remedial eating

playing favorites

Did I mention we live on a flower farm?  Six acres, densely planted, with only row after row (after row) of helenium?

Of course I didn't.  Perhaps because it's untrue.  Though you'd be hard-pressed to prove it, based on my past two weeks' images.  Seems my world has gone rather orange.

I've been on a bit of an helenium bender.  

Not a bad fate.  

Not a bad fate, at all.

Picking favorites has never been my strong suit.  In elementary school, it was my second most-loathed assignment, right after New Year's resolutions. Favorite foods left me stumped.  (Where to begin?)  Favorite colors, flummoxed.  (Robin's egg?  Oxblood?  Frozen butter?  Goose terd green?  Tell me other families taught colors in such terms?)  But "name your favorite book"? That beat all.    

I mean, honestly.  How is a girl to choose between Bridge to Terebithia and The Great Brain?  Laura Ingalls Wilder and Wilson Rawls?  Not to mention Roald Dahl, who might've been a fine answer, were the question geared toward authors and entire outputs, rather than the ridiculously singular "book".  

We haven't even touched on Island of the Blue Dolphins. 

These days, my children are on the receiving end of the old "favorites" inquisition, and I am all ears and empathy.  "Just pick one," I tell them.  "You just need an answer, any answer, among the legitimate many.  It isn't binding. You are not under oath.  You're allowed bounty, in your mind and our home."  

They struggle with it like I did, like I do, and we shake our heads, together, over silly adults.

So I can't exactly say helenium are my fall favorite, first, foremost, forever and always.  I reserve the right to adore Japanese anemones, if only for the way the word trips along the tongue.  (Also, they're the first excuse I've had since age 7, when I bought my coveted set of 64 Pentel pens, to use the word heliotrope.) The bees are keen on the autumn joy, and I am keen on the bees, so I ought to at least give it a nod.  And I'll lease a small part of my heart to the wild sunflower, with its Giacometti proportions and exuberant yellow.  

And zinnias, man.  Jolly, incarnate.  Frowns and zinnias are mutually exclusive. On my honor.   

But I fried most of my zinnia starts, this year.  Left my seedlings outside, to acclimatize to the Spring "cold", only to be met with a string of mid-nineties. I've grieved.  I've mourned.  I've vowed to do better.  

And I've freed up all that bandwidth for added helenium admiration.  So let us say that for a solid four days in September, possibly six, and definitely including the second Tuesday, this pouf-centered, copper-edged, rhumba-stemmed perennial is my absolute favorite of the flock.  (Hedging helps soften the blow.) 

Not that much hedging is required to crown that platter, there, my unequivocal Queen of green bean salads.  I'll allow I love a good Niçoise, and have eaten my way through many platters of orzo and summer veg, but those are team efforts, giant collaborations.  This is that rare, particular thing, an exaltation of green beans.  And figs.

Yup.  

Figs. 

This salad hails from another rare thing, a treasure of a cookbook called The Basque Kitchen.  I can't say I've heard anyone else mention it.  Ever.  Which is a shame, as it's one of my dog-eared splattered treasures, a catalog of trieds-and-trues.  Mashed potato cakes, spiked with manchego.  A rust-streaked tortilla of potatoes and chorizo.  That chèvre frosting that, to this day, sneaks into my mind at the most inopportune moments.  And this fresh fig and haricots salad, herb-flecked, walnut-stubbled, basil-breathed, extraordinary.

The method here is straightforward, and simple: boil up a pound of green beans until just tender, with a bit of bend, but no danger of flop.  While they are burbling, mince a small shallot, toast a few walnuts, chop parsley and chives. Pluck a few basil branches of their leaves.  Quarter a gathering of plump, purpled figs.  Gently combine with a quick vinaigrette.  Ba-da-bing, boil, chop, toss, eat.

But.  But.  About that last verb.  The eating is where this salad stands alone. This salad is unlike any salad I've known, and if you know me at all, you know I've known a few salads.  It follows all the great salad protocols: ample fresh herbs for bling, toasty nuts for crunch and rumble, a good basic vinaigrette to turn disparate parts into excellent sum.  What sets it apart, and stands my tastebuds at attention, is its tender backbone of green beans and fragrant figs.    

If this sounds unexpected, it is unexpected.  Like a Ten-spot, found on an empty street.  Or a care package, arrived on your doorstep, unannounced.  Or snow, in Seattle, on Christmas Day.  Unexpected in all the best ways.  The beans yield to the tooth, and taste of fresh grass, and faintly, flatteringly, of chlorophyll.  The figs, for their part, bring their soft velvet sweet, part honey, part sunshine, part mystery.  

All well and good, if a bit distinct.  Enter the embellishments.  Prepare for revelations.  Minced shallot litters the vinaigrette, and adds gorgeous sparkle to both beans and figs.  All the ordinary glories of oil and vinegar apply, the one lending richness, the other, verve.  The walnuts are inspired, earthy and crunchy and pretty much vital to the whole.   Chives ampify the shallots, parsley echoes the haricots, and the basil is about the best supporting cast a bean or fig could possibly ask after.  

