remedial eating

it seems silly

To talk tomato sauce.  I mean, excellent tomato sauce is on offer around every street corner.  It is one of those few foods, like frozen peas and dried pasta, that packages really, really well.  

Also, homemade sauce is an afternoon's work.  A morning and afternoon, if you consider the market run.  Morning, afternoon and evening, if you consider the cleaning up.  

(Unless, like me, you conveniently finish the sauce, and saunter out of the kitchen, la-di-da!, after dinner, and on to other things, like stories and such. Forgetting, entirely, about the fact that your kitchen looks like Babette's Feast meets The Shining: pots, pans, RED, everywhere.  Only to discover, six minutes past midnight, your non-chalance-cum-negligence.  Then, it runs morning-to-morning.)

Also, I am not remotely close to Italian.  I have nothing authentic, nor authoritative, nor for that matter particularly legitimate to offer on the vast subject of sauce.  

(Though if heritage drove my cooking and eating, we'd be talking haggis and lutefisk and mushy peas.  Which we won't.  Any time soon.  Or ever.)  

There are three dozen lives I can imagine in which homemade tomato sauce makes no sense at all.  I fully expect to live one of them soon, and to not give a wink to September's sauce, and to buy what we need when the need arises, and to not be bothered by this one bit.

But right now, this year, and for the past several, making tomato sauce has made sense.  And as long as I've kids who count sauce-making fun—and as long as I've a girl who declares dinner "spuh-giddy!"—I'll continue to dedicate a day, each fall.  And if you too find yourself with small children to amuse, or a hunger for summer come January, or an appetite for things deep, rich and red, then maybe, just maybe, sauce makes sense for you, too.  

Because sauce is not hard, nor complicated, nor onerous, despite the timeline outlined above.  That all-day business is really mere technicality, the beginning and end of a day spent otherwise.  It is almost entirely a hands-off affair, and a deeply democratic one, at that.  Flexible, open-ended, exquisitely all-ages, tomato sauce is one of the most forgiving of foods.  It cannot be flubbed.  I love it for that.  We all need more things that cannot be flubbed.   

Weekend before last, we made our year's stash, turning twenty pounds of pastes into red gold.  It had rained all week, and the tomatoes had begun to split, and I knew the moment to make sauce was fleeting.  Depending on where you are, and what the weather's been, and where the week's headed, your moment may be ahead, yet.  If you've an at-home Saturday and empty freezer and a yen, here is how we go about it:  

Get your hands on as many ripe local paste tomatoes as you think you can fit in your two biggest pots.  At least ten pounds.  Better, fifteen.  Better yet, twenty, just trust me on this.  You'll think this too many tomatoes for a year. You'll think this too many tomatoes for a lifetime.  Until earliest February,when you'll curse your inner Ebenezer.

Wash, de-stem, dry, and quarter, then fill your pots not quite full.  Add several halved onions, a garlic head's peeled whole cloves, a clutch of fresh basil, and a fistful of fresh thyme.  No need to engage in the dreaded de-stemming; the long simmer ahead will free thyme leaf from twig.  If you've no thyme, use oregano, though considerably less as its considerably stronger.  Or up the basil.  Or drop the herbs, and carry on.  It will still be beyond good. See forgiving, above.  

Add half a cup of olive oil (no less, maybe more) plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, per seven pounds of tomatoes.  (Multiply accordingly).  Freshly ground pepper is nice, as is one dried red pepper, one per pot, just for kicks.  Place on a medium fire, bring to a boil, then dial it down to a steady blurble.

(Meanwhile, with your extra fruit, because you will have extra fruit, fill a sheet pan with halves, salted and oiled, and set them to roast at the lowest heat for the longest time, until garnet and sweet and crazy intense.  

Take the rest, because there will still be "the rest", and dice them into a bowl with salt, and ribbons of basil, and a bit of balsamic.  Set them aside for an hour, better, two, and pile them on top of garlic garlic-rubbed toasts.  Bruschetta and slow-roasted tomatoes are my kind of by-products.  And dinner.  Because projects like sauce are never done in time for dinner.) 

Simmer forever, or at least three hours, probably four, possibly five.  When the volume is reduced by half, turn off the heat, and let cool an hour.  Assemble a ladle, and a food mill (we love this one), and a small army of biceps and bowls.  Settle in your largest disk, and get cranking.  This bit's fun, and surprisingly fast, the only tedium being breaking up the arguments over whose turn is whose.  Then—and this is the most important part—put in your medium disc, and run through once more.  This captures the seeds, which are bitter and ruinous, and lends your sauce a plush, velvety texture.  This is where fairly good becomes grand.   

