remedial eating

disproportionate joy

[Cold pillows.  Striped socks.  Fog.]

We passed through a murmuration of starlings, yesterday.

We were shuttling from house to car, quickly, late, and I wanted badly to ignore the weird hum in my eardrums.  The air was heavy, with chatter, vibration, quiet, pervasive, very Dolby surround-sound.  I glanced up, scanned the street, saw nothing out of place, same old cars, thresholds, houses.  Almost. 

[People who explain sock puppets in 3:28 minutes.  In language a kid can understand.  Even grown ones.]    

I turned to get into the driver's seat, stole a second glance, saw an altered reality.  There, on my neighbor's same old lawn, sat a carpet of birds.  Hundreds.  Thousands.  Absolutely still, every last one.  I stopped in my tracks, eyes wide, not breathing—waiting, I think, to see who would blink first.  Like I was in some MMOSC (Massive Multiplayer Offline Staring Contest).  Which seemed preferable, on balance, to some old Hitchcock film. 

[Ghouls who do math.  Bark love notes.]   

As I stood there, amazed, at attention, I noticed their numbers were the least of it.  I noticed that if I zoomed in on one bird, there stood an identical model, exactly four inches to his left.  And another, four inches to his right.  And to the North and South, two others, four inches from tail and beak, respectively.  That this pattern repeated itself endlessly, like plastic pegs on a Perler bead board.  Perfectly spaced.  Perfectly matched.  Perfectly still.  So still, I had all but not noticed a thousand birds, twenty yards over, upholstering the lawn.

Whereupon, it dawned on me...

Across the street?  Same story. 

Kitty-Corner?  Yup.

One house down?  Ditto. 

I scanned the neighborhood.  I realized every lawn, tree, porch and house for half a long block had sprouted wings.  Starlings, like stubble, stippled every last inch.  Legion doesn't even begin to describe it. 

[Flowers over the kitchen sink.  November Sundays that reach into the fifties.  Encouraging me finally to break down bean poles.  And us to rake leaves.  And them to play Ten Things, one last round before winter hits.]

It was, as they say, something.  And it seemed a fitting end paren to Thanksgiving.  I'm only okay at Thanksgiving, at properly appreciating The Big Blessings.  I've never been good at performing on demand—most shed pounds pre-wedding; I gained 15—and our national gratitude fest is no different.  It's a good exercise.  I'm down with it.  And I'm deeply, wildly grateful for the nowhere-close-to Givens.  Clean water.  Good air.  Sound roof and walls.  Health, family, friends, food, indoor plumbing.  And, to quote my kids at dinner last Monday, for "gravity, the Big Bang, and Mamo, because without them we wouldn't be here."  Absolutely.  In theory.

[Vocabulary lessons taught by friends.  Butter faces, sculpted by the same.  Friends who fly thirteen hours, each way.  And kindly bring along a Zoë-age niece.]

In daily practice?  Oof.  Tricky.  I get distracted.  The nitty-gritty elbows in.  Traffic jams.  Drains jam.  Jam doesn't set.  Plans upend.  Sleep plays hard to get.  Cars, furnaces, spirits, bones break.  Health is most easily admired in absentia.  Spam galore necessitates comment authentication.  (Ugh.  Sorry.)  Twelve gorgeous gallons of turkey stock are lost.  After chilling on the deck.  With a loose lid.  (Double ugh.)  And these are only iceberg tips.     

[Flowers as grand in their dotage as glory.  Soft gray days.  Libraries.]   

Appropriate awe overwhelms.  Gratitude, writ large, falls by the wayside.  I postpone proper appreciation for later, which is about as useful as pocketing snowballs for summer.  Much as I mean to, I forget to give thanks for staying put on this planet without tent stakes or tethers.  I'm gravity complacent.  There, I've said it.  You?   

[The indulgence and spectacle of forty candles on a cake.  Kids who still ask to help with the holiday brussels.  Even if they politely decline the eating of them.]

In practice, I'm better at small gratitudes, miniscule instances of actual thanks-giving.  The weird wonderfulness of one 1:3:15 pine block, en masse.  The intricacies of spent bean vines.  Particularly excellent first cups of coffee.  Those elfin moments, quick, quiet, both, whose rewards bear no relationship to their effort.  [Crumbs.  Crusts.  Scraps, buried in the brackets of a day.]  Apples, very much like these, these, and these, tweaked to become something else entirely.