Our helenium are on their way out, a few blazing petals in a chocolate drop sea. The green beans are not far behind.  I'll be gobbling both, double-time, while they last.  

A Salad of Green Beans, Fresh Figs, Walnuts and Herbs
adapted from The Basque Kitchen, Gerald Hirigoyen

The original calls for 3 tablespoons toasted walnut oil, plus one of olive.  I do not often have walnut oil on hand, so have taken to using all olive.  Use walnut oil if you have it; it will shine.  I've also doubled the basil and toasted nuts, as I appreciate both in modest excess. 

This salad must be finished at the last minute, but most everything save the tossing can be done in advance.  To get a head start: make the dressing, prep the nuts, wash and dry the whole herbs, and cook the beans, setting them aside to cool and dry on a clean kitchen towel.  This can all be done 6 hours in advance.  Just before serving, slice the figs, mince the herbs, and toss the veg with the dressing.  This keeps everything spunky, and prevents the green beans from going brown.  

1 pound fresh green beans, topped and tailed
6-10 fresh, plump figs
1 heaping tablespoon minced shallot
2 tablespoons sherry, champagne or white wine vinegar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 
2 tablespoons snipped fresh chives
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
generous handful fresh basil leaves (40-50 small; 20-30 large)
generous 1/4 cup walnuts
kosher salt and fresh pepper 

Set a medium saucepan of water on to boil, and add 1 tablespoon salt.  Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350°.  

While water is heating:  Set your minced shallot in small bowl, pour vinegar over, add 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside.  This will mellow the shallot.  If your green beans are especially long, cut them into 2" pieces, for easy eating.  Scatter walnuts on a baking sheet, and when oven is to temp, toast them 8-10 minutes, until deeper in color and wonderfully fragrant.  Set aside to cool.

When water reaches a rapid bowl, tip in green beans.  Boil 6-8 minutes, until just tender but with a bit of spine (test a few), then tip into a colander and drain thoroughly.  

In a large wide shallow bowl, pour shallot/vinegar mixture.  Add olive oil, and a good grinding of fresh pepper, and whisk to combine.  Tip in well-drained green beans, and toss well to coat.  

Quarter medium figs; slice large figs into sixths.  Mince parsley, snip chives, and chop toasted walnuts into a rough rubble.  If your basil leaves are large, tear them into a few pieces; if small-ish, leave whole.  Set a few herbs and nutty bits aside for garnish, if you wish.  When green beans are at room temperature, 10-15 minutes, add figs, herbs and nuts, and gently, thoroughly toss to combine.  I do this with clean hands.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt and/or pepper, as needed.  Enjoy straightaway.    

it flatters everything

 

No, no, that's not a Montréal pear.

 

 

And no, that's not a Montréal cherry, either. 

 

What's worse, I just read my peeps The Frog Prince, which may as well be subtitled The Importance of Keeping Promises. 

Sorry.

Morals, schmorals.  April intervened. 

Turns out, Spring is right now, rightthissecond, and if I wait a week, it will be long gone.  Spring is like that here, sudden, insistent, without any semblance of a pause button.  Spring, in Ohio, waits for no man, much less a Molly.  

An interlude, then, while Spring's still strung up in the branches, and splayed, willy-nilly, under our feet.

 

(Feel free to pull a princess, call me a slimy frog.)

 

It's just that there's this moment when the little world outside our window gets, for lack of a better word, ridiculous. 

Close your eyes on certain streets, and I dare you not to chew out the (phantom) lady who spritzed on waaaay too much perfume before leaving the house.  The air is fraught.  (Close your eyes on others, and you'll find they're all hawking eau de 'cut grass', which I've yet to see over-the-counter, but which might make for a refreshing change.)

Someone turned up the saturation while we were gone, and it's been on the uptick, ever since.  The green is greener.  The blue, bluer.  The pink-purple-lavender-peach party line, almost overwhelming.  It finally dawned on me, just this past week, why pastels and Easter are thick as thieves.  (A little slow in this department.  Still.)

Although, and this is only my personal opinion, a sidenote to the fashion industry: pastels work far better in petals and buds than in polyester ruffles and scritch-scratchity tulle.

 

(Separately, we've begun rocking the pink-purple-red look.  Bound to happen, I knew, eventually.  Now I know eventually is now.)   

 

Blooms and birds are everywhere.  It's as if Christo and Liberty colluded last Thursday and pulled off a citywide Tana Lawn install.  Or perhaps HGTV's concept-testing its latest reality show, William Morris Unleashed: The Ohio edition.  Or maybe Monet and his cronies dissed curfew and TP'd the town with their wish-washy bouquets. 

Or like I pulled file photos and pretended they were new. 

I have to confess, it feels terribly redundant, like cheating, or at least rather Rankin-Bass, come December: It's that time!  Pop some corn.  Cue the Cherry/Plum/Pear/Ho-hum re-run. 