Taste your sauce.  Really, taste it.  Taste first for texture: it should have body, weight and loft in equal measure.  Too often I've stopped short, with sauce too thin and watery, still of two minds, which is no sauce at all.  If your sauce is still going its separate ways, solids and liquids, this way and that, just return it to the stove and simmer further, until it is all of one piece.  It will concentrate, and emulsify, and come together as one.  A spoon will make its mark, and leave a trail.  The term "gravy" will suddenly make sense.  As will jammy.  And plump.  Good tomato sauce is plump. 

Next, taste for flavor.  You will likely need salt.  We undersalt at the outset, to allow for all that reducing, then backfill at the end, as needed.  Salt not until it is salty, per se, but until sweet and tart and salt are equals.  Salt so that the tomato flavor sings, sweet and rich and round and true.  

Pinch, stir, taste.  
[Does it need anything, apart from salt?  Very Possibly.  All years, all tomatoes, all batches are different.  A pinch of sugar for added sweet, a splish of vinegar if the opposite.]  

Pinch, stir, taste.  
[Better?  A flick of chili?  A few more fresh herbs, added the end?]  

Pinch, stir, taste.  
[Trust your buds.  Adjust until tickled.  We're after neutral, but gloriously neutral.]

Continue, seasoning and adjusting and slurping, until you cannot stop the last step.  Done.

And what do you do with said sauce?  Oh HO!  Hello, lovely problems to have. Slip it between roasted eggplant steaks, layer after layer, interrupted only by mozzarella, for eggplant parmesan in a trice.  Toss it with heaps of cubed, roasted eggplant, plus pecorino and basil, for Pasta alla Norma. Simmer it with meatballs, or sausages, or ground chuck, for a bang-up swoony ragu. Collate it with crumple-edged pasta sheets, plus besciamella or ricotta, and spinach or beef (or both, or neither, entirely your call), for a lickety-split lasagna.  Or do as we most often do, and serve it up simply, stirred into spaghetti, blizzard of just-grated parmesan mandatory.  

We're only warming up, you know.  The saucy list goes on and on (and on...) But we've made only 12 cups, maybe 14, and we've run through half, just in our imaginings.  Seems silly we ever questioned the quantity, no?  Next year? Twice as many tomatoes.

chock-a-block

Don't believe a pixel of it.

Those masts have approximately nothing to do with our lives, at present.

 

 

Nor does the Virginia V.  Nor the salmon fry.  Nor Gasworks at sunset.  

Ditto the next however many.

 

 

Our actual days are buzzing with all that back to school brings.  Did I mention that classes have begun?  That we've already completed Week One? Will soon begin Week Three?  These August start dates still catch me off guard, raised as I was on a post-Labor Day academic year.  

Still, it feels good, on this holiday weekend, to have a foothold in the new year.  

 

We've spent these past weeks re-orienting ourselves to the weekday/weekend division.  Re-acquainting ourselves with our alarm clocks.  Adjusting to new schools, schedules, routines, rigamarole.  Re-learning how to make and gobble pancakes before eight.  And ideally, acquire lunches, clothes, tied tennies, along the way.  Remembering to brush what needs brushing.  

(Extra credit for keeping hair and tooth brushes straight.)  

Our evenings are thick with meetings.  Our afternoons, field studies in de-compression.  The calendar is suddenly as dense with graffiti as a Seattle NO PARKING sign.  Though what it shares in over-crowding, it lacks in character. I'm considering switching up my chicken scratches to pictograms.      

Homework is still mostly on the horizon, but it won't be long now.  Wish us all luck.  

We have gone through the annual fall shoe Q&A, which always seems more like a comedy routine:

"How do your shoes feel?"

"Fine, fine.  Just great.  Fine."

"But you've had them a year.  Shall we measure, just for kicks?" ... "Would you look at that!  Two sizes too small!  Are these (elevens-twos-eights) any better?"

"Yup.  Fine.  Just great.  Fine."

I'm grateful, to be sure, to have dodged those skipped sizes.  Still and all, I think I'd be feeling somewhat pinched in the toes.  Then again, maybe I'm just overly sensitive.

Cubbies have been cleared.  Dressers, exhumed.  Counters buried in paperwork, more times than I can count.  Entire Saturday evenings have been given over to excavation.  Another one (or three) evenings are still owed. The piles remain fierce.  And deeply unkempt.  And so it is that these last Seattle snaps will have to do.

For while I haven't seen a seaplane in weeks, haven't walked Lake Union since mid-August, haven't had a kayak invade my frame in recent memory, they're all more appealing than untamed forms and folders.  Besides, Suzzallo got me off on the right school foot more than once.  I see no reason not to let it work its magic, once more, settling a little calm over our chock-a-block days.