I realize they look like simple sautéed apples.  Actually, they are simple sautéed apples.  Tart peeled apples, cooked fast and hot in a knob of butter, with a flick of sugar to catch and caramelize at the edges.  But this particular iteration involves an accretion of details that delights me no end.  They're cut small, into rough 1/2" cubes, which means more caramelized edge per square inch.  Small also equals several bits per bite, which means spoon instead of fork food, which means bowl instead of plate food, which if you answer to Molly, means a wide grin. 

What's more?  Their small size means they cook in ten minutes, quick enough for a Tuesday morning.  And—and I can't yet get over this part—in exactly the same time as old-fashioned oats.  Call it coincidence.  Feels to me like fate.  Especially after dipping into a bowl of both. 

[Mary Pope Osborne.  Series get no respect, and Jack and Annie follow a formula, yes, but hello?  Siblings?  Adventure?  History?  Mystery?  40+ titles to tease a young reader along?  Awesome.] 

They look a bit jewelled, ambered, transparent, with flavor that puts their looks to shame.  Toothsome in places, tender all around, with a complex sweetness, fruit-simple and sugar-burnt, they turn three ingredients into extravagance.  Henry likes them piled atop oatmeal.  Smart boy.  I like a mountain heaped high in a bowl, capped with Megan's buttermilk or whole greek yogurt, muscovado, toasted walnuts.  They're right at home tucked in a waffle's plaid, or anchoring a crêpe, or solo on a spoon.  They would likely make styrofoam go down easy.  They are like that.  Like Kaplas.  Versatile, wonderful. 

[Pear trees, the last of the last leaves to go.  The word murmuration.  The mystery of it.]

Oh, and those starlings?  We startled them.  Slowly, carefully, to majestic end.  The road we drove ran right through their ranks, and as we inched along, they astounded.  Scattered, swooped, dove, pirouetted, landed.  Over and over and over again.  It felt like we'd walked onto a Sophie Windsor Clive set.  A small-scale version.  With fewer picturesque waves.  And no canoe.  And more asphalt.  But magic enough for an ordinary Monday.  Joy disproportionate to the work of walking out the door.   

Caramelized Apples for Oats, Waffles, Yogurt, Spoons

2 large, tart apples (Pink Ladies are lovely)
1 tablespoon salted butter
1-2 teaspoons sugar

Peel apples, then slice the four "cheeks" from the core.  Flat side down, cut each "cheek" into several 1/2" slices, then turn crosswise, and make perpindicular slices, to yield 1/2" bites.  Repeat with second apple.

Heat butter in a large skillet, preferably non-stick, over medium-high heat.  Add chopped apples and sugar to melted butter, toss briefly to coat apples, then let sit undisturbed, 3-5 minutes, until undersides look like fall leaves, gold to bronze.  Toss gently (I use a silicone spatula for this), aiming to flip most over, and let cook for another undisturbed 3-4 minutes.  If at any point apples threaten to scorch, turn heat down slightly.  On my stove, I find a fairly hottish medium yields the best results, with insides just tender with a memory of toothsome, and outsides gorgeously caramelized.  Adjust your stove to suit.  Total cooking time will be 8-10 minutes. 

Remove from pan, and eat immediately, atop oatmeal, under yogurt, over waffles, as is. 

 

let's not confuse the two

Let's be clear: this is no eating squash.  It is a pumpkin, and not the pie variety, either.  The sort brought home from pumpkin patches, destined for eyeballs, mouths, moustaches.  The carving sort.  

Not that we're the sort to carve pumpkins post-Halloween.  This was one we carved just before.  But between politics and procrastination and twenty- (thirty?-) some loads of laundry, I have only just recently pulled up the photos. They are very orange.  And more than a little confusing.  Because during the same stretch of days we carved our jack-o-lanterns, we also consumed a few butternuts.  And several carnivals.  And a kabocha or two.  It seems it was a squashy October.  November seems set to continue at pace.  