But here's the rub: these are this week.  Everything is new again, again.  If this is redundancy, I'll take it.

 

(You hereby have my permission to make that 'slimy, tedious frog'. )

 

Because even I, forever moony over winter, chronically grumping over summer, must admit it: Whoah, and how. 

Hats off to you, Spring.

You improve upon pretty much the entire landscape, make even the unlikeliest bits look lovely.  Whipped into a tizzy before the tornado sirens blare, the lilacs, they still smile.

 

Even the weeds look good. 

 

Even the slugs look good.

That takes talent.

 

Spring, I think, flatters everything.  

 

Which is how I've been feeling a lot, of late, about lemon peel and parsley.

I meant to put that period there.

Really.

This wouldn't be the first time I've trumpeted two ingredients and passed them off as a recipe.  But I've this funny feeling cast-off peels and deli-case sprigs won't inspire the same thrill as heavy cream and dark chocolate.  Or amaretti and mascarpone.  Or ship's biscuits and stale water.  In fact, I feel like Great Aunt Maude, giving tube socks to a six-year-old and calling it a Christmas. 

Would it help if I mentioned I chop them really, really fine?  (The parsley and peel, I mean.  Or maybe it doesn't matter.  Maybe you'd feel the same about minced sock.)

Hear me out?

There's an irrational culinary alchemy that happens when these two kitchen stalwarts are minced, together, to smithereens.  Chopped fine, the lemon peel—and peel it is here, not fly-away zest—exhales its intoxicating oils into the hot-whatever underneath.  The parsley, for its part, brings its chlorophyll punch, that inimitable flavor I can only ever describe as green.  Green's a good flavor.  Especially with yellow.

You gremolata fiends will recognize this as a slimmed-down version of that already-slim garnish.  I am, alas, no fan of raw garlic, but I've become a bit raving over this two-minute pixie dust.  Some people ketchup everything.  Me, I reach for this edible confetti. 

It is sprinkles for grown-ups.  Blush for pale cheeks.  A lifeline for leftovers.  And for first-overs.  And for future meals, not yet planned.  

 

It brings all kinds of sunshine to butter-scrambled eggs.  It's outrageous on braised brisket, and lights up beef stew, and livens up a plate of beans like nobody's business.  It is beautiful, in every sense, on seared white fish, sweet and clean and a-swim in browned butter. 

Stir heaps into spaghetti aglio e olio, for a brighter zippier take on a fine peasant's feast.  Add crushed salted almonds and/or olive-oil toasted bread crumbs, and invite kings along, also.  Toss it over garlic-roasted potatoes.  Shower it on sautéed zucchini.  Or oven-blasted olive-oiled carrots, or cauliflower, or broccoli. 

Having depleted last summer's pesto, I've taken to plonking it on soups, all soups, often with a toss of pecorino.  I've yet to find one that doesn't love it.  Like Spring, it flatters everything.  Well, maybe not rice pudding.  But risotto, absolutely.  And roast asparagus.  And...

Lemon Parsley Sprinkle (Semi-Gremolata)

For reasons I don't fully understand, Microplaned zest doesn't work as well, here.  Thin strips of peel, chopped fine, are what you want.  I keep several Oxo peelers on hand, which I love for their sharp edge.  The ordinary peeler works beautifully here; the serrated one, if you have it, even better.   

2 large lemons (preferably organic)
generous handful parsley (a loose cup of leaves)

With a sharp peeler, remove the skin from your lemon, leaving behind the pith you can, but not worrying overly about white here and there.  Pile up your lemon peel and parsley leaves, and with a sharp chef's knife, chop-chop-chop.  Gather your pile again, and chop-chop-chop some more.  Repeat.  Repeat again.  A few more times than you think.  Aim for bits between pinheads and lentils in size.  Sprinkle over (almost) anything.

This holds surprisingly well in the refrigerator for a few days.  I often double or triple the above quantities, and dip into it for days. 

with much to recommend it

The cicadas have started falling from the trees. Composition books and glue sticks are stacked high by the door. The calendar, long blank, is freshly graffitied. Summer break's final hours are somehow behind us.

There are a dozen things I'd like to lay down here, but my mind's not on speaking terms with order. Order of the subject-predicate kind, anyway. I suspect I'm not the only one.

We are neck-deep in the late summer jumble, winding down one routine, gearing up for another. I could wait a week for the dust to settle, but where's the fun in that? And the dinner?

A wise soul once told me, some fifteen years back, that good information today is better than perfect information tomorrow. As a person entirely uninclined to such thinking, I've always considered this a radical statement. A radical statement with much to recommend it. So let's get on with the good today, shall we?

:: Certain sandwiches have no business on brown bread, previous allegiances notwithstanding. We are entering high BLT season, which is pretty much a mandate to bake this loaf with all white. Add slabs of tomato, good bacon, a sheaf of leaves, and sidle up to a stack of napkins and happiness.

