Pink of Perfection

This August is so strange. Some days I can almost feel a shift in the air toward cooler days. We’ve slept with the air-conditioner off these past several nights, and someone told me they saw turning leaves (”Dry summer,” explained my brother). But then we’ll get that familiar wall of humidity or a fierce summer thunderstorm. The air-conditioner and sunglasses go back on.

I was at the farmer’s market last Friday. It had been a lovely day. The air was just right, I had spent the morning writing, and I met my co-workers for lunch in a restaurant that transported me to the New England seashore. (I ate a lobster cobb salad which, let’s be real, didn’t hurt.) I went to the market and asked myself what the quintessential elements of summer food were. Corn, tomatoes, basil. I scooped up all three, and figured the rest of it out on the subway ride home.

Very often, the simplest solution is the best. We scratch our head for days trying to figure out the right course of action: what should we make for dinner, how should we rearrange the furniture, how can we cheer up a friend? When the answer comes, we wonder what took so long.

And when the solution doesn’t come so easily, I am trying to remember that, like a road trip, the process of getting “there” is part of the journey. Practice and play are just as important, and actually, pretty damn fun.

Continue reading “Simple Summer Supper: Penne with Corn, Tomatoes, and Pesto” »

Last night, there was just the slightest hint of coolness in the air, like a whisper at my bedroom window. I’m not usually one to wish for coziness in summer, or even to wish for fall while the warm days are still stacked up; I know they’re out there, in September, with their softer, slanting light. They’ll come.

But even still, because of the air last night, and because of this cold I’ve been fighting (day 5 and counting), I’ve been craving a particular kind of comfort. The Boden catalog came, and I dogeared page after page of striped wool cardigans and plaid miniskirts. Yesterday I ate a bowl of cereal and watched Kate & Allie, and after pulling on my long white nightgown, I climbed in bed with Anne.

It was also, you might imagine, a night on which something like pasta with creamy zucchini sauce fit the bill perfectly for dinner. The question of what to do with the glut of August zucchini is one of my favorite cooking quandaries. I think to think that I’m providing my mom with lots and lots of ideas. This recipe, from the River Cottage Cookbook, is a very good one indeed. Sumptuously simple, this is most certainly a keeper.

Continue reading “Pasta with Creamy Zucchini Sauce” »

I am floating on a cloud of farmer’s market bliss. Last week I fell in love with garlic scapes––so spicy, so alien-looking!––and this week I swooned over a pint of raspberries so tender and sweet, I ate them with a spoon straight from the stained green cardboard. In the past I’ve been cautiously drawn to the familiar. But this year, I am striking out. What, pray tell, is red mustard? (It’s a kicky green that’s wonderful in stir-fries.) There’s a whole world of exploration to be done under those white plastic tents standing brightly in the middle of a concrete city at the intersection of Broadway and 14th Street.

But that poetical waxing is neither here nor there, as the recipe I’m about to tell you about has no exotic ingredients. In fact, you likely have everything you need for this dinner in the pantry. Which, as far as I’m concerned, makes it a shoe-in for dinner tonight. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that for those nights when you need a bowl of pasta for dinner––and I know you know what I mean––this supper fits the bill. With the front door closed on the unpredictable and tiresome indignities of the world out there, the salve to the cruelties of the day is this rich, nutty pesto, vibrantly green and alive with garlic, tossed with a tangle of noodles. We may now consider ourselves fortified for whatever lays ahead tomorrow.

Continue reading “Pea, Parsley and Walnut Pesto” »

I’ve spent my adult life thinking I didn’t like barley. Turns out, what turned me off were the bloated, mushy pearls in soup. But as a grain cooked to delicate, chewy perfection, I’ve discovered I’m a big, big fan. In fact, I’ve been eating it all week with my farmer’s market stir-fries instead of rice.

You’ve got to have a killer air-conditioner or an unseasonably cool day on your hands to want to make risotto in June, I realize, and I certainly wouldn’t advise standing over a hot pot on a humid day. But I made this a few weeks ago when I had a basically bare pantry, and despite the not-so-delicious looking picture, this was a total success. I don’t think I’ll go back to making classic risotto unless it’s for a special occasion, and I’m definitely ditching the time-sucking brown rice attempt. Barley risotto it is from now on!

One more thing: this recipe kind of falls into no-brainer territory. It’s warm and comforting and soothing, and I find it’s nice to have those basic recipes on hand for the days we’re feeling uninspired about dinner, or you spent the afternoon at the public pool and return home with that feeling of bone-weary exhaustion and a cool core temperature. Don’t you love that feeling? And more than any other supper prep that comes to mind, perhaps with the exception of chopping onions, risotto-making is therapeutic, for those days when you can’t handle the high energy action of flipping this and searing that or watching the broiler like a hawk lest something burst into flames. This is for those slower days when your brain’s not firing on all cylinders and you can just manage stirring.

Continue reading “$5 Dinner: Tomato and Parmesan Barley Risotto” »

Oh, lord, the humidity. It’s already got me in a state. My hands are clammy and my forehead is shiny. Let us just hope this is merely a transition to when I am suddenly glowy and crisp and fresh as a daisy. Seriously, how do people do that in summer? I will find this out in my next earthly incarnation, when I am rendered ethereal, rather than earthy.