(Of course, if you do have an edible pumpkin, I cannot recommend Heidi's soup highly enough.  Fry the onions in coconut oil, if you love its sweet aromatic whiff as much as I.  Triple the ginger, for a warming boost.  Make the browned butter ginger rosemary gunge, no excuses, as it tastes like stars look on a cold clear November night.  Not that we're here to talk pumpkins, or soup. Didn't mean to confuse. But superior soups must be noted.)

To keep things straight, then, let's do it this way: ornamental squash in first position, edible in second.  Am I pigeon-holing, here?  Why don't we anthropomorphize butternuts, also?  Two twigs up top, one bright crabapple in the middle, a few carved eyes, and bingo!  Rudolph.  But it would be tricky. Those long, thick necks would give you a real run for your money.  There's just so little hollow in a butternut squash. They're the solid chocolate Easter bunnies of squash, heavy, dense, substantial.  Which makes them particularly fine for eating, optimal bang for the effort buck.

The effort being no small matter, with squash.  Squash can be hard, unyielding beasts, thick of skin, wobbly of stature.  When my children were babies, I would tuck them in a sling and carry them about while I cooked dinner.  They loved this set-up, because they could, in turn, snuggle, sleep, sway, and see everything.  I loved this set-up, because it meant that we weren't restricted to cheerios and toast, that first year.  

This sling arrangement worked beautifully, until mid-fall, when the squash started rolling in.  The squash months were difficult.  Over time, I arrived at a terrifically awkward yet effective body-perpendicular-to-counter maneuver, babe turned this way, shoulder angled that way, heavy chef's knife at one fully extended arm's end, other arm doing its best Elasti-Girl imitation, reaching up-and-over-and-around baby, to hold said squash something like still.

It was nuts.  But I loved—love—squash.

(Oops.  Here I go, muddying the waters, again.  That second position pic is neither pumpkin nor butternut, but a blue plastic Lego whale.  For what it's worth, I was breaking down a butternut when it ran aground.  And do you see that yellow square?  It's a secret compartment.  Pull it out, and inside, hidden away, there's a single red brick, a heart.  

I heart that.) 

Things are a little safer, these days.  I can set them up across the table, carry conversations instead of humans, give them something to stir and scoop and spread and count and arrange and salt.  Stirring buys me five minutes, easy. Scooping and arranging, at least as much.  Not every child takes such pleasure, of course, in the orchestration of squash seeds.  I've others who subscribe to the Scoop and Dump School of seed management, still others who invoke the "EWWW!!!  No thanks!" clause.  Results may vary.  

But salt, salt is a universal, at least among my sample size of three.  It is small, and administered in pinches, and magically, I always seem to need exactly as many pinches as the child is years old.  Until they're too old to want to add pinches.  (It happens.  Quick as a wink, doing double-time.)  At which point, they occupy themselves.  Also magic.

Apparently, I take my squash with a serious side of nostalgia.  All asides aside: I came to talk salad.  Salad squared up with sweet cubes of roast squash.  And a dice of tart apple.  And toasted pecans.  And feta.  And dried cherries.  And have I lost you yet? 

Because I would have lost me, had I read this salad before I ate it.  On paper (on pixel?), it sounds, I don't know, baroque?  Even now, after eating my way through a dozen helpings, it sounds unlikely, excessive, too too. Apples and squash?  And also dried cherries?  And don't dried berries evoke bad aisle 7 "salad kits", the sort with week-old lettuce and stale croutons and tiny mummified packets of the aforementioned for color?  Let's not confuse the two. This isn't that. This is none of the above.  This is wonderful.  

I wish I could talk to your tastebuds, direct, slide a plate through the screen, bypass the brain.  Because this is how I first experienced this salad, straight from a bowl, brought by a friend.  There was pizza, also, hot and good, the sort I ordinarily eat three or four slices of.  That night, I didn't finish my first.  Too busy, I was, making a salad fool of myself.  Although, in retrospect, I would've been a fool to do otherwise.

Because this salad's so got it figured out.  There are tender, sweet caramelized cubes of squash, plus crunchy tart bites of juicy apple.  Briny, creamy nubbins of feta bridge the yielding and the crisp, the honeyed and sharp, the raw and the cooked.  Toasted pecans bring their own caliber of crunch, shattery, roasty, deeply mapled.  