:: Speaking of leaves, jeepers-creepers, basil. Claudine tipped me off, and I'm pretty well smitten. Our lettuce is always long-gone by tomato time, but the basil's (still) strong, and not only delicious, possibly better.

:: Dear Clay, Paint, Blocks, plus Every Building Material Under the Sun: You've made our summer shine on a regular basis. Consider this your thank you note. Sincerely, Us.

:: Reason #38 to invest in a KitchenAid: the dough hook pulls double-duty as a pirate prosthetic.

:: I've never understood uncooked tomato sauce. Are you not already turning on the stove to boil water? Could I possibly have missed the point more entirely? If you're anywhere near as naïve as I was, dear Luisa will set you straight. I dare you not to get raw-tomato sauce religion.

:: Always say yes to outings. Even if you're inclined to say no. Especially if you're inclined to say no.

:: People of the Book. Beg, buy, borrow a copy. I draw the line at stealing. But only just barely.

:: Odd lots of vegetables are a fact of summer life. Farmer's market leftovers, CSA tidbits, weird garden yields that conform to no recipe. Beginning about now, I routinely open my refrigerator to an optimist's miscellany, a pessimist's produce mess. Two extra ears of corn, a few tired zucchini, plus not quite enough green beans for anything meaningful. Add a pepper whose purpose has long been forgotten, a few carrots rattling around the bottom, and you've the makings for recrimination. Or a one-pot, one-bowl, lite-brite coconut curry. I choose the latter. And recommend it, highly.

A few words about this favorite standby. First, this is no true Thai curry. I've bruised lemongrass, minced galangal, pulverized shrimp paste and brick-red chilis, all in the name of heady, aromatic pastes. It is not so difficult, and so very worth it. It is also, many weeks, beyond my reach. On weeks such as those, weeks such as these, I reach for this lickety-split lovely.

What this is is a tip of the Thai hat, a skittering across, a selective pull. There's the sweet, creamy lush of coconut milk, the salty funk of fish sauce, the mellow glow of red curry, swiped, conveniently, from a jar. Supermarket staples, the lot of them, and so pantry citizens under our roof.  A dash of brown sugar, a good hit of lime, and oh, so pleased to meet you, hot-sour-salty-sweet. And this, my friends, is just the bathwater.

What you add to the drink is up to you; what I add has been different, each of two dozen times. There's always protein of some sort or another, seared at the outset in a shimmer of oil. It may come as no surprise that tofu's my preference, soft little pillows against the fresh crunch. That said, I extend this dish's reach in my home by adding tender bite-sized bits of chicken.  In practice, I use what I've got on hand; on this particular night, that meant both.  The curry paste gets added to the hot oil, to deepen in color and in flavor, followed shortly thereafter by the big white splash. The whole mess then sits stoveside, simmering and tendering, while the real fun begins: the plundering of the vegetable bin.

The list of vegetables below is merely last week's version; yours might bear no resemblance, and that's the beauty. This is one of those wide-open, welcoming dishes that invites whatever vegetables you have on hand. Substitute green beans for the zucchini, leave out the pepper if you haven't got it, swap out squash for the carrots, you get the idea. Just add the firmer veg at the beginning, tip in the tenders toward the end, and keep your cut size consistent to ensure even cooking.  It is ecumenical enough to make the year-round, delicious in spring with asparagus and peas, soothing in winter with cubed sweet potatoes plus those tiny canned corn ears my children adore.  Also, it's one heckuva fridge-cleaning workhorse. 

Oh!  The basil.  I nearly forgot the basil.  What takes this dish right over the top is a generous throw of aromatic thai basil.  We have a few plants in the backyard, because I love its intense fragrance so.  It's a little exotic, but not terribly: you'll find it at many farmers' markets during late summer, and any Asian grocery, the year round.  If you can, scoop some up; if you can't, make it still.  It's what I do half the time, anyway.  Authentic or no, basil-flecked or otherwise, this is one of those bowls I settle into with a sigh.  Spooned over a mound of brown rice, fragrant and soothing and hearty and light, it is very, very good.  Which, if not perfect, has much to recommend it. 

A Vegetable-Filled Coconut Curry
adapted from Deborah Madison, Local Flavors and Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen

This dish is a mash-up of two Deborah Madison recipes, a summer squash and corn simmer in coconut milk, and a Bare-Bones Tofu Curry.  Both are wonderful, on their own merits.  Together, they make me grin, ear to ear.  If you don't know her work, do make her acquaintance; you cannot go wrong with any of her books.  The spirit of this dish is signature Madison, great economy of technique, grand delivery of flavor. Did I mention the entire thing comes together more quickly than a mediocre pizza will come to your door?

Fish sauce, coconut milk, and red curry paste are widely available in the ethnic section of most major grocers. Thai basil (a.k.a. holy basil) is a gorgeous, aromatic purple-tinged basil, distinct in flavor from the Italian variety. Look for it at late summer farmers' markets or any Asian market, year-round.  Curry paste varies widely in zip. I add a mild two teaspoons, to accomodate tender palates. Start small, taste at the end, and increase as desired, for additional heat.

