It’s now been just over a week since I’m back at sea level and in my home kitchen, which really has only one thing more than the kitchens I used in apartments rented over the past month: A food processor.

So that’s given me the opportunity to make gazpacho, cold corn soup, and the marinade for jerk chicken.  Simple, satisfying dishes that have a few good ingredients.

Living in a town where in restaurants you usually can’t see the plate beneath the pile of hodgepodge ingredients means that home cooking adds a lot to day to day life.

Luckily, we have Russo’s, a first-rate supplier of fruits and vegetables that draws on Italian-American views of food; New Deal, easily the best fish market I’ve been to in the United States; and, of course, UPS and FEDEX so that chickens and beef can be shipped when needed.  Add to the long-distance food supply: Browne Trading, in Portland, Maine, that sells fish to some of the country’s best restaurants.