(Editor's Notes by Christina Myer - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Food prep has certainly changed in my kitchen now that summer is essentially here. While I welcome use of the oven (or even stove top) in January and February — and don’t mind getting sucked into complicated recipes involving sauces — warm-weather eating is much more as it was during my childhood.

Cucumbers with a little salt (stirred up with chopped little green onions and sour cream if we were feeling fancy), tomatoes, leaf lettuce (often in the form of wilted lettuce with hot bacon and buttermilk), potatoes prepared in many variations … does anyone else eat little green onions raw, with a little salt to dip them in before each bite? I’m ready for watermelon, strawberries, peaches … actually, maybe I should have eaten lunch before I started typing this.

I had no idea how good we had it because Gran knew how to raise a garden, and I’m lucky to be able to pop into a grocery store or farmer’s market here now and get pretty much all the same things. (Can’t quite get it all to taste as good, though.)

I saw two stories this week that brought all this to mind. The first was about the West Virginia Health Right Mobile Teaching Kitchen, which at the time was being demonstrated with the use of vegetables and herbs from the garden planted at the Governor’s Mansion in Charleston. The second was a report that West Virginia was NOT among the states that had decided to opt out of the federally funded summer EBT program to help struggling families pay for food during the months when children are not able to rely on meals at school. The decision will help feed approximately 165,000 Mountain State kids.

Wonderful.

But then I read the total benefit per eligible child is $120. Summer EBT benefits are removed from benefit cards 122 days after the benefit is issued. (They are intended to be a stopgap for summer.) But think about the kids in your life. Could you feed them breakfast and lunch on $120 for the whole summer (75 days ish)? I hope you’re fortunate enough never to have had to think about it. But even getting really creative, it would be difficult. It’s about 80 cents for each of those meals.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the program. Again, it is a good thing — and encouraging to know officials here understand it is necessary. And, to their credit, the folks at the state Department of Human Services have put some summer recipes on its website and are encouraging healthier cooking using what might be available at farmer’s markets or local produce sections.

But there’s a good chance some families will need to find other means to supplement what they are able to purchase, and that’s where our local food pantries come in. Many food pantries accept donations of produce — but please check with the pantry to which you plan to donate before you bring in a trunk load of food they can’t use.

Find out if they take produce, meats, dairy products and other farmer’s market fare, in addition to the shelf-stable stuff and other necessities.

If being able to throw open the kitchen window and let a nice summer breeze blow through while you make yourself an heirloom tomato sandwich is one of your joys of the season, too, give someone else a chance to share the experience.

Summers are meant to be delicious. For everybody.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com