They'll settle down, soon enough.  This salad will not.  It's full-to-bursting by design, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

This is what we, here, call Chop Chop Salad, a name I almost hesitate to drop. Does "chop" preceding "salad" make your spine shudder, instinctively, severely, the way it does mine?  Chopped salads sort of swept the restaurant scene, ca. 1988, and settled in for the long, lackluster haul.  As a rule, I avoid them all.  (The restaurants and the salads, alike.)  But once upon a time, before kids, before degrees, we would on occasion patronize a hip new Italian eatery.  It was a wildly edgy, progressive affair, the sort of place that prefixed pizza with "goat cheese", mushrooms with "wild", and garlic bread with "whole roasted".  

Remember when Wolfgang Puck was a California chef?  

Remember when Justin Bieber was, like, not even born?

Anyhoo.  Said spot made one knock-out chopped salad, a bright, vivid number I could eat by the vat.  It was equal parts greens and "bits", a knife-and-fork affair if ever there was one.  It was salad as meal, and meal as salad, every flavor and texture wrapped up in one bowl.  It was the first chopped salad I'd ever encountered, and the last one I ever enjoyed.  Within months, we began making it at home*.  We've never stopped.  It's some salad.  

The bits themselves are a jolly assortment of sweet red veg—soft ripe tomatoes, crisp peppers—and protein in all its many guises.  There is diced provolone, sharp and beguiling, plus tender chickpeas, nutty, earthy, toothsome.  Sometimes, there's leftover roast chicken; sometimes, honey-roasted turkey; sometimes neither, pictured here.  The white meat is nice, but optional; I never miss it when it's gone.  The salami is otherwise, excellent, essential, a rich deep confetti, threaded throughout.  

You might imagine all these bits are the best part, an antipasto party in a bowl. You would be close.  Also, wrong.  Because the greens are something special, here.  Half the roughage is ordinary lettuce, albeit uncompromisingly crisp. Romaine hearts are nice.  Iceberg will do.  Right now, a fresh local fall [fill-in-the-blank] head is grand.  It just must be crisp, crisper than crisp, in order to stand up to those bits and that basil.   

About that basil.  Basil comprises the rest of said greens, a full 3-4 cups of loose, fresh leaves.  Like the lettuce, the basil's chopped into fork-worthy slivers, and tossed willy-nilly right into the bowl.  Imagine.  Basil as salad green.  Rubbing shoulders with tomatoes, chickpeas, salami, peppers, cheese. It's a little like a caprese, gone berserk. Berserk in the very best possible way. And finally, sensibly, tamed to the fork.  

The whole mess is tossed with a straight-up vinaigrette of red wine vinegar, olive oil, plenty of S and P.  The end result is a salad of stunning contrasts, sweet, tender, piquant, winy, crisp, fragrant, bright.  Every bite has a bit of the party about it, merry veg, vivid greens, some fantastic tidbit.  It gives chock-a-block a very good name.  Must remember that as I sort through the stacks ...   

Our Chop Chop Salad
inspired by Cucina! Cucina!, ca. 1990

*Not until tonight did I ever think to look up the recipe for this salad's ancestor. It seems my version, evolved over years, veers sharply from the original, in everything from greens to dressing.  Who knew?  More to the point, who cares? These proportions, these ingredients, listed below, will forever be to me Chop Chop Salad.  Heretofore amended, "Our..."   

No one does tinned chickpeas better than Goya.  As to cheese, I love provolone, here, but any sharp white number (manchego, romano, smoked mozzarella) works well.  

3-4 cups crisp salad greens (romaine, iceberg, local fresh crisp lettuce), washed, well-dried, and chopped into 1" bits
3-4 cups fresh basil, washed, well dried, and chopped into 1" bits
1 cup red bell pepper, chopped into 1/2" bits
1 cup firm, ripe tomato, chopped into 1/2" bits
1 cup chickpeas, tinned or homemade
1 cup salami, chopped into 1/2" bits
1 cup roasted turkey or chicken, chopped into 1/4" bits (optional)
1 cup provolone, grated, or chopped into 1/4" bits
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
25 turns of freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Place all solids in your biggest salad bowl, then drizzle with oil and vinegar, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Toss well, preferably with clean hands, until every bit has met the dressing.  Taste a few bites: you want bright, sweet, crisp, salted, peppered.  Vivid.  Jolly.  A balance between them all.  Add a bit more salt, pepper and/or vinegar, to taste, toss again, and serve right away.     

eating summer

Monday evening, I realized the fireflies had gone.

I'm not sure when.  Three weeks ago, they were still around, twinkling up the grass like so many unstrung Christmas lights.  And then, at some point, they weren't.  Days ago, anyway.  Maybe two weeks.  I can't pinpoint it.  This is the thing about change in the ordinary.  So many givens exit stage left, without warning.  They just fade away, without fanfare, without hoopla.  Just, out the back door, with finger-shushed lips.  Never-mind-me on cat-padded feet.  Errors of ommission in our everyday.