1 tablespoon peanut or canola oil
1 tub extra-firm tofu, cut into 1" cubes,
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast (approx. 1 pound), cut into 1" bits, optional
1 teaspoon salt
1 15-oz can coconut milk, well-shaken
2-3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons - 2 tablespoons thai red curry paste
2-3 teaspoons dark brown sugar
1 red pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped into 1/2" bits
2 carrots, peeled, halved, and cut into 1/4" moons3 small zucchini, halved, then sliced into 1/4" half-moons
1 large handful green beans, tipped and tailed, and cut into 1/2" lengths
3 corn on the cob, kernels removed
1 bunch scallions sliced, white and pale green only
1 lime, juiced
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup thai basil, chopped
additional water, as needed
additional salt/fish sauce and pepper/curry paste, to taste

warm brown or jasmine rice, for serving

In your wok or your largest non-stick skillet, heat oil to a shimmer over high heat. Tip in tofu and/or chicken, season with 1 teaspoon salt, and let sit, undisturbed, several minutes, until your protein of choice is browned on the bottom and releases with little effort. Shake and stir, and let brown on reverse, another several minutes. Add 2 teaspoons red curry paste, and stir gently into protein, allowing it to fry and darken slightly, until fragrant, 30-60 seconds.

Add well-shaken coconut milk, stirring gently to release and incorporate curry paste. Add fish sauce, brown sugar, scallions, and firmer vegetables (carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, green beans), lower heat to low-medium, and simmer, 5 minutes. Add tender veg (zucchini, corn, tomatoes), stir gently, and simmer another 5 minutes. If, after adding the second batch of veg, the pan seems to crowded (i.e. if the liquid seems insufficient to the produce), add 1/4-1/2 cup water, to compensate.  After 5 minutes, check vegetables for doneness: you want carrots without any crunch in them, but your veg still vibrant and just-done.  Simmer a few minutes further, if needed, but don't walk away; the joy of this dish is in its brightness. 

Add juice of one lime, stir, and taste a spoonful, for seasoning. You want a bold, forward balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet. Add additional fish sauce (or salt), brown sugar, lime and/or curry paste, to taste. (The more vegetables and bits you add, the greater the likelihood you'll need additional seasonings, across the board.)

Stir two-thirds of the chopped cilantro and holy basil into the hot curry. Serve hot, over rice, with additional cilantro and basil atop.

over and over

Whew.

We've gone, and come back. We're mostly unpacked. Almost through the laundry. Nearly recovered from end-of-the-trip ailments. It was a good trip. It always is.

While they're still fresh, before I forget them, I wanted to remember here two things recently on my mind.  

The first is fresh eyeballs.  Apparently, whenever I do this do-si-do between states, I get all Proustian, noodling over new landscapes and eyes.  It happened last summer, over wooded walks and long hikes.  Happened again last month, in other ways, big and small.  I'm thinking that as long as we summer in Seattle, it's due to become tradition, right in line with raspberry popsicles.  Not a bad fate, if you ask me.   

Anyway, I hope you'll forgive the redundancy.  It's just that, from where I sit, on this July Ohio Monday, everything looks rawther Mary Poppins.  We woke to sticky, blinding 95° skies.  By two, I probably could've feigned bedtime.  The heat hit the fan, the windows went charcoal, little could be heard save wild rumbles and limbs snapping.  One hour, two inches of rain, easy.  (Glad I didn't water.)  Did I mention the twenty-three degree mercury freefall?  I adore thunderstorms.  And I'm reminded of why, when I land at SeaTac, I'm a bit of a Martian, surveying my old stomping grounds. 

It's not that I didn't see the Northwest, those first thirty-five years I knew nothing else. Like everyone, I knew the damp drizzle, the serrated skyline, the perpetual green.  I knew the (sweet, ridiculous) routine of spontaneously shouting, Hey! The Mountain is out!  I knew the weird, trapped contradiction of drinking in the spectacle while idling on I-5.  Of feeling that the entire story of the city was tucked between one discreet, majestic clause.  (Olympics, Cascades.  Paren, end paren.)

I knew all this. Academically, anyway.

But I was also a little looked out.  It was my familiar, my over and over, my everyday ordinary 365.

This didn't breed much in the way of contempt. I adored gray skies, steady rain, jeans in June; I still do. But I was a bit complacent. Maybe a bit blind. My actual eyesight is blessedly 20/20. My interior eyesight's more quarter-inch lens territory. It's to be expected, I suppose.

Not that I'm waxing nostalgic here, pining lost moments. Quite the opposite, actually. What I want to mark, what I wish to remember, is the way I look less, see more, each return. 

Rhodendrons somehow look less like landscape blather, more like kind, gentle, reliable friends.  Sword ferns, dime a dozen in any backyard, catch me off guard with their ancient demeanor.  The dandelions.  I had no idea.  They're downright epic.  Seriously, locals, carp away about weeding.  Those things are Godzillas.  You've got my sympathetic ear. 

Instead of Tall Grass, I spy a half-dozen individual grasses, one wheaty, one green-tipped, one soda pop purple.  I find, accidentally, again, that unnamed grass that pulls thrillingly free from its stem.  It's an unremarkable grass, with unremarkable seeds, otherwise not worth noticing, but for this one trick.  I must have pulled apart two thousand as a child; the firm tug, doubtful pause, decisive whoosh-whoop! release.  Comes back to me like breathing.  I show Zoë, ASAP. 

And, from the time we step off the plane, I inhale with gusto.  I must sound nearly-drowned.

The air.  Holy cow.  It's outrageous stuff, damp, rich, briny, completely addictive.  I'm not sure how I missed this my first three-plus decades, and technically, I guess this is new nose territory, but forget all that.  Just, if you go, you know, inhale.  And notice.  And repeat.  It's pretty impeccable.     
 

I realize that my children might need re-assimilation.  This has been one of my biggest concerns all along, that they'll forget their origins, their ocean, their tidepools.  Mostly, my concerns have been unfounded: they're fine little dual citizens.  But there are a few gaps in their memories and education, which I try to address during each return.  Dick's cheeseburgers are the best, this side of anywhere.  Besalu makes Parisian croissants look like frauds.  This is not actually a roller coaster, just the counterbalance.  Hey! The Mountain is out today!

This trip, I re-acquainted them with the local flora and fauna.  We talked salmon berries, and maple trees, moss and seaweed, the sneaky trick of a second strawberry season.  Max had forgotten sea anemones.  Henry had no recollection of spit bugs.  Zoë had dibs on the biggest jaw-dropper.  We were winding down a trip to our old haunt, St. Edward's, walking through one of the thickly forested trails.  Just ahead, on the path, sat a long, lone, black slug.  I casually asked whether she remembered its name. There was no flicker of name.  No flicker of recognition.  No nothing.  She stared up at me, all blank face and curiosity. 

Dear Reader, my daughter did not know from slugs. 

Not to worry.  We had ample opportunity to brush up.

The other item on my mind of late is poached salmon.  (Surely, the worst segue.  Anywhere.  Ever.)  I poached some, while in town.  I poach some every few months.  I've probably, over the course of the past decade, poached the population of a small tributary.  Occasionally, I'll slow roast, or sear spice-crusted slices over blistering heat.  As should you, if it's looks your after.  Poaching is not the prettiest preparation; there's no burnished crust, no handsome cross-section.  But when it comes to salmon, I find I return to this same addictive method, over and over. 

Method's probably too strong a word for a recipe that runs something like this: dump two tablespoons of salt in a bunch of water, slide in your salmon, and bring to a boil.  Clamp on a lid, set the timer for ten, play a few hands of Uno, *ding ding*, dinner's done.  Actually, that's exactly the recipe.  Well, minus the Uno; that part's optional. 

You can complicate it, if you wish, if you prefer extra work and unnecessary mess.  Plenty of poaching recipes out there call for chardonnay or court bouillion or bouquet garni or all of the above.  Be my guest.  I've tried gussied.  Not one beats this one, in my book, anyway.

Get past the cover, and poached salmon's wild on content, foolproof, versatile, fast, easy, do-ahead and delicious.  The method's so gentle—you don't even hold the simmer—that you cannot wind up with dry if you try.  It's wonderful warm, fresh from the broth, and excellent cold, especially the next day.  I think this is because the texture relaxes, and the salt settles in with a good night's sleep.  I'll allow, though, that it might just be the thrill of throwing open the fridge and finding such splendor.  It's weeknight-quick (or vacation-quick, quicker still), and involves neither splattering oil nor supervision.  It always puts me in the mind of a batch of hard-boiled eggs.  Only when you're done, you've an entire gorgeous platter of salmon.

So yes, it does redeem itself a bit there.  Poached salmon may be pink all over, but an entire poached side—no harder than a slice—necessitates a platter, and platters all but guarantee oohs and ahs.  (Transitive Property of Serving Dishes.  Look it up.)  Throw some hydrangea leaves under, scatter dill over all, and you've suddenly got an awfully nice affair.  I've served this to company (main course done the day prior? oh, hello), brought it to potlucks, whipped up a half-fish just to have on hand for nibbling.  It's like that, high/low, fancy/everyday fare, a neat trick if you can swing it.  Salmon can.  Lucky us.  