And then, those dried cherries.  I'm still baffled by those cherries.  Baffled, because I don't like cherries in my salads.  So baffled, I tried leaving them out, once, only to come face to face with an uproar.  From the cherries, and the bowl, and yours truly: those cherries belong there.  Those cherries act like edible sequins, condensed winey bits of glitter and charm.  A few bites without, and without meaning to, you find yourself, and your fork, poking about, searching for garnet, until, score!  You spear one, add one square of squash, one apple, a pecan, a blip of white, a few leaves of green, until you've achieved The Perfect Bite.  

(Does anyone else do this?  Construct carefully composed bites?  Little still lifes, arranged on four tines, with life spans that make Mayflies look geriatric?  Maybe you're more the mindless salad eater, jabbing up forkfuls that just hold together, loading them in while you read The Times.  I tend to go 17th century Dutch Tuesdays and Wednesdays (Science, Food), distracted shoveler on all the rest.  Graciously, this salad holds up to both.) 

Two final footnotes.  Loads of flavor needn't equal loads of work.  Take the squash.  Roast a whole one (or two) hours (or days) in advance.  The cubes must be cooled, anyway, and you'll have a bowl at the ready all week. Witness the multiple slumped squash, above.  I roast several at a time, whole, sliced, or cubed, just to have their sweet goodness on hand.  

Ditto the toasted pecans.  We go through pounds of nuts, around here, both out of hand and in stuff.  Toasting improves nuts immeasurably, underscoring their oil, amplifying their flavor.  A toasted pecan is me, after my morning coffee, perky, sharp, tip-top, brimming with personality.  Unlike me, pecans keep their gains a dozen days or more.  Fill a sheet pan, toast a slew, keep cooled nuts in a jar, leverage your ten minutes' work all week.

Finally, play around.  This is the iteration of the salad I've settled on, and there are some pillars I wouldn't change: crisp apples, soft squash, salty feta, crisp nuts, the occasional bling and chew of dried berry.  Beyond that?  Latitude, galore.  The original had pepitas, not pecans, and they were awfully wonderful. Good candied nuts, the sort you'd set out with drinks, would, I think, be a slam-dunk.  You may prefer cranberries over cherries.  Blue cheese and feta are a toss-up, to me.  Roast the squash in coconut oil.  And perhaps smoked paprika, Sara-style.  Add maple syrup to the vinaigrette.  Or walnut oil.  Or whatever piques.  The three salads here?  Three different days, made three different ways.  Let's not confuse framework with formula.  The fun and yum are in the flex.  

A Salad of Greens, Squash and Apples for Autumn
with tremendous thanks to Tricia

If your squash has been roasted and refrigerated, allow 30 minutes, if you're able, to come to room temp.  Likewise, if you roast it same day, it will hold at room temp a good 4 hours.  I adore the tart Montmercy cherries from Trader Joe's, although any unsweetened, tart cherry will do.  

8 loose cups salad greens
2 cups cubed, roasted and cooled butternut squash*, approx. 1/2 a small squash 
1 large, tart apple (Honeycrisp or Pink Lady), cut into bite-sized bits
heaping 1/2 cup pecans, toasted**, roughly chopped
1/2 cup feta, crumbled
1/4 cup dried sour cherries, roughly chopped, or dried cranberries

dressing:
1/2  teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons cider or sherry vinegar
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
plenty of freshly ground pepper

In a lidded jar, add vinegar and salt, return lid, and shake to dissolve.  Add oil and pepper, and shake vigorously to emulsify.

In a large salad bowl, add all salad ingredients.  Pour half of dressing over all, toss to combine, and taste for seasoning.  Salad will likely need more, though not all, of the dressing, plus additional salt and pepper, to taste. Adjust, toss, adjust, toss, clink a glass to fall, eat.    

*Roasted Butternut Squash:
Since reading Sarah's method for Perfect Roasted Squash, I've never looked back; it yields perfectly creamy, caramelized cubes, every time.  

Preheat oven to 425°, and place a rack in the lowest position.  Top and tail your butternut, peel, and slice neck from body of squash.  Halve both pieces, and scrape seeds from bulbous end.  Set each quarter on flat side, and cut into 1" slices.  Dice each slice into rough 1" cubes, set on a rimmed, parchment-lined baking sheet, and toss with two tablespoons' olive oil and 1 teaspoon kosher salt.  Cover sheet with foil, place in preheated oven, and roast 12 minutes.  Remove foil, return squash to oven, and roast another 12-15 minutes, until squash is deeply tender and caramelizing at the edges.    