We dissected owl pellets, also on Monday.  Unwrapped foil bundles, the size of small potatoes.  Broke apart the contents, fur, feathers and bones.  Gently poked and prodded, nudged and wrangled, until jaws and wishbones and femurs came free. 

We expected three mice, found instead only one (me).  Plus two birds (Henry) and one rat (Zoë).  We talked about gizzards, and how it would be to be an owl. We marvelled over mouse and rat similarities and differences (skeleton, size). We discovered birds have two miniscule perfectly circular bones, the breadth of a lentil, the width of a hair.  We discovered rodents have two giant (yellow) front teeth, that become downright enormous when pulled free of their jaw.  Like fishhooks.  Like upholstery needles. Like nothing I ever really want to see again.  

If this all sounds a little detached, it is because the un-detached version would read instead something like this:

"What shall we look at first?  

(Oh good grief, oh, ew really?  Oh, EWWW [hold breath; repeat].  Aw jeepers EWWW seriously?  Okay. [Deep breath; repeat]  Eeoww oh wow, oh heck.  [Swallow hard; breathe; breeeeaaathe; BREATHE.])

Yes, amazing!  I completely agree."   

And it was, and I did, and I'd do it again.  (And that was my transcript only; they were a-okay.)  Because when a little American girl, surrounded by Barbies and glitter and pink (and make no mistake, loving them all), asks day after day, "can we do owl pellets today?", well.  The only viable answer is yes.  Yes, because it is ballast against all that.  Yes, because as Blair so aptly said, summer is for trying new things.  Yes, because that longing to dig through bones and fur may extinguish itself without so much as a goodbye.

(If you've been fielding similar requests, sympathies, whoops!, I mean, details: we used pellets from here and this fantastic site as our guide.) 

And if you come here for the food, apologies.  What came before may not be the best lead-in to what follows.  Thing is, food, family, family, food, it's all a piece.  It all goes down at our kitchen table.  (Our kitchen table that was duly wiped and scrubbed and bleached.)  Maybe we'd best clean up the images, also.

Pretty pictures!  

Pretty pictures!

(We also play with nice things, like flowers and fuzzy bears and bright colorful crayons.)

And if the link between fireflies and old owl dinners and new human ones seems tenuous, know that for me the connection is this: bugs, children, corn, they all tiptoe quietly by, moving right along with nary a headline.  The lawn lights up nightly, the clamor's constant (can we? now??), the tomatoes and corn are everywhere, everywhere.  We are in the thick.  

And then we are not.  

Last week, we brought dinner to a friend, who had just welcomed her fourth babe.  Included was a salad, because I always include salads, because of all the glorious bounty we received when we had newborns, it is the vegetables I remember most.  Vegetables are hard with a new babe in arms (I can only imagine they're harder still with four).  And yet, I craved vegetables more than sleep.  

It wasn't, isn't, an elegant salad.  To be honest, I'd never have shared it with another, if I didn't so vividly remember that vegetable hunger.  But it is, to my taste anyway, a very good one, one I make over and over, every year.  It is, at its heart, just tomatoes and corn, roughly equal quantities of both.  The tomatoes are chopped into bite-sized bits, the corn, cut raw, right off the cob. There is a simple vinaigrette, zipped up with minced shallot, which I don't like with lettuce but like very much with tomato.  There is also feta, creamy and sharp, not as garnish but full-on ingredient.  And fresh marjoram, or sweet oregano, or if you have neither, tiny leaves of fresh thyme.  

It is these last two twists that make me smile, the reason I return, time and again.  I tend, as I've mentioned, to turn Italian in summer, so good and vast are the tomato-basil-mozzarella variations.  It is a good turn.  I like it very much.  I also like leaving it entirely in the dust.  Because something wonderful happens when pitch-perfect tomatoes meet up with not-mozzarella and not-basil.  Feta's a real character compared to mozarella, sassy, flip, salty as an old sailor.  It was, in my opinion, made for corn, whose sweet crunch is littered all over the plate.  And the marjoram/oregano/thyme (all are different, all are good) bring little bursts of herbal bling that delight in a language entirely un-Italian, entirely more-ish.  It is like watching Miyazaki, after a steady diet of Disney.  Or like taking a sibling out, all by their lonesome.  A reminder of hidden talents, and rich possibilities, and loveliness, latent, there for the asking. 

I don't remember making it to the computer often in those early days, but somehow, said friend managed to tap out a sweet thanks.  Included were the words in the title of this post.  The genius wasn't mine, but I'm happy to pass it on.  Let's eat summer while we can.  

Tomato + Corn Salad with Feta + Marjoram
Serves as many as you'd like

This salad is eminently scalable, like this one, one of the things I love about it. As written, I consider it lunch for one.  Simply double, triple, etc. to serve a crowd.  

