The very, very lucky reader writes:

Thought of you this morning. I have spent most of the summer in Europe, and we are on a small island off the coast of Brittany (the aptly named Belle Ile) for a couple of weeks. Many, many crepes / gallettes, and much cidre. This was our breakfast this morning — note what is in the front. Huitres for breakfast. Vive La France!

Breakfast oysters! France, man, is there any place better? Don’t answer unless you are going to say non.

The reader writes:

Wineberries (like raspberries, but smaller and not quite as tart) picked wild near the Schuylkill River, then baked with a honey almond flour crust. Served with coconut milk or fresh farm yogurt. Eaten in the backyard before catching fireflies.

That has to be one of the all-time great summer VFYTs, yes? Fireflies, berries, backyard.

The reader made a tomato-garlic-rosemary recipe from a previous VFYT, and writes:

I certainly don’t expect you to use it since it is hardly a view that anyone would find enchanting in any way. But it is my place in Seattle and a slice of my bachelor life. If I had found the DVD, Casablanca would be on the screen instead of the X-Box screen. The pasta is homemade using my Mom’s pasta maker that I inherited because she had pancreatic cancer at the same time I had leukemia. The Kindle is showing A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. And the 250 ml Erlenmeyer flask has my balsamic vinaigrette which I always mix myself.

Doesn’t that look amazing? Makes me think of Patrick Leigh Fermor. The reader writes:

While hiking across the Swiss Alps on the Via Alpina, stopped to lunch outside at the historic Hotel Rosenlaui and couldn’t resist ordering the “Goethe Teller”: baked potato, three kinds of local cheeses, a basket containing several types of local bread, cream of vegetable soup, an apple, prunes, cherries, apricots, and hazelnuts. Washed down with Rugen Brau beer from nearby Interlaken. Goethe stayed here, as did Nietzsche, Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle. In fact, Doyle wrote the hotel into The Final Problem (although my recollection is that only Dr. Watson made it to the hotel, Sherlock Holmes having tumbled over the nearby Reichenbach Falls with Dr. Moriarty).

Here’s an unusual one:

Followed by this one:

The reader who sent them both explains:

In May, I went the Emergency Room and was admitted to the Cardiac Intensive care unit for 3 days. Here’s the view from my table. My meal was comprised of clear liquids and gruel. The monitor in the background shows a strong pulse, normal blood pressure and great oxygen saturation levels, leading me to be discharged with a clean bill of health. Under such circumstances, gruel can taste like a gourmet meal.

I was discharged a week before I left for my Ireland vacation. The following is the view from our pub table in the Temple Bar, Dublin Ireland. The oysters were magnificent–huge, meaty and tender. They were the beginning of an evening “Traditional Music Pub Crawl.” We enjoyed a wonderful evening of irish music, song food and drink. I toasted your health and gave thanks for my own, with a Guinness, and of course, the oysters.

That’s marvelous! Thanks for your kind wishes, and the oysters and Guinness. I’m grateful that you are healthy and, um, stout. 😉

The reader writes:

Those are peanut shells. And g&Ts We are at the Q Roadhouse on a huge veranda overlooking a shady lawn where a bunch of happy kids are playing while their parents sit and sip cocktails. I think Wyoming folks are quite possibly the nicest people on the planet. We are on a road trip from Portland to St. Louis. Our radiator died today and if you ever break down, this is the place to do it. People really look out for each other out here.

The reader writes:

I visited NC this weekend and decided to take in a minor league baseball game. This is from BB&T Stadium in Charlotte, a day game last Friday between the Charlotte Knights and the Pawtucket Red Sox. It’s a really nice little stadium in uptown; cheap seats and a friendly crowd. It’s a shame they weren’t selling better beer as NC has some great micro-breweries but I don’t mind a Blue Moon from time to time.

And finally, a rule-breaking VFYT, because it shows faces, but in this case, I hope you’ll indulge me. Here are my mother and father tonight at the dinner we gave them in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary: