my fair share

Welcome to 5772. It’s a great year so far and it’s only going to get better. I can feel it. If you didn’t celebrate Rosh Hashanah last week, I still wish you a shana tova u’metuka — a good and sweet new  year.

But, who wants just a sweet new year? As as a slight break with tradition, I also wish you a spicy year with  my favorite butternut squash soup. Sugar and spice and everything nice – that sounds like a great recipe for a new year.

Squash is one of the symbolic foods eaten during Rosh Hashana. So are carrots.

Over the holiday, I cooked and ate my fair share of both.

Squash mash with balsamic onions

I found this recipe in the Williams Sonoma Southwest cookbook when I was planning the menu for a Mexican/Tex-Mex dinner, complete with vegetarian empanadas, guacamole, and salpicon. The original recipe calls for whole squash, but it’s a lot easier with pre-cut and peeled squash chunks. I made enough for 10 as a side dish but this recipe is just a guideline - make as much as you want. If you have an immersion blender, this is the time to take it out. I unfortunately no longer have one: midway through this squash, mine hit its inevitable fate when the motor stripped the internal plastic gear. I had to complete the recipe by hand. And that’s why it’s called a “mash” rather than a purée.

- 3-4 lbs butternut squash chunks or 2 good sized butternut squashes

- 3 heads garlic

- 1 red onion

- 3T + 1T + 3T olive oil

- salt and pepper

- 3 T balsamic vinegar (or to taste)

Prep. Preheat oven to 375ºF. If using whole squashes, cut them in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, drizzle with the first 3T olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and place, cut side up on a parchment-covered cookie sheet . If using pre-cut squash, toss in a big bowl with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Slice the tops off of the garlic, drizzle with 1T olive oil and salt, and wrap in aluminum foil. Also, cut the onion into about 6 chunks and separate the layers. Mix onions with balsamic vinegar and the last 3T olive oil. Set aside.

Roast. Put the squash and garlic in the oven. Roast the squash until soft, about an hour  (sometimes more) for a whole squash and about 45 minutes for squash chunks. The garlic takes about 30-45 minutes. Check both every 15 minutes or so, especially the garlic because it’s pretty easy for it to burn.

Keep roasting. Around the time you take the garlic out of the oven, put the onions on a second parchment-covered cookie sheet and put them in oven. Roast for about 15 minutes until the onions start to brown and crisp up. If you can time it right, they should come out around the same time as the squash. But that’s a big if.

Purée (or mash!). Get your immersion blender ready. If you roasted the squash whole, scoop it out of the skin into a bowl. If you used pre-cut squash, also scoop it into a bowl. Squeeze the roasted garlic from its skin and add it to the squash. Use your immersion blender to purée the squash and garlic. If your immersion blender decides to poop out just before using it, a potato masher works almost as well, but it won’t be as smooth.

Mix it up. Add the onions and any remaining balsamic and stir with the squash.

Eat. Serve warm.

Cumin-roasted carrots

I’m a little embarrassed to call these carrots a recipe,  but they’re just too good to not share. It’s all about the cumin.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss baby carrots with olive oil, salt, and cumin. You could also cut regular carrots into diagonal chunks – just be sure to  Be generous with the olive oil. And the cumin. Roast for 30-45 minutes until the carrots turn brown and a little wrinkly. Well, a lot wrinkly.

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let’s take a butter bath

Just a quick hello and recipe.

I  bought a few cool colored veggies a few days ago at the farmers market. Green zebra tomatoes. Purple beans.

Granted, the star here really was the corn. You might need to click on the link to see the beads of steam clinging to the kernels after a quick oven roast.

The purple beans were the coolest part. A quick online search for recipes ended in disappointment. These beauties turn a dull green with cooking. Boo! A bit more digging, mystery solved, and a potential solution discovered.

Are you ready for your science lesson? Don’t remember too much plant biology? Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.

Purple beans, like other purple veggies contain anthocyanins, a water soluble vacuolar pigment. Vacuoles are organelles that “eat” proteins and are responsible for maintaining the acidic pH in plant cells. Anyway, anthocyanins in vacuoles give color to different berries and vegetables (beets, red cabbage, eggplant). Anthocyanins are very pH sensitive and require an acidic environment to maintain their purple color. Raise the pH (more basic), and they disappear along with their color. Heat breaks down anthocyanins directly and bursts the plant cells apart, diluting the acidity of the beans. The green, previously masked by the anthocyanin, emerges and takes over. Dull green beans.

I like a challenge. I read about cold shocking to keep the purple beans purple. About cooking in vinegar to raise the acidicty. About butter braising. Better yet, a butter bath. It’s unclear to me how the butter helps, but seriously, pamper the purple pods in a bubbling bath of butter? What could be bad about that?

I decided to start with a lemon juice dunk followed by the butter bath. I watched the beans carefully and the second they started to turn color, I poured them in a bowl and stuck them into the freezer. Ice water shock? I don’t think so. I wan’t about to throw out the beans babies let alone the bath butter!

As I finish typing up this recipe, the purple beans slowly turn green. A reminder that my little break is over and it’s time to turn back to work.

Summer succotash

Remove silks from an ear of corn and rewrap it in its husk. Throw it right onto the rack of a hot oven and cook until the husks start to brown and and the scent of corn fills the air (less than 10 minutes). Meanwhile, rinse and trim a handful of purple beans and douse with a few tablespoons of lemon juice in a bowl. Let the beans sit for about 5 minutes. Heat a few pats of butter in a skillet until bubbling. Pour the beans and juice into the bubble, er, butter, bath. Quickly sauté beans, moving pan constantly over the heat. Did you know that the French verb, sauter, means to jump? Keep those babies jumping back and forth in the pan. At the first sign of green, pour the beans, juice, and  butter back into the bowl and race it over to the freezer. Shave corn kernels off the cob, and toss them with two tomatoes, coarsely chopped. Pour the now chilled green beans mixture on top and be sure to scoop out all that butter and lemon juice as a vinaigrette. A few pinches of salt and toss. Eat quickly. Write a blog post.

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oh my, indeed!

As I write this, I’m snacking on a handful of blueberries fresh from this Monday’s farmers market. It’s where I get most of my food these days. I’ve stocked up on berries and plums (remember this? have you made it yet?) and greens, oh my! Heirloom tomatoes, spring onions, oh my! Green beans and pea shoots and mint, oh my! 

Oh my, indeed!

But oy my … the past two Mondays, I’ve gotten drenched in massive downpours. And the weather has been so chilly and rainy that I could swear it was Fall. I’ve been turning on my oven and stove far too much for a summer day in August. Chard. Roasted corn and roasted zucchini.  Schnitzel. Muffins.

And then today arrived. Bienvenue le soleil. Bienvenue les ciels bleus. Bienvenue la chaleur. Au revoir le four!

Unable to fathom turning on the oven in this gorgeous heat, I turned to a no-cook salad with the zucchini in my fridge.

Oh my, indeed!

 Zucchini ribbon salad with Middle Eastern spices

Admittedly, long strands of shaved zucchini are impressive to look out, but difficult to eat. I’d say definitely not first date material! I used an inexpensive mandoline to shave the zucchini, but I’ve heard you can also use a vegetable peeler. This recipe is similar to another favorite zucchini recipe – I used the same spice mixture and added labne to the dressing for a nice creaminess. If you want to be really fancy, make a zucchini cage over baby arugula — I’ll show you how at the end of the recipe.

- 1 medium to large sized zucchini

- 1 lemon

- 2-3 T olive oil

- good pinch of cumin

- small pinch of aleppo (or cayenne) pepper flakes

- 1T labne (Middle Eastern savory yogurt)

- salt and pepper

Shave. Using a mandoline or vegetable peeler, shave zucchini lengthwise to make long thin ribbons. Arrange ribbons on a plate.

Whisk. Zest and juice the lemon into a bowl. Add olive oil, cumin, aleppo and whisk. Then add the labne and whisk until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour. Drizzle dressing over the zucchini ribbons. Let the zucchini marinate for a few minutes before serving.

Get a little fancy. When you really want to dress to impress, here’s what you do. Weave a cage of zucchini and serve with arugula. Cut the zucchini ribbons in half. Create a basket weave in a cereal-sized bowl – starting in the middle, weave the zucchini strips under and over each other. Cut the ends with scissors around the edge of the bowl. Fill the bowl with baby arugula and place a plate upside down over the bowl. Flip. Suround with arugula to cover up any imperfect spots. Drizzle dressing over the top. Await oohs and aahs.

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even my dishes have dishes

I’ve got a lot of stuff. I’m convinced it’s hereditary (that way, I have someone else to blame).

My Bubbie used to say, “even my dishes have dishes.”

See her waving there in front of the hutch? She’s the one in the frilly apron. The hutch is that huge piece of furniture piled with three tea and coffee pots. And a pile of mismatched tea cups. Yeah, that’s the one. With all of her dishes and her dishes’ dishes.    And see me having a very important conversation with Poppie? Same hutch of course. Not entirely sure why I’m wearing PJs to dinner.Here I am at Bubbie’s Rosh Hashana table. She really liked napkin rings. At least this time I dressed for the occasion.

Over the past few weeks and under Meira‘s tutelage, I’ve started implementing the “one in one out” rule, starting of course with one out. Well, more like 8 bags of clothing out. 2 bags of shoes out. 2 boxes of dishes out.

Those dishes, they were my Bubbie’s dishes (no, not the good china … the set she received as a gift for opening a bank account). I did keep one teacup and saucer from the set. I think Bubbie would have been proud.