I like marjoram and sweet oregano equally here; if your oregano is the spicy sort, go with the marjoram.  None of either?  Try fresh thyme, ordinary or lemon.  Different, lovely.  Needless to say, this is no salad for December.  Pin this one under High Summer Happiness.

1 large-ish tomato
1 plump ear of corn
1/4 cup crumbled feta
1 tablespoon shallot, minced
1 tablespoon lime juice or 2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 packed teaspoons fresh marjoram or sweet oregano, roughly chopped if leaves are large

Mince shallot, and setle into the vinegar (or lime juice) to mellow, 10-15 minutes.

Stand an ear of corn in a medium shallow bowl, stem end down, and run knife from top to bottom, allowing kernels to spill into bowl, until ear is clean.  Chop tomato into small-ish (1/2") pieces, and add to corn.  Add olive oil, crumbled feta, oregano (or marjoram), and vinegared shallots, plus a few good pinches of salt and several grinds of pepper.  Gently, with two clean hands, toss ingredients.  You want to combine and keep intact.  Pile onto a plate, with a few more feta crumbles and herbs, if desired, and adjust seasoning, as necessary.  Eat summer immediately.  Second helpings, when possible.

on the fence

Tomatoes.

We didn't really talk tomatoes.

We can't put summer to bed without talking tomatoes, now can we?

Of course, last week was fall's official kick-off.  And you'd better believe we were ready and waiting.  Zoë's first words upon waking Friday: "Is it fall today?" 

Yes!  Yes, indeed.

Not that any season turns by calendar date.  No more than do decades, when the last digit flips to zero.  (Surely I'm not the only one who remembers all the deeply feathered, deeply seventies, David Cassidy style do's, still circulating circa 1983?)  We've been sitting on the summer/fall fence all week, one foot firmly planted in each. 

The leaves are still mostly all on the trees, but browning around the edges, like good shortbread.  The crab apples are enjoying their della Robbia moment, that brief, vivid window when leaves and berries rub elbows.  The echinacea's gone all architectural, the sunflower's weighing the zinnia down.  The Japanese anemone's got a terrible case of dropsy.  The gauzy little white one has picked up the slack. 

But you see, up top there?  Even its days are numbered.  The honey locust's always the first to let loose.  Those tiny gold leaflets are everywhere, and the tale of the next two months to come.

The entire color scheme, indoors and out, has taken a turn toward the dark, saturated.  I feel fortunate our flowers are in the back, as whole beds are looking downright Husky.  (Purple and gold don't really fly in Buckeye Nation.)  Well, Husky plus white, daisies, clematis, mums, those windflowers.  Apparently, Mother Nature didn't get the memo: Labor Day's come and gone, and still, she wears white.

The green beans continue to come on strong, but the plants themselves are looking bedraggled.  Also, we harvested that basket, below, in the rain.  In slickers and wellies and impending twilight.  Already, at 6:50.  Yesterday's cucumbers were likely the last. 

The weather turned, right on schedule, even if it was more coincidence than coordination.  When we left for school Monday morning, I exclaimed without thinking, "Isn't it beautiful?!"  My oldest busted up, then shot back, "Mom, it's gray, cold and rainy outside!"  I know, I know.  Like I said: beautiful. 

Homework is working its way into our days in something like a semblance of routine.  At its best, big brother helps little brother with his, and little brother helps little sister with hers.  Not that, at three and a half, she has homework.  Nor are we, for that matter, workbook sorts of people.  But for She Who Will Not Be Left Out, we've adapted. 

(And no, we're not always at our best.  Sillies.)

Our kitchen can't decide which way to turn.  Last Saturday's market was one serious split-personality, melons and squash, zucchini and cider, sunshine and goosebumps, everything good.

We cut up our last watermelon and canteloupe, and fall's first (and second, and third) sweet potato.  We ate our last peaches, plain, sauced and crisped (our favorite topping on a bed of plain fruit, neither sugar nor starch required of peaches), and within the same day, our very first pumpkin.  After-school snacks have been new-crop apples, a good match to the little tissue paper trees coming home.  Dinner last week was soup, smoothies and toast, about as September a meal as any. 

We made more pesto.  And then more pesto.  And fall's first giant vat of chili.  And we finally re-filled the granola jars, after months of not-so-patient waiting.  (Ohio's humid summers soften it overnight, and granola sans crunch is no granola at all.)  And we simmered twenty pounds of tomatoes into sauce. 

Tomatoes. 

Sorry. 

This fall business distracts me terribly.

Tomatoes have had a tough time of it, this year.  Ghastly, actually.  I didn't know actually know ghastly was possible in these parts. 