What's that?  What does one do with three pounds of poached salmon, if, say, it's just you and yours?  Well, well.  Tender chunks are what I use for these fish cakes, or scatter over green leaves, or sub in for tuna in Niçoise.  But for the first serving, and often the last, what I love it with best is this lemon-dill sauce.  The sauce, like the fish, is classic Mark Bittman, a triumph of his minimalist best.  He tossed off a few words about yogurt and lemon; I fine-tuned it slightly, into what you find below.  It's fantastically creamy from the Greek Yogurt, sharp with fresh lemon, fragrant with dill.  I think it was intended to be a condiment.  I, as you can see, eat it more like a side.  More often than not, I'll intend to spin the bounty into two or three different meals.  More often than not, I can't get past this duo, returning over and over until the whole platter's empty.  Not a bad thing.  Not a bad thing at all.

Poached Salmon
adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

You don't need any specialized pans, here.  Use a large, deep, lidded skillet for a center-cut slice, or a roasting pan (with foil to cover) for a full side.  Alternatively, cut the side to fit a skillet.  If you wish to get fancy, IKEA does (did?) stock a fantastic fish poacher for just $20.  

If your salmon is more than an inch at its thickest point, allow a few additional minutes to cook through. 

***

1 salmon filet, full side or large center-cut slice (2-3 pounds), skinned and cleaned
2 rounded tablespoons kosher salt

Fill your pan half-full with cold water, set on stove, add 2 tablespoons salt, stir, and lay salmon in water.  Add additional cold water to just cover salmon, if needed.  If you have a full side, fold tail end under itself to approximate center thickness.  Turn heat to high, and bring just to the boil, then cover, turn off heat, and set timer for ten minutes.   

Test for doneness by inserting a thin knife into the thickest point.  Salmon should flake easily, and be just barely opaque to the center.  If still translucent, cover and let poach a few minutes longer.

Carefully remove salmon from pan to platter.  Drain excess water by gently tilting plate over sink, while holding firm to the fish.  I'll often take a paper towel or two to the plate after draining, just to soak up the last lingering bits of liquid. 

Eat warm, immediately, or eat cold, straight from the fridge.  Salmon keeps beautifully up to three days.  

Lemon Dill Yogurt Sauce
adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

Neither traditional yogurt nor non-fat Greek is any good here.  I've tried.  This sauce is also shockingly good as a dip for steamed broccoli. 

1 16-ounch tub Greek Yogurt, 2% or whole
1 bunch fresh dill, chopped (1/2-1 cup chopped, to your taste)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 lemons, organic if possible

Wash lemons, zest lemons, then juice lemons.  Tip yogurt into a medium bowl, and stir briefly to loosen.  Add juice of 2 lemons, zest of 1 lemon, 1/2 cup dill, and salt.  Stir well to combine and dissolve salt.  Taste, adjust as desired (more zest, dill, and/or salt), and serve alongside salmon.   

long gone

I've always had sort of an issue with the time-space continuum. 

Not everywhere.  I'm fairly good with indoor time.  I can usually guess-timate what the morning hour is, give or take a half, by the slant of the sun.  Cookies only sometimes get the timer treatment; a sniff and sixth sense are often all it takes for me to know they're caramelized at the edges, still soft at the center.  And when school's in session (nine more days, eep!), I know I'll re-grow that weird phantom limb that starts pinging, twelve minutes before the day's-end bell rings. 

But outside?  I'm toast.  At sea.  Out of sync, completely.  In my third decade, I've finally come around to the whole season system.  There are four.  Every year!  With start and end dates, even.  Which is very convenient for folks like me.  Soon, I hope to have them memorized.  In the meantime, I'm playing catch-up.

Ohio has been a huge help to me in this regard.  It's not that Seattle doesn't have seasons; it does.  We keep a postcard on our fridge door, in fact, picturing them all.  It's quartered, like a window, each pane showing the Emerald City at its seasonal prime.  The Winter quadrant is gray, of course, with rain streaming down.  Spring is, well, identical.  Summer, too.  Ditto fall.  Hardy har.  Sort of.  Everyday rain is a myth, not a constant.  But the temperature sort of is.  Seattle's seasons are subtle, whispery things, one blending more or less seamlessly into the next, summerfallwinterspringsum...  I'm not pointing fingers.  Just saying it doesn't help those who are innately obtuse.

Not so, Ohio.  Here we have SUMMER!, which is a world away from Wwwwwinterrrrr, except that it all unfolds in our backyard.  It's a wild ride, a tad psychedelic, like that trippy elephant parade part-way through Dumbo.  Minus the LSD.  Plus a whole lot more lovely.

And layered, like so many chapters in a book, each with its own bloom to tell the tale.  See, for the longest time, I noticed Summer had Flower, much the way I knew the Northwest had Tree.  I never really noticed what bloomed where.  Or when.  Or whether.  There's a reason I admire Mary Oliver.  My powers of observation are M.I.A. 

This, incidentally, is why I've always stuck to a strict watering schedule.  Memorial and Labor Day, whether the garden needs it or not.  I've had countless exasperated conversations with my plants, lambasting them for withering when I've watered them, already.  May, September, why so needy?  (See 'time-space continuum' and 'trouble', above).   But that's another story.  This one's simply about dialing down the oblivious.