**Toasted Pecans:  
Preheat oven to 350°, scatter pecans on a baking sheet, and place in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until the entire kitchen smells toasty and nutty and mapled, and until the nuts have darkened slightly.  Set a timer, and don't walk away; nuts burn in a wink.  Remove to a plate to end cooking, and set aside to cool.

 

that fine slender sliver

I want to talk politics today.  I wanted to talk pumpkins, but it's been a week. Actually, it's been 18 months of weeks.  This election business has hijacked my brain, and although the polls are closed and enough chads undimpled to yield results, I can't quite shake it.  We may be over it, but I'm not.  The divisive discourse.  The combative tone.  The unrelenting exaggerations, accusations, skewings, skewerings.  Jeez.

So I want to just set the niceties aside, for a moment, roll up our sleeves, and really get into it.  Take sides.  Me vs. you.  Us vs. them.  Right and wrong, my wants versus your needs.  How we manage the inevitable limitations life brings, wrangle with restrictions, make sense of differences.  

Ready?  Sleeves up?  Marshmallows on hand?  You'll need them.  Alright, then. Let's have at it.     

A few years ago, we found ourselves in a class in which there was a nut allergy. Also, an egg allergy.  Also, a wheat allergy.  The students looped, grade after grade, which meant we faced this same opportunity each year.

I choose that word, opportunity, carefully, because for a while it felt a lot like constraint.  See, if you have a child of a certain age, and they attend school, and that age changes, said child gets to celebrate.  Pencils are given, birthday wishes blared over the PA, and treats welcomed into the classroom. Good fun.  

Except for figuring out the treat bit, when the aforementioned opportunities are in place.  We weren't required to accomodate them all.  In fact, we weren't even asked to.  Nuts aside, all we were asked to do was supply an ingredient list.  Teachers are realists.  Informed consent was sufficient.  Kids who couldn't eat X, Y or Z would, I was told, defer.  Curious, I inquired as to what said kids would, if needed, defer to.  "Oh, we always have a box of Rice Krispie Treats," came the answer.  

Rice Krispie treats.  Of course.  Puffed rice, marshmallows, butter, salt.  No nuts, no eggs, no gluten*, no problem.  I assume every last other parent already knew this.  I also assume every last other parent knows to make their kids mashed potatoes.  And tomato soup, and lasagna, and, oh I don't know, french toast?  I am a litle slow, sometimes.

I had, at this point, never made my kids rice krispie treats.  Mostly because I loathe ordinary Rice Krispie treats.  I mean, where is their texture, their flavor, their soul?  What do they possibly have to offer next to, say, a lemon bar, fragile eye-squinching tart custard on top, shattery shortbread crust underneath?  Or next to a dense, deeply dark brownie, studded with chips and shadowy with coffee and 6.2 degrees north of fudge?  How could these blindingly sweet sugar bombs, shamelessly sticky, utterly one-dimensional, these lowest-common-denominators of the dessert world, DEIGN TO CALL THEMSELVES A TREAT?

I get a little riled up, sometimes.  

(I was not, mind you, riled up at the kids, or the policies, or the allergies, because what possible sense would that make?  Who would wish nuts out of their lives?  Or wheat?  Or eggs?  I mean, think of the Nutter Butters...  No, I was miffed at the debased nature of acceptable industrially-produced foodstuffs.  More, I was angry at my own ignorance, that I didn't immediately have a good alternative.  Most of all, I was upset by the notion that if I didn't think fast, kids would be excluded, handed something substandard, just because I'd come up short.  That, THAT rubbed me entirely the wrong way.) 

I also, sometimes, get determined.  I poked around, read up, dug and dug and dug, until I spotted a promising compromise—the details of which are spelled out below, the crux of which is extra salt and BROWNED BUTTER!!!—and stepped off my insufferable soapbox.  What I'm talking about here is a Rice Krispie treat that is actually, absolutely deserving of its title.  A treat that doesn't just check the sweet box, but also those labelled Oh, My...; and More, Please?; and Yes, Another!  A treat I would make, opportunities or no.  A treat my three consider a celebration.  A treat so terrific, I sneak crumbs after bedtime.  A treat which, most importantly, doesn't exclude, or divide, or leave out, or discriminate.  A treat every last kid could eat.  