I've been telling my friend Heather, who moved here last November, how easy, abundant tomatoes are an Ohio given.  Like gravity, I might have implied.  I may have dropped words like scads and you'll be sick of them.  But if I went a little off the land of milk and honey deep end, it's because that was our first two summers' yield.   

Reality this year's rather more Oliver Twist.  (Sorry, Heather!)

Turns out, wet Julys and hot Septembers add up to a tomato disaster.  Squirrels ravaged the first two months' fruit, sampling every tomato to quench their thirst.  Never mind they might have drained one before moving on.  Never mind the bird bath, not two feet away. Two tiny chiseled tooth-marks.  Every last fruit.  Ugh and sigh. 

Once the rains set in, the squirrels let up, but the onslaught of water caused rot, cracks and splits.  This is nothing, of course, as these things go; nothing next to farms hit hard by Irene.  It is only small heartbreak, and learning by doing, and a parade of some seriously ugly tomatoes.   

It hasn't been a complete loss.  We had a few beauties early on, enough for glorious BLT's and capreses.  (Those big beefs weigh in at two-plus pounds.  One was enough to feed us all.  With leftovers.)  We learned to harvest them barely yellow, and finish them off on the window sill.  And I re-discovered the purpose of sauce, as an ideal resting place for the less-than-perfect.  Which is not to say that sauce is sub-par; not at all.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Especially if said sauce hails from the sub-continent.

The sauce of which I speak today has little to do with our ordinary, straight-up Italian standby.  It comes from the lovely Maddhur Jaffrey, whom I turn to often for accessible Indian.  Tucked into her latest book's chapter on vegetables is a discreet little dish she calls Tomato and Onion Curry.  There's no photo and no hoopla, but if you ask me, it deserves both, plus a dog-ear, besides. 

If your notion of curry is turmeric-stained, or chicken-filled, or coconut-milk-creamy, then set those expectations aside for the moment.  This curry is an altogether different animal, a fragrant assembly of two vegetables, wisely spiced, deeply good.  There's a bit of chili, more for warmth than heat, plus ginger and garlic, which need no because.  There are, if you've got them, asafetida and curry leaves; there are substitutes below, if like me, you do not. 

Then there are the other bits, equal parts flavor and texture: a smattering of split peas, fried in the hot oil, plus brown mustard seeds, both of which bring crunch.  And then—my add—unsweetened coconut, which I tossed in on impulse, and out of habit. I adore the Keralan dry curries called thoren that include a bit of coconut along with the veg.  So not like this cauliflower; so equally fine.

The end result is a rich, concentrated affair, by turns sweet, nutty, savory, warm and bright.  I found it at once comforting and completely thrilling, being both so familiar and so brand new.  Jaffrey recommends tipping it over potatoes, or burgers, fish, chicken, basically anything that stands still.  I suspect a pristine bit of white halibut would be dreamy, poached directly in, or broiled and tucked under.  I can report, first-hand, that it's mighty satisfying over basmati, studded with chickpeas, heaped high with raita.

(I should also report my kids ate none of it.  Heck, they've only just cottoned to the simplest, milled sauce, which is what's filling those freezer tubs, up and down.  I'm not complaining.  Mini-moi wouldn't have touched anything with onion in it's title, either.)

One last thing, though I slurped it as greedily the first: the leftovers make one bang-up soup. 

On a whim, I blitzed my remaining curry the next noon, with water to thin and a squeeze of lime.  While the pot warmed, I scavenged for toppings, knowing I prefer my smooth soups well-embellished.  On top went a dollop of thick greek yogurt, another chopped (split) tomato, and a quick-and-dirty tarka.  Do you tarka?  Oh, say you do.  A traditional finish to Indian dals, a tarka is nothing more than a few seasonings—minced onion, chili, garlic, and/or select seeds—heated to fragrant in ghee or oil.  On this day, I used only a pinch of chili, plus a generous spoonful of mustard seeds (which contrary to their name, taste not at all of sharp mustard, but have instead an addictive earthy, nutty sweetness).  Drizzled over all, the tarka sealed the soup, bringing crisp crunch and gentle heat to each bite.  Sad tomatoes, made very good, indeed.

I've included the recipes for both, below, since I'm on the fence as to which I like more.  Not that a person must choose, I suppose.  Time may march on, summer into fall, but in my book, excellent leftovers are always in season.

Tomato and Onion Curry
adapted from Maddhur Jaffrey, At Home with Maddhur Jaffrey
yield: 4 1/2 cups

Urad dal, asafetida and curry leaves are available at well-stocked grocers (Central Markets in Seattle), as well as any Indian grocer.  Alternatively, yellow split peas (bean aisle or bulk section) make a fine substitute for the dal.  Curry leaves freeze well, if you find them, and lend a wonderful earthy muskiness to dals and soups.  I was out; it was fine.  Typically, fresh (or frozen) grated coconut would be used, but I had neither.  Instead, I added dehydrated wide flakes at the start, which plumped beautifully as the tomatoes cooked down.  Use finely shredded "macaroon"-style, or large natural flakes (Bob's or the bulk bin), anything but sweetened Angel Flake.

Jaffrey has you salt and set aside the tomatoes, to let off juices at the start.  I've included this step in the directions, but if you, like me, wind up chopping tomatoes while the onions cook, no worries—it will still be wonderful.   

3 pounds tomatoes, chopped (5-6 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons olive or canola oil
generous pinch asafetida or add a bit more garlic (below)
2 teaspoons yellow split peas or urad dal
2 teaspoons whole brown or yellow mustard seeds
1/2 cup unsweetened large flake or small flake (macaroon) coconut
3 whole dried red chilis (I used small thai chilis) or 1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, to taste
15 fresh curry leaves (optional), or 6 basil leaves, torn
1 1/4 pounds onions, chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 heaping tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped (from 1-1 1/2" of root)

Set chopped tomatoes in a bowl with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and set aside.

Pour oil into a wide, heavy, deep skillet and turn heat to medium-high.  When oil shimmers, add asafetida (if using), urad dal or yellow split peas, and mustard seeds.  As soon as mustard seeds begin to pop, a few seconds, add the whole red chilis/chili flakes and, a few seconds later, the curry leaves (or basil) and onions.  Stir well to coat onions in spices, then fry over medium-high heat until onions are translucent, stirring occasionally and adjusting heat as needed so that onions don't brown.  Add garlic and ginger, stir, and cook another 1-2 minutes, until fragrant.  Add tomatoes and their liquid and bring to a boil  

Turn heat down to medium and simmer vigorously for 20-40 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened to a thick-ish, gloppy consistency.  (Jaffrey calls for 35-40 minutes; mine only took 25 to reach this stage, perhaps because I used a wide skillet instead of a pan).  Check the salt, and add up to 1/2 teaspoon more, as needed, to taste.  Remove the whole chilis and serve hot or at room temperature.

 

Fragrant Tomato Soup with Indian Flavors

I inadvertently left the whole chilis in the mix, resulting in a soup with considerable heat.  Feel free to do the same, if you like a bit of fire.  Otherwise, remove chilis before blending.

2 cups tomato onion curry, chilis removed (or not)
1-2 cups water
two pinches salt
juice of one half fresh lime

For the Tarka:
2 tablespoons coconut, olive or canola oil
2 teaspoons whole brown or yellow mustard seeds
red chili flakes or whole chili

To Top:
fresh lime
greek yogurt
fresh tomato
cilantro

Blitz 2 cups' leftover curry, plus 1 cup water/stock in a stand blender, or alternatively, directly in the pot with a stick blender.  Add water as necessary to make blending easy, and process until smooth to your liking, 1-3 minutes.  (Because I used large-flake coconut and a stick blender, my soup took 2-3 minutes to reach consistency.  Finer flakes and/or a stand blender will do the job more quickly).  Place blended soup into a pot, if you haven't already, and add two generous pinches of salt.  Over medium heat, warm soup until steaming, stirring occasionally.  Add juice of half a lime, and stir well.  Check for seasonings and consistency, and add additional water, lime and/or salt as needed. 

Divide soup into bowls, and top with garnishes of your choice: dollop of greek yogurt, chopped fresh tomato, additional fresh lime wedges, and/or fresh cilantro.  Finally, top with a drizzle of the hot tarka...

To make the tarka: in a small skillet or saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat until shimmering.  Have a lid ready, add mustard seeds, and cover.  When seeds begin to pop, a matter of seconds, add chili, cook a few seconds, then remove from heat.  Pour a bit of the hot seasoned oil over each bowl, and enjoy.  

always forgetting

Table scraps, today.  We're knee-deep in back-to-school, which as it turns out does not equal kick-back-and-relax.  I have a tendency to expect things to easy up a little once school starts, what with the return of routine and class schedules to keep and fewer feet under foot.  I also have a tendency toward revisionist history. 

Every last week of summer, I make lists a mile long: "clean the fridge!", "clean the closets!", "clean the house, top to bottom!".  Then I don't see them again until the last week of September.  One of these decades I'll pick up on the pattern.  Until then, I'm discovering it all over.

I am always forgetting the heave-ho of this moment.  There are the obvious drags, early to bed, early to rise.  And the scores of adjustments, tiny and vast.  Backpack straps to shorten and lunches to fine-tune and shoes, a shocking two sizes too small.  There are class snacks to rustle up and alarms to dust off and forms and meetings, and meetings and forms.  There's pumping to practice (we are close, so, so close!) and first-day photos to take, the hammier, the better. 