Or, perhaps, tuning in to the obvious.  Everything’s amplified, exaggerated here.  Oliver's from Ohio, which I consider no small coincidence, as I can't imagine a better boot camp for the senses.  I get the impression it might actually be impossible to miss the ebb and flow of flowers in these parts.  They stun you silly, smack you upside the head.  Which is apparently what it takes for me to grasp this outdoor calendar business. 

I get it, now, how bulbs lead the parade.  How the tulips’ last gasp means the real party’s begun.  How the next chapter’s all small, eager buds, bashful anemone and Pasque bobble-heads.  I'm learning to expect that first installment of lush, the extravagant Iris and peonies, all gussied up in beards and petticoats.  I know these arrived kindly for Mother's Day, and that Father's Day means the hydrangea’s turn is come.

And I now know July's the height of it all, a crazy quilt of color and pattern and pizzaz.  Daisies and lavender and coreopsis and clematis and poppies and astilbe and Echinacea and and and...  They're long gone now, of course, and we're a little complicit, having blown, tossed and trampled our fair share of blooms. 

But I understand now that the cherry blossoms wouldn't have lasted, that August always elbows in with flaming petals and vegetables galore.  And I'm reminding myself, as we approach the onslaught portion of the produce program, that this, too, is temporary.  And that panic never helps.   

 

I'm not saying I don't love it.  Or that hyperventilation was involved.  Only that there was, what shall we say, a moment last week.  A moment when the world's most prolific cucumber bush kept producing, and our second bush began showing signs of coming on.  When I'd made and eaten soup, several more times, and then found 30 (!) cucumbers in our CSA box.  When I considered, ever so briefly, moving to Novia Scotia. 

And then I remembered.  The abundance chapter's begun, and this is a very, very good sort of problem to have.  And although two wrongs might not make a right, two gluts might just yield the best thing you've eaten all month.

On a lark, I whipped up a Greek Salad the other night, and to be painfully honest, didn't expect much.  Indeed, all my hopes were pinned on a sleek potato number, dressed in pesto and polka-dotted with peas.  It was nice.  I ate my share.  Then went back to my afterthought salad for seconds.  And thirds.  And so many stealth snitches I'd have to call fourths.

It knocked my socks off.  Or would have, had I been wearing any.  Revelation sort of hints at it.  Gobsmacked gets a little closer.  Ridiculously delicious came to mind between lip-smacks.  On the one hand, it's a simple toss-up of crunchy cuke and sweet tomato, plus a smattering of sweet onion and green pepper, slivered fine.  Add to this the briny smack of kalamatas, plus the creamy twang of a nice sheep's milk feta.  You might be imagining how these play well together, salty-sweet, sharp-and-mild, crisp-and-tender.  You'd be right. 

But what seals the deal, what surprised me utterly, was the wicked-wonderful alchemy of dried oregano.  Rubbed and crumbled to bring back its spark, tossed over all in giant, generous pinches, it brought the entire hodge-podge to life.  My fresh-herb bias took a serious dressing down.  I drowned out its whimper with another crunchy bite.    

And I realized, somewhere between bite 37 and 49, that my every other Greek Salad encounter went down in a restaurant.  And that the difference between an order-up! made with tired cucumbers and storage tomatoes, and a late-August, mind-the-glut D.I.Y is vast.  Just, ginormous.  Big as the gap between a deli-counter BLT and the real summer deal.  Big as the gap between now and then.  So big and so grand I made it twice in two days.  And plan to repeat, as often as needed.  Or as often as possible, until the bounty's long gone. 

Greek Salad
Inspired by Saveur
Serves 4

I nearly skipped the green pepper, as I mostly think they taste like the unripe vegetable they are, the sort of thing foisted off on you in salad bars and bad combo pizzas.  But it was magic here, like some unfamiliar herb, crisp and bright and exactly right.  If you have one on hand, or can get one, do try it.  Ditto the raw onion: normally I loathe it, but it's pitch-perfect here.  Needless to say, this is late summer fare, good eating when everything is days out of the ground.   

Leftovers (or originals) are lovely tucked into a hummus-lined pita.

2 full size or 6 small cucumbers
2 medium tomatoes (or 30 cherry tomatoes)
1/2 green pepper
1 small, sweet onion (or 1/4 standard, sweet onion)
4 ounces feta
20 kalamata olives (smashed with knife to remove pits)
1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper

Prepare cucumbers by topping and tailing, peeling, seeding with a spoon (if large; don't bother if small), and slicing in 1/2" wide half-moons.  Core tomatoes, and slice in wedges.  Slice pepper in narrow slivers, then stack the slivers and slice in thirds for bite-size ribbons.  Ditto the onions.

Pile vegetables on platter, shred olives into large bits and scatter, and crumble feta over all.  Sprinkle with vinegar and drizzle with oil, scatter a good pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper, and finish off with 2-3 generous pinches of oregano, pinching and smooshing between your thumb and forefinger as you sprinkle, to wake up all those lovely essential oils.  Dig in.