I have two parents who don't care much about food. My mother could live on tea and toast smeared thick with butter and be perfectly content, while my father earned the nickname The Red Tornado early in life for tearing through a meal as fast as those funneling winds can sweep across West Texas. How then, did these two produce such a produce-swooner, cookbook-reader, and
eager-to-serve hostess?
It could have been those melancholic, rainy fall months in Italy where I tasted my first wild boar sausage and clutched big bowls of cafe lattes with both hands. Or perhaps it was the vacation I took with my sister, both of us heartbroken and in France for the first time, drunk on foie gras and
champagne. Or was it working at the best job I've known for
a chef with a deep appreciation for sunny lunches, Algerian wine, and beautiful women? It was all those things, of course. But most instructive of all was the vibrant orange book spine that caught my eye at the local library three summers ago. Will you be patient with me as I take you back there?
It was a slow, long summer, intermittently blissful and restless; I was hovering uncomfortably in the three months between college and whatever came next. With little money and plenty of time, I stayed in bed late with iced espresso and then rode a heavy red Schwinn on the river path high up above the Mississippi. I trolled dusty book shops looking for Scribner paperbacks from the 60s, wandered the stalls of the nearby antique mall making moony eyes at brooches and embroidered handkerchiefs, and walked up and down the aisles of the grocery store picking up tins, jars, and packages of exotic ethnic ingredients. I was killing time. And If I was hungry, I would call
my best friend who lived six blocks away for a comparison of freezer, pantry, and fridge. If she had shallots, then I had some shrimp, and if I could scrounge together some pasta from the bottom of this box or that and she could bring over some olive oil, we could eat supper on my back porch with the mosquitoes and the fireflies.
It was also the summer I went on one of those dates that changes the path of where you think your life is headed. We saw the
Umbrellas of Cherbourg in a little theater that served
RC cola and then stood huddled on the sidewalk waiting for a cab in a blast of strange summer cold. That cab would take us to
a cozy bistro, and there we would share champagne and oysters and frites. That was the night I learned the date who was turning my life upside down didn't like oysters (why am I being so coy, you know
who he is), but that was not the reason that evening was so important. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It was thanks to a small selection at the library, the grace of serendipity, and of course that eye-catching orange spine that I found
The Gastronomical Me. And it was because of M. F. K. Fisher that my last quiet mornings, noons, and nights spent alone in
a city I had loved and had loved me back were not fretted away with complete trepidation about the future that lay ahead. Instead, I pored over a rich life of adventure, reflection, and love, days filled with summer peach pies and cold bottles of milk, nights with hot cafe cremes and good movies watched with a true love. In her voice I found a mentor and in her way of living a model. And when you're adrift with what's to come and what's to be and who you are and who you want to be, there is deep comfort in getting even one small piece of the picture to fall into place.
Without my dear
M. F. K., I might not have appreciated those
cold, salty oysters in the full manner I did, drinking up the soft light and the handsome visage of the man I was falling in love with. I would not have spent the duration of countless tedious subway rides happily transported to a world of self-possession, curiosity, and fine, simple food. I would not have started
this blog, and I certainly would have never thought -- would not have had the tools or the experience to imagine -- this very salad, which I loved, and ate alone.
Watercress and Roasted Leek Salad with Broiled Goat Cheese and Dijon Vinaigrette
Serves 1
1 leek
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 bunch watercress
1 2 oz button of goat cheese cut in half horizontally (spread the other half on a sandwich another day)
for the vinaigrette
1 small shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Slice the white part of your leek on the diagonal and then separate into rings as you would with an onion. Soak the leeks in several changes of cold water -- they are notoriously dirty. Toss with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and throw into the oven for 20 or 25 minutes until soft and wilted.
Place the goat cheese on a piece of aluminum foil and throw it under your broiler for about five minutes until it is hot and taking on a dark brown hue in spots. Meanwhile, whisk together all the ingredients for the vinaigrette in the bottom of your salad bowl. Add watercress and leeks and toss. Then pile greens on a plate and top with broiled goat cheese.
