The bitter scent of coming winter

Back when I was dating my opposite, the racist homophobic conservative hunter J., I was a regular reader of Gourmet magazine. I would prepare special meals for J., smoked salmon ravioli, pissalidière crisscrossed with anchovies and dotted with bitter black olives, pears braced with crystalized ginger and honey and baked to a custardy finish. J. and I had chemistry, an easily bruised love, so we each tolerated the other's differences, limped along even though he lived in another town and had very real reasons to keep me at arm's length.

I remember prep
aring a meal for him in the decay of autumn, after the leaves had dropped from the trees and lay rotting in the gutter and the breeze was turning cold and harsh. I was just 21 years old and could focus on the kitchen, had the time to think about cooking, and it was all still new, too, love and cookery. There was a recipe in Gourmet for roasted fall vegetables. I skinned and hacked a heavy butternut squash, added knobby shallots, garlic, and chunks of red potato, then tossed the vegetables with olive oil and roasted them in the oven. Near the end of cooking, I added slivered sage leaves, the bitter scent of coming winter.

sageleaves


Sage takes well to butter and olive oil, get crisp and intense, medicinal over gnocchi, tucked among thick slices of potato. My husband and I grow sage in our front yard. The plant sits between the flat-leafed parsley and the lemon verbena, its silver green leaves upright, purple flowers still drawing honeybees. I’ll have to trim it soon, deadhead the flowers and clean off the spider webs in preparation for the feasts and sadness of fall.

Here is the original recipe, from
Epicurious. Add 2 tablespoons slivered sage in the last ten minutes of cooking to recreate my more winter-scented dish.

Roasted Autumn Vegetables

1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes
1 pound shallots (about 24), peeled and trimmed
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
fresh thyme sprigs for garnish, if desired

In a bowl, toss together the potatoes, quartered, the shallots, 4 tablespoons of
the oil, the bay leaf, the dried thyme, the garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Spread the vegetables in an oiled large roasting pan and roast them in the middle of a preheated 375°F. oven, shaking the pan every 5 to 10 minutes, for 25 minutes. In a bowl toss the squash with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and salt and pepper to taste and add it to the pan. Roast the vegetables, shaking the pan occasionally, for 10 to 20 minutes more, or until they are tender. Discard the bay leaf and garnish the vegetables with the thyme sprigs.

Gourmet
October 1990

Image: Attractive sage bush, much nicer than ours, from eHow.

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The intersection of food, love, and memory


cranmold

If it wasn't frozen, processed, or heavily laced with sugar, my grandmother didn't cook it. I have her old recipe box, which includes many selections from the "Kitchen of Duncan Hines," as well as things like Pow-Wow Sandwiches, English Liver Bake, and salad molds, recipes that are products of the sixties and seventies. My grandfather made the box, designed it to hang between the refrigerator and the stove in the kitchen at Hollywood Beach. We use it to hold keys now. One of the first things I do when I move to a new place is to hang it by the front door, a reminder of a past so long gone that it feels like fiction. I may look through the recipes, but I never feel an urge to actually make any of them.

When the corn and tomatoes are at their peak, however, and I steam a dozen ears to eat for dinner alongside a salad of freshly-picked tomatoes, I feel a tug on the line that connects me to those long-ago meals. Corn on the cob with butter sits at the intersection of food, love, and memory for me. It has the power to bring me back to a time before I was born, to Hollywood Beach in the late fifties and early sixties when my mother and aunt were still children, before my grandfather was injured in an industrial fire. On late July and early August evenings when my grandfather was working late at the plant, Mom-mom could be persuaded to abandon the freezer and let the canned food gather dust in the cupboard. She would prepare farmstand corn and sliced tomatoes for dinner, maybe add some sliced bread on the side. Perhaps she was feeling as lazy as Ludlam's dog, unwilling to turn on the oven or chop loads of vegetables, happy with simplicity.

It's the only meal she made that my mother and I still talk about. When I was a kid, my cousin and I were given weekend corn shucking duty, sent outside with paper bags to do the messy work of removing the husks and cornsilk. We would sit on the white-washed metal lawn chairs out front under a canopy of maple leaves, kick our heels against the grass. After passing the naked corn to my aunt through the side door, we would wait for the moment at the table when we could smear the cooked kernels with squeezable Parkay. I was fascinated by the prongs, shaped like tiny ears of corn, that Mom-mom stuck into either end of the cob, and studied them between bites, felt the neat rows of miniature kernels like braille against my fingertips. We ate until we are too full for anything else but a thin slice of tomato.

You probably have summer food memories of your own, can bring back an evening lit by fireflies, your lips stained purple by blueberry cake. Your parents didn't care how late you stayed up and you got to light a sparkler even though the fourth of July had been over for days. Or maybe you remember your mother, already unsteady on her feet, placing a platter of swaying Jello on the picnic table. You swirled the first bite against your gums, pushed it between your teeth before swallowing and then refused to eat any more. After dinner you and your brother played tag in the dark while the grown-ups drank bourbon on ice and talked in voices too low for you to understand. When you slipped in a pile of dog shit, they laughed until you started to cry.

Image: Recipe from my grandmother's collection.

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Diversionary tactics

fortfunston2

Don't be disturbed by the photograph. It is only a diversion. In fact, I actually posted it a couple of weeks ago and then removed the post. I had nothing to say and the photograph wasn't adding to the conversation. Today it appears as filler, a little piece of San Francisco scenery. Or maybe it works as metaphor, too, though as a metaphor for what you'll have to be the judge.

Last night I was walking home from my food writing class, feeling energized and full of something (beans? ideas? hope for the future?) when I realized that I have a commitment problem. I've been circling working life for almost five years now, keeping decisions on hold, tossing words into the air. I fumbled into my first career, became a librarian almost by default, then stumbled when making what felt like a deliberate move into the world of cooking. And I've been floating with the current ever since.

I have to commit or I'll keep on writing 450 - 800 word posts here forever and ever. It's not a bad gig, though the pay is lousy. I love interacting with my blogging friends. But I need something more substantial. A career.

Do you know what I mean?

For your trouble, your time, maybe as a reward for leaving a comment, here's a recipe. Consider it another diversionary tactic or maybe just some picnic food for your next visit to
Fort Funston, the hang gliding mecca.

Herbed feta and tapenade sandwiches


Briny tapenade and thyme-spiked feta punch up the flavor of this Mediterranean sandwich. A couple of simple tricks -- adding a sprinkling of herbs and olive oil to a supermarket cheese, roughly chopping a handful of olives with a touch of garlic – give it an effortless homemade touch. Bring extra bread along to sop up red pepper juices and the occasional escapee feta tidbit.

Makes 2 sandwiches

1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced (can substitute 1 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
pinch freshly ground black pepper

4 slices country bread
1 small cucumber, peeled and thickly sliced
1 large red pepper, roasted, seeded, and quartered


Stir together kalamata olives, garlic, and mayonnaise in a small bowl. Lightly toss feta, thyme, olive oil, and black pepper in another small bowl. Slather each slice of bread with a generous amount of tapenade and layer the feta, cucumber, and red pepper on two of the slices. Top each sandwich with the remaining bread, slice in half, and serve.

Image: Hang gliders at Fort Funston, Memorial Day 2009. Photo by "Mr. Trinkle."

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