I'm nowhere near Pollyana enough to believe sticky squares can mend a nation. I don't believe bar cookies have super powers, much as I wish it were otherwise.  Marshmallows won't re-glue an economy unravelling under its own weight.  Puffed rice won't bind together a people, whiplashed by rhetoric. (Even puffed rice bound by browned butter, hazlenut-nutty, addictively salty-sweet, chewy and crispy and cross-the-aisles excellent.)  Even cautious optimism often eludes me.  Irreverant cynicism is probably closer to my truth.

I don't have the right answers.  Most days, I don't even have the right questions.  Still?  I believe absoutely in the power of civility.  In the long reach of respect.  In the conviction that most of us, most of the time, have mostly good intentions.  I believe that taking the time to listen delivers far greater ROI than any billion in ad spend.  I believe limitations, turned, tweaked, approached differently, yield some of the finest opportunities.  That an alternate spelling for "no" is y-e-s.  That constraints beget the best creativity. I believe in taking the time to find that space that includes, that wedge of common ground, that fine slender sliver of compromise, however narrow.  Even when it measures but a few square inches.  It's a start.   

Caramelized Rice Krispie Treats
adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser
Yield: 39 - 1 x 3" rectangles 

Two notes: The proportion of goo (marshmallow + butter) to cereal is significantly greater than in the original, because a) I always come up short, with dry patches of cereal and no caramel to bind it, and b) I think they taste infinitely better this way.  More nutty, brown-buttery, deeply rich caramel, to set off those little pops of crunch.  They do take two hours to set; plan accordingly.  Cut into them sooner, and they'll slouch and slump—still delicious, but not party-ready.  Never fear: after 2 hours, like magic, they cut cleanly and stand square-shouldered.  Also, do use the mini marshmallows here.  The large ones, leftover from summer s'mores, take too long to melt, which causes the sugar to crystallize, which makes for treats that are hard and crunchy instead of chewy, which is sad.  

*Please note: You'll need to use a labelled Gluten-Free version of Rice Krispies, such as these, for these treats to be gluten-free.

20 ounces mini marshmallows (2 - 10 ounce bags)
1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) salted butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
12 ounces rice krispies (1 - 12 ounce box)

Butter, oil, or line a 9 x 13" pan with parchment paper.  Set aside.  

Brown the butter: Choose a large pot, ideally light-colored, that will accomodate the marshmallows and rice krispies also, as it will become your mixing bowl.  I use a stainless steel stock pot.  Over medium heat, melt the butter, then continue to cook it, 5-8 minutes, until it goes brown and nutty and deeply fragrant.  First it will melt, then foam loudly with white bits, then foam more quietly with white bits, then foam with browned bits.  Once the white foaming action quiets, stir steadily, until bits brown, and melted butter turns gold, and then amber, and kitchen smells of fresh nuts.  When the butter's the color of hazlenuts, it's done.

Add salt to the hot browned butter, stir, pour in the mini marshmallows, and stir to melt.  The butter's heat should suffice, but if needed, set the pot back on the stove on low for a few moments, stirring steadily.  Once the marshmallows are completely melted, and incorporated into the butter, immediately pour in rice cereal.  Stir vigorously and carefully with a wooden spoon, being careful of the hot goo, until cereal is evenly coated with marshmallow butter.  Scrape promptly into the prepared pan with a silicone spatula, spreading into the corners and smoothing the surface.  Add sprinkles, if you'd like, after the top is even and before the goo cools.

Allow to cool completely, 2 hours, then remove entire block from pan.  Cut into squares, nibble crumbs, celebrate something, and go wage peace.    

constant and steady and true

I went for a bicycle ride, last Wednesday.  I hadn't meant to, hadn't really the time to, had other things to do, in fact.  But I went anyway. 

I went because the weather was mild and balmy and, if not warm, because fall mornings are never warm, at least not finger-numbing.  Temperatures were to climb toward eighty, that day.  They very nearly did, short only a degree.  Hot enough, anyway, that I had to go unearth shorts from the basement for small people after school. 