(While we’re on the topic, generally speaking at least, does anyone have a non-greasy, everyday facial sunscreen that they love?)

I don’t have much to say today, so I will have to just cut to the facts: I have eaten this for three out of my last six meals. It is just what I needed in the wake of too much vacation: fresh, crisp, light, and lemony. I served it with a poached egg on top (no surprises there), but turn to whatever protein you like. Cold roasted chicken would be nice, cubes of tofu, a few chickpeas, or maybe even some flakes of smoked salmon. Oh, yes; that would be heavenly, indeed. And for the hot (and bothered?) among us, this is the perfect steamy day dinner or lunch. The stove stays on for mere moments, and you need only dirty one pan. Score one for the cooks in the battle against the summer heat!

Continue reading “$5 Dinner: Spring Vegetable Couscous” »

Happy Monday!

Of course, what I really mean is, great to see you again. As lovely as the weekends are, I’m always happy to come back to this little corner of the world and say hello to you again. Hello! Are you in a crap mood? Are you still glowing from the weekend? Whatever your state, it’s good to see you.

Today I am having some thoughts about granola. Is there ever really a healthy granola? How can oats and nuts add up to 7 million calories? And then there is the matter of burning. I am thinking of taking up a second career as a professional granola burner. I can bake springy custards and roll out homemade puff pastry, but I can’t seem to make granola without having to throw away lots of browned bits. Oh well. As my mom says, “God isn’t finished with me yet.”

With these questions in mind, it was with great enthusiasm that I came across a particular recipe for granola that didn’t seem to be an oil-sugar sponge disguised as a health food with so much reputation it’s become its own slang. There was a relatively small amount of oil, the intriguing addition of egg whites, and the option of using a sweetener like agave nectar. This seemed like a very good granola to me, and the jar of only-slightly-burned stuff that I passed on to a friend last week got good reviews.

But I can’t help but think that the granola I really like is the one my mom makes. It’s full of shredded coconut and slivered almonds, and the recipe is written on a sheet of notebook paper tucked inside a yellow binder. There is a coffee can on the top shelf of her fridge filled with it. So on Mother’s Day Eve, I sprinkled a bit over a little bowl of strawberry yogurt. It felt good to be home.

When it comes to my own homemade granola, though, I’ll probably stick with this version. (Or this one, which I have yet to make myself but a friend brought to book club and was heavenly.) While there are some family recipes we carry on unchanged, there are others we have to discover and write for ourselves in order to suit the people we’re becoming, or want to become. There’s a place, though, for the recipes that transport us to another time and another age. I’ll keep my hunger for mom’s granola confined to trips home and those care packages I happily lug back to the city.

Continue reading “The Quest for Healthy Granola” »

Hello, rainy Monday. You are not the stuff that dreams are made of. You don’t contain even an iota of get up and go, and vim and vigor is not your thing. But all the same, here you are. You are good for Chopin and cups of tea sipped out of wedding china, I suppose, and that is no small thing.

The air has just been rife with humidity — and not just the rainy sort — for the past few days. There’s a chill that seeps into your bones and makes you want to light a candle, open the curtains (but keep the windows closed) and read The Wind in the Willows under a white coverlet. It’s the kind of weather that calls for a simple roast chicken by night and clean, honest salads by day. That, to me, is spring. And that’s where today’s recipe comes in.

I was quiet for the past week because I was in Dallas, my mouth full of queso. And when I wasn’t eating queso, I was asking for more hot sauce and fishing at the bottom of the bowl of chips. I simply can’t get enough of those fresh, hot flavors of Mexican food. But I came back, as enamored of those flavors as ever, but feeling a little too puffed up. This is where salads flecked with cilantro, fresh with lime, rounded out by quinoa and black beans save the day. A slice or two of avocado is like the cherry on top.

Continue reading “Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa Salad” »

Lately, most people I know have been hunkering down with a big bowl of noodles at least once a week. And rightfully so: the indignities of making our way through the cold and muscling into boots calls for dinner in a bowl, and preferably one that will leave you in a blissed-out carbohydrate haze. Sometimes, though, those of us who do not excel in the ways of moderation end up regretting it afterward. I like to think that if a healthy dose of cruciferous vegetable gets folded in with a wheaty tangle, the same comfort level can still be achieved and the bloated guilt diminished. At least, that’s the idea.

It wasn’t until recently that I began to explore cauliflower’s charms. I’ve always loved it as a crudité, but when it came into my life as a gratin, a soup, and most recently in Sebastian’s off-the-cuff red vegetable curry, I could feel myself falling in love. I doubt that cauliflower will stir the passion nor the vitriol sardines recently did, but that’s okay. Cauliflower is cool — a laid-back, mellow, vegetable that hangs around in the background until you need it to take center stage. It doesn’t need to live in the spotlight, but when it does, it really steals the show. And in a quietly confident way I sort of love.

Continue reading “$5 Dinner: Sweet and Spicy Cauliflower and Penne” »