There's the intricate choreography of getting three children fed.  And dressed.  And combed.  And out the door, before eight.  Twyla, I'm sure, could run a tight ship.  Me, I run the numbers:  bad hair day or p.j.'s?  I'm proud to announce we've not once worn our flannels.  (I plead the fifth on the crazy bed heads.)

There are new names to learn and friends unseen all summer and near-daily playdates to make up for lost time.  There's a new rhythym to our days, Kindergarten mornings and empty afternoons, a lovely quiet space we're figuring out how to fill.  Picking fall raspberries filled one quite nicely.  This iridescence experiment was great fun on another (thanks to you both, Lisa and Carmen!) 

Oh!  And let's not forget a birthday celebration or three, in honor of a certain Mr. Ten (!) Year (!) Old (!).  And while we're on the subject, can we just take a moment, to pause and admire those gorgeous cupcakes down there?  Cupcakes aren't my usual thing, but these little lovelies rocked my world.  That rise!  Those crackles!  Their exquisite lightness of being!  I'm not normally one to toot my own horn, but when I peeked in the oven late Monday night, I have to admit I beamed just a little.

Shame I forgot the sugar.  (Beyond. Awful.)

And then, and always, there's the finding our groove bit.  We adults obsess over Major Life Changes, moves and marriages and making house payments.  But starting fourth grade rivals all of the above.  As does starting Kindergarten.  As does starting school.  Even if it's just a few mornings a week.  Even if she's been ready and waiting since August.  August of 2009.  Still and all. 

So we're living very much in the moment, right now.  My tangible accomplishments are roughly zero; I'm too busy attending to what actually matters.  My closet's a scandal.  Don't open my fridge.  Fortunately for all of us, live things won't wait, which includes not just children but fresh garden goods.  I'm doubling-down on my flower cutting, suddenly aware they've got expiration dates.  And I'm reveling in tomatoes that keep coming on, so thick and so strong it's almost too much.  Almost.  Not quite.  Maybe not even close.

We wait all year for these chin-drippy jewels, and we've been amply rewarded and indulging for weeks, now.  We eat them out of hand, off the plant, still warm, and still bring in bags-full (thanks, resident robot, up there).  We eat as many BLT's as we dare, and dabble in the odd soup and salad, here and there. 

But I tend to get stuck in an Italian-esque rut, falling back on the holy tomato-basil-mozzarella trinity.  Sometimes it looks like a caprese salad, sometimes like a pizza Margherita.  Sometimes eggplant edges in for pasta alla Norma, sometimes it's only pesto and a pile of juicy slices.   Details aside, more often than not, my tomatoes tend to sound like Sophia Loren.  I am always forgetting how talented they are.

I might nearly have let this tomato season pass without treating them like the all-Americans they are, had I not spied this salad, all sassy with blue cheese. I'm so glad I remembered, just in the nick.  It's deceptively simple, and fiendishly good.

There's not much going on, just sliced ripe tomatoes, co-habiting a quick blue cheese dressing.  But they're September tomatoes and there's sweet buttermilk involved and a dashing buckshot of parsley and onion.  About that onion.  I don't like raw onion.  I edit it out of recipes, right and left.  But against ripe tomatoes, it tastes just like sparkles, bright and crisp and twinkly and right.  Add that creamy punk blue cheese and fresh herbal green and you've a plate of tomatoes you won't soon forget. 

Tomatoes, Blue Cheese
Adapted from Bon Appetit
Serves 4-6

The original recipe called for 2:1 mayonnaise:buttermilk, fairly standard for such a dressing.  I don't prefer the flavor of mayonnaise, so make mine mostly with Greek Yogurt, plus just enough mayo for body.  Feel free to tilt the balance, if you prefer. 

We don't often talk about summer onions, but they are so very sweet and crisp when fresh, a world apart from their sulfurous February selves.  This is a singularly summer salad for me, as much for the onions as for the tomatoes.   

I'm hopelessly partial to Maytag Blue.

Salad:
4 large, ripe, fresh local tomatoes, cored and and sliced in wedges
1 heaping cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup sweet onion, minced
1 heaping cup blue cheese, crumbled, divided
salt

Dressing:
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup greek yogurt (2% or whole) and/or mayonnaise, to taste
2 Tbs. mayonnaise
1 1/2 Tbs. lemon juice
1 tsp. salt
10 grinds fresh pepper
3 Tbs. fresh parsley, minced (plus extra to garnish)

Combine all seven dressing ingredients, and whisk to combine.  Add half of the crumbled blue cheese, and stir to incorporate.  Test for seasoning, and adjust to taste.

Arrange tomato wedges and cherry tomatoes on plate.  Season with several pinches salt, and scatter with minced onion.  Dribble generously with dressing (you may not need all), scatter with remaining blue cheese and extra parsley, and take five.