Shorts. 

Late October. 

That's just crazy. 

Anyway, I went.  It seemed wasteful not to.  Borderline insulting.  Like throwing out perfectly good food just because you're feeling bored, just because you've eaten the same soup, three days running.  I kicked myself out the door.  "Here is abundance.  Don't you dare squander." 

Clouds were a myth.  Breezes were filmy.  The sky was, well, you can see for yourself.  Cerulean.  Indigo.  Beyond blue.  The leaves were doing what deciduous leaves do, parading shamelessly, all pomp and circumstance.  I'm no fan of pomp, as applied to daily life, but I think it suits Ginkos and Sweet Gum swimmingly.  

(Read into this carpe diem, if you will, but I've never really been the seize the day sort.  It's always seemed too simplistic, too stilted, too lacking in the full disclosure department.  Because time spent here costs hours elsewhere, usually accounted for under the column called "sleep".  I'm down with that, good, even, but I think these things need to be said. 

Maybe, Dead Poets don't mind GAAP, transcend somehow debits and credits.  Maybe, the Romans didn't know from ROI.  Probably, I'm just a stick in the mud.  Anyway, I went because I knew these days were numbered.  Because all logic dictated I should.  Because I thought I ought to.  Romantic, no?) 

I had no idea.

Tuesday morning—six days past last Wednesday, while our pumpkins were still pumpkins and not yet jack-o-lanterns, less than one week after my shorts-fetching mission—we awoke to snow.   

Snow.

Late October.

Puts shorts to shame, in the crazy department.

We got off scot-free, in the scheme of things.  Wind, rain, a white flurry, gone by mid-morning.  The sudden blustering away of every last leaf.  The prioritizing of "hats and mittens" to the top of my To Do.  

Meanwhile, much of the East coast went under.  

I've gone back and forth, all week, trying to reconcile these two realities.  The glory, the wreckage.  The glow, the devastation.  The desperate beauty, the desperate people, the millions, without.  Being human, and rational, by which I mean fallible, I want to call it a contradiction.  As in, make up your mind already, Mother Nature, what'll it be, good or evil? 

I'm not really so deluded, of course.  Nature doesn't do black and white; if nothing else, last week's ride taught me that.  Weather is splendid, and fickle, and wretched, and almost entirely beyond our control.  And since we seem bent on squandering what control we have, and then denying all culpability, ...

Oy.  Sorry.  Tangent.  Potatoes.    

I've had potatoes on the brain all week, maybe because they are weather's inverse.  Potatoes are constant and steady and true, there when you need them, dependable.  When fair-weather veg vanish, there are potatoes.  When the store keeps not happening, there are potatoes.  When in doubt, or distress, or dismay, there are potatoes.  Particularly, at the moment, in my pantry.

There is a Potato Situation in my pantry.  This may be the other reason I've had potatoes on the brain.  Our fall CSA ended this week, a fact that mostly makes me want to cry.  I've adored and inhaled the stream of fresh veg, and stayed on top of nearly all of it, the greens and lettuces, the squash and the yams, the turnips and radishes and whatnot.  I say "mostly" because I'm slightly relieved to turn off the potato faucet.  I say "nearly" because I am sitting on a not-so-small mountain of spuds.      

I am not a white potato person.  I don't dislike white potatoes, per se.  I like them alright, at least well enough.  I even make them, now and again, mostly in soup, or summer's Niçoise, or braised into fragrant, warmly spiced curries. 

But I rarely think about potatoes, consider them food, the thrust of a meal. I don't crave them, don't hunger for them, and so rarely prepare them.  It finally dawned on me, two years back, to bake a potato for my kids (!)  Around the same time, it occurred to me that I'd never really made them mashed potatoes (!!)  (Does anyone else have black food holes like this?  And what do you do with white potatoes?)  It took another two years, until now, to realize I'd stopped roasting spuds.  Fortunately, my mountain arrived, inciting panic stirring memories.  

