Platitudes: "Time heals all wounds." "Don't wish your life away." "This, too, shall pass."
From these few phrases, you may gather that I am still chafing under the restraints imposed by a not-yet-healed broken hand. We're rapidly approaching the six-week mark since my undignified 3am tumble over a misplaced footstool, so I hope that soon I'll be freed from the increasing irritation of a plaster splint that is hot, scratchy and sticky, uncomfortable, and prevents me from using my dominant hand.
Um, Kate, that's what it's supposed to do.
I went to the farmer's market this morning for the first time this year. Today is the fourth week of the season, but I haven't been earlier because I knew that it would only depress me to see fresh vegetables and know that I couldn't cut them up and cook them. I was right, but I did allow myself to buy some tiny yellow squash, which is tender enough that I can cut it left-handed. This is on tonight's menu:
Deceptively Simple Summer Squash
tender small summer squash (yellow, green, or both)
olive oil, about 1-2 tablespoons
crushed red pepper flakes
grated parmesan cheese
Wash the squashes. Slice off the ends and discard; then slice into fairly thin rounds.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Sauté the squash rounds for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle sparingly with the red pepper flakes, stir, and sauté another minute or two until tender. Sprinkle with grated parmesan and serve.
If there had been good tomatoes available, I'd have sliced some to go with the squash and just called that dinner. Alas, there weren't, so I'm thinking about maybe a side of buckwheat pasta with some sauce made from last summer's tomatoes. (God bless whoever invented freezers.) Also a possibility: Grill some Vidalia onions wrapped in foil packets, then make up a mustard sauce to drizzle over them.
Since there's not much I've been able to do in the way of real cooking lately, I've been cooking vicariously through books.
For beautiful prose that sometimes happens to be about food, you can't do better than M F K Fisher. I first picked up Fisher's The Art of Eating nearly 20 years ago out of curiosity. She writes with intensity and clarity about living in Paris in the 1920s with her first husband, poor students in a walk-up flat, and how she would concoct a casserole from little more than cauliflower and cheese. One entire section of the book, "How to Cook a Wolf," is concerned with feeding her family while dealing with rationing during World War II. (Considering that several of the most popular diaries here lately have had to do with eating reasonably well while on strict budgets, this may be a topic we need to explore more fully in a future WFD.) Much of her writing explores the interactions between food and security -- how the act of feeding one's family becomes an act of feeding one's soul.
Her reminiscences range across the first three quarters of the 20th century, from Whittier, California to Europe and back, through three husbands, two children, and a life spent savoring the flavor of each day. Highly recommended.
Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence never fails to entertain me, no matter how many times I've read it. This, too, is only marginally about food, but oh! what food!
There was one menu, at 110 francs. The young girl who serves on Sundays brought out a flat basketwork tray and put it in the middle of the table. We counted fourteen separate hors d'oeuvres – artichoke hearts, tiny sardines fried in batter, perfumed tabouleh, creamed salt cod, marinated mushrooms, baby calimari, tapenade, small onions in a fresh tomato sauce, celery and chick-peas, radishes and cherry tomatoes, cold mussels. Balanced on top of the loaded tray were thick slices of paté and gherkins, saucers of olives and cold peppers. The bread had a fine crisp crust. There was white wine in the ice bucket, and a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape left to breathe in the shade.
The main course arrived – rosy slices of lamb cooked with whole cloves of garlic, young green beans, and a golden potato-and-onion galette. We abandoned plans for an active afternoon, and drew lots to see who would get Bernard's floating armchair.
The cheese was from Banon, moist in its wrappings of vine leaves, and then came the triple favors and textures of the desserts – lemon sorbet, chocolate tart, and crème anglaise all sharing a plate.
Then, of course, there are cookbooks. If I can't cook, I can at least read about recipes I'd like to try someday. I'll mark pages with yellow sticky page markers, type notes to myself, and try not to think about tonight's probable dinner of boxed mac-and-cheese that is easy enough for me to prepare one-handed.
One more week. Here's hoping the universe lets me hold out that long.
UPDATE: I wrote this long before I read about the tragedy of losing Steve Gilliard, which puts my minor problems entirely to shame. RIP, Steve.