home and left a full food bowl for her in the garage every night. (Our garage has a cat door.)

When spring, a.k.a. kitten season arrived, we knew we would have to trap Miss Kitty and get her fixed. We didn’t want to find a garage full of kittens some morning.

Each night for two weeks we inched the food dish out of the garage and closer to our front door until Miss Kitty was finally eating on our door sill. And then one night we left the door open and the bowl inside the front hall. Miss Kitty came in and my husband went out via another door, snuck up behind her and closed the door trapping her inside. She panicked and climbed straight up the dining room wall to a second story windowsill where she remained for many hours.

When we got her to the vet, we were informed that neutering was in order. We had a lovely male cat.

Mr, Tom did not want to return to the feral life. He can live with us forever, even if he never finds his purr.

Summer is at its peak of ripeness. Despite the fact that every store is trumpeting back to school sales and merchandise, fall is not imminent.

For those of us who prefer to live in the moment, the signs of high summer are blazingly evident. Outside, the air is hot and muggy; inside, the fans and dehumidifier are running on overdrive. Our blacktop road steams after rain showers, and the cats vie for the coolest nap spot in the house, our marble topped table.

The roadsides all around us glow with masses of orange daylilies while the Queen Anne’s Lace  and cone flowers grace the open fields. Since we have been blessed by the rain goddesses, the field corn is over my head  and the alfalfa is ready for another cutting.

Each week the piles of just picked produce at the farmers’ markets are growing higher and more varied. The sweet corn has arrived. We’ll be husking and eating that delicacy out on the deck as we watch the sunset.

Our purple martins are still residing in the apartment houses we’ve provided them in our side yard. The martins spend their days swooping through the skies, scooping up insects and delivering the bugs to their chirping babies. These kids quickly need to get big and strong for the mid August migration to Central and South America.

Our other animal babies are thriving as well. The new raccoons look like furry beach balls, the chipmunk youngsters are almost as big as their parents and the male baby grosbeaks are losing their drab brown feathers for black and white outfits with brilliant red dickies.

We are eating with the gusto of our animal friends. The ice cream stands all beckon. While we haven’t indulged in “chilled champagne and potato chips”, the perfect heat wave menu, it does sound tempting.

The fresh notebooks, new crayons and fall clothes will have to wait. Summer is calling.

The New York Times Science section recently had a lead article entitled “Fond Remembrances”. For the greater part of three pages, clinical psychologists expounded on a radical new finding: Nostalgia, previously though to be a psychological disorder, is now considered to be beneficial to our species.

These academics could have saved a stack of money by simply asking happy people their opinion on the matter.

I have spent thousands of hours in the last 20 years chatting with octogenarians in nursing homes and assisted livings in three states. Anyone who doubts that nostalgia brings joy should get out of their ivy covered walls and listen to the elderly.

One of my favorite 80+ friends would light up when she would tell me about a beloved barn cat from her childhood. “That cat would never drink her milk,” Mrs. P. would say, “she would daintily dip her foot in the bowl and lick the milk off her paw.”

My dear friend Margaret taught me that even people who have had horrific childhoods can garner happiness from memories. Margaret grew up on a farm, and when she was twelve, her mother died of cancer. Her father was an abusive, stingy alcoholic who made it clear that Margaret would have his dinner on the table at whatever hour he staggered in. Yet, Margaret would radiate happiness when she would tell me about her mother’s love of growing flowers, or the day the cows got loose and ate the vegetable garden or the kind, young teacher at her one room school. Memory is selective, frequently it is the good memories that stick.

Young people thrive on nostalgia as well. One of my most popular programs is “Festivals of Light” which compares holiday traditions all over the world at the time of the Winter Solstice. I conclude the program by inviting the kids to share their special family traditions. Multiple hands always shoot up. I frequently have to escort a group of students out the door and down the hall to their next classes so they won’t be late. They are sharing stories all the way.

Somewhere during my long tenure as a City of Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commissioner, I heard someone say, “Without our past, how would we know it’s us?” I agree and would add that enjoying the past does not preclude living fully in the moment. After all, the present moment is where all nostalgia is born.

My lack of gardening skills is legendary. I am the woman who can’t grow mint. Each spring, I head to the garden center and buy yet another little pot of mint and start all over again.

When mint is a challenge, a tomato is totally daunting. Last year we could only manage two spindly plants with yellowed leaves and a yield of  two and one half tomatoes. Some unknown creature ate the other half.

Enter our gardening friend, Dawn, the horticulturalist. She patiently listened to our woeful tomato tale and cheerily said, “You can do this!”

A few weeks ago she arrived at our house with a colossal flower pot. Attached to the mega pot was a super size saucer and sticking straight up out of the soil was a one inch diameter pipe with a cap. Clearly, high technology was being employed.

The pot was lugged up onto our east facing deck along with a medium size tomato plant with several little green tomatoes dangling from it. A good teacher reinforces her students: our friend again assured us that we would have a tomato crop this year.

But she wasn’t taking any chances. Out of her bag came Epsom salts and eggshells which she patiently worked into the soil. Then the tomato plant was set into its new environment.

“Just pour water in the pipe every few days,” she instructed.

I must admit that my husband and I felt a bit of trepidation. If we messed this up, we would end up in the Worst Gardeners of the World Hall of Fame.

I am happy to report that we just picked our first red, ripe, perfect little tomato. The plant has turned into a leafy green tomato bush with numerous flowers. We are anticipating a bumper crop.

My husband and I are midcentury people and firm believers in the wisdom of the Beatles’ lyrics,” I get by with a little help from my friends.”