The thing is, I once prepared these potatoes all the time: roasted hotly in olive oil, stubbled with garlic, spiked with rosemary, until the insides turned to cream, and the outsides crisped and caramelized.  Years ago, when my oldest was a babe, my time limited, my skills and money moreso, I made these potatoes frequently.  They were fast, and easy, and required few ingredients, and never failed, and always delighted.  I made them for company, because they were worthy.  I made them for us, because they were tasty.  I made them for Mondays, because.  I can't explain when or why they were dropped.  Only that I'm grateful The Situation brought them back.   

These particular potatoes hail from Jerry Traunfeld's The Herbfarm Cookbook, a gem of a book from a gem of a cook.  I've mentioned Traunfeld once before, and have half-a-dozen causes to mention him again, but for now, all we need to discuss is his genius for marshalling flavor.  This "cook" business may sound like slander, given his award-winning career as a chef, previously here, now here.  But in print, Traunfeld thinks and writes like a cook, like a You or a Me in a standard home kitchen, with ambivalent tools and ordinary ingredients and an actual life beyond the four burners.  This, from a chef, takes extraordinary skill.  As does the ability to take four ingredients and transform bland roots into tastebud bombs.

Roasted potatoes are nothing revolutionary, nor nothing new, unless you're me. That said, there are a handful of details that seem to take them from good to glorious.  I've found par-boiling is essential, as is ample salt in the pot.  Raw potatoes put in a hot oven always wind up dry, and squeaky, and wizened, and sad.  Potatoes allowed a ten minute head start in a properly salted, boiling hot bath become irresistably tender-hearted.

A hot oven helps lock in your gains, as does a loose wrist with the olive oil. Together, high heat and a good gloss create this perfect sort of storm, locking in moisture, searing flat sides, burnishing the odd corner to something like crunch.  

Again, standard roast potato operating procedure.  (As best I understand it. Further education welcome.)  But then—and this is pure Traunfeld—there are the two add-ins.  Before the olive oil meets the potatoes, before the potatoes meet the heat, the oil is amended by four cloves of minced garlic, plus four tablespoons' fresh rosemary.  Ordinary ingredients.  Extraordinary quantities. These aren't so much seasoned as inundated, which is a fine fate for a potato.

The spuds wind up tweedy with rosemary, which sizzles until almost crisp in the oil, and whispers its piney, resinous way deep into the mild white of the root. The garlic alternately mellows and roasts, going amber in spots and ochre in others, lending a heady sticky sweet.  And the potato is the foil for it all, the silent hero, the very good sport.  Its insides go enviably creamy, soft and yielding, welcoming.  Its starchy outsides catch on the hot sheet, making excellent edges to nibble and ponder.  It upholds all that flavor, fragrant and bold, with a quiet, forthright confidence.  Which is, after all, what it does best, the steadfast potato, constant and true.  

Rosemary Garlic Roasted Potatoes
adapted from The Herbfarm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld

Traunfeld calls these Herb-Roasted Potatoes, and opens them up to thyme, savory, sage, and/or oregano.  I can never get past rosemary.  Your choice.  Also, if you have fleur de sel, that fancypants French salt, this is the place to use it, a final crumble adding irresistable crunch and bling to the hot spuds.  That said, I usually use a flurry of kosher crystals, also lovely.  Finally, the original recipe recommends 15-20 minutes total roasting time, though I find they take 20-30 minutes in my oven to reach the optimal creamy/crispy apex. You'll just have to test a few along the way.

2 pounds small, waxy potatoes, such as fingerling, Yukon Gold, or red boilers
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons rosemary needles, stripped, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
fleur de sel or additional salt for finishing
freshly ground pepper, to taste

Parboil Potatoes:  Wash potatoes, leave skins on, and halve or quarter, depending on size, for pieces no larger than 1".  Place potatoes in a large saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water and 2 teaspoons of salt.  Bring to the boil over high heat, and continue to boil until potatoes can be pierced with a knife tip, but only just, about 10 minutes.  Remember, they will finish cooking in the oven.  Drain potatoes in a colander, and set aside. 

Roasting:  Preheat the oven to 425°, and place a rack in the lower third.  Place drained potatoes in a large mixing bowl, and toss with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Spread seasoned potatoes in a single layer on a large, rimmed baking sheet.  (Potatoes will hold, at this point, 2 hours at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator.)  Roast potatoes until edges are burnished and surfaces golden, 20-30 minutes, testing a few along the way to ensure insides are still creamy.  Serve piping hot.