There are some obvious benefits of the purge. Emptying my closet of clothing that no longer fits. Donating the dishes I always hated for their gold painted rims that could never be microwaved. Smiling every time I can reheat a piece of chicken without turning on the oven (except of course for schnitzel - that is best thrown right onto an over rack to crisp back up in about 10 minutes).

I’m already hard at work on one wrap dress in. One pair of python heels in. One set of new dishes in. A second set of new dishes. A black bustle pencil skirt in.

I’m good at the in.

Another benefit was that I unearthed a light-filled corner of my desk, previously covered in piles of files and books, that is a great canvas for photography. No more chasing the sun and hopping around shadows on my big wood table. This is a whole new playing field.

Check it out.

Oh yeah! Notice also, the  all-white, unrimmed plate.

There was one glitch. The other night, some uninvited visitors tried to help, cleaning out my place on their own. All of the photos I have taken since May have disappeared along with my laptop. The one picture I had uploaded only an hour before leaving for dinner is the photo above. I guess we can call these green beans the silver lining.  

At least they didn’t wipe out the fridge.

Green beans with mustard seed vinaigrette

Rachela made this recipe from Gourmet 2001 for dinner a few weeks ago and I just had to replicate it for myself. The steps are a little fussy, but the fuss elevates the green beans beyond the everyday. The most cumbersome step is cooking the mustard seeds which have potential for major mess – they’re squirrely little rascals that roll all over if you drop them and cook very fast, so  you need to keep a close eye on them. Rachela skipped the mustard seeds and used moutard à l’ancienne (a dijon mustard with whole mustard seeds that you can see) for a similar flavor and visual effect. You can make extra vinaigrette and keep it in the refrigerator for the next time you want a few green beans.

- 3 T olive oil, divided

- 2 T mustard seeds

- 1/3 C red wine vinegar

- 1 T sugar

- 1 medium or 1/2 large onion (red or white)

- 1 1/2 lb green beans

Pop. Heat 1 T of the oil in a skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Add the mustard seeds and stir. Quickly cover the skillet – a glass lid, plate, or splatter screen works great. In less than a minute, the seeds will start to pop. Like popcorn. Really. They will also turn slightly darker. Remove the skillet from the heat after 1-2 minutes. Try not to let the seeds get too dark. Pour seeds and oil into a large bowl.

Simmer. Simmer vinegar and sugar in saucepan stirring, until sugar is dissolved. When heated, the vinegar lets off a strong vapor that may bother your nose and eyes if you catch a whiff – be forewarned not to lean over the pan as the mix is simmering. Let cool 5 minutes in the pan.

Saute. Heat the remaining 2 T oil in the skillet you used for the mustard seeds over moderate high heat until hot but not smoking. Slice onion thinly. Saute the onion, stirring, until golden brown, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Mix. Add vinegar mixture to the onions in the skillet. Then add this mix to the large bowl with the mustard seeds and oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Boil. Set a pot of water to boil. Trim ends of beans (if you want to be French, take off the little tails too). When water has boiled, add a generous pinch of salt and add green beans. Prepare a large bowl of ice water. Cook beans for about 5 minutes until they are tender but still crisp. Drain and plunge into ice water to stop cooking. Drain well.

Mix it all up. Toss beans with vinaigrette. Serve at room temperature.

Variation. Throw dressed beans on top of oil-packed tuna for a light lunch.

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no need to share

I opened my mailbox last night to one of my favorite sights. A food magazine,  its precious pages protected in a plastic sleeve. Last night it was July’s Bon Appétit. Last week, it was June’s Food&Wine. Sometimes I tear the plastic off right away and curl up with the latest issue and a glass of wine, tearing through it in an evening, dog-earing recipes. Other times, I savor the issue, reading it in bed over several nights, a bedtime story that leaves me with sweet (or savory) dreams. Stacked next to my bed is half a year’s worth of cooking magazines.

But sometimes, I find the magazine, still enrobed in plastic, a month later. (Issues with celebrity actors turned cookbook authors are prime candidates for staying under wraps. <sigh>)

An ex-boyfriend got me started on cooking magazines almost a decade ago. He’s also the one who inspired me to get a Kitchenaid mixer. While our relationship was transient, his influence was not. Well, at least as far as cooking was concerned. He pushed my food boundaries. I owe him a lot.

Even though I turn to the web or a cookbook when searching for a recipe, I still like flipping through the magazines. The best, of course, is when you find a recipe that is just perfect immediately. That night. You have the ingredients hanging out in your kitchen, just waiting to be put to good use.

Back in February, I tore open my Bon Appétit and consumed it. My version of the cover brownies is on it’s way, but today we’re here to talk about slaw. I had a friend staying over and I barely heard a thing she said until I finished making an Asian winter slaw, staining the pristine pages with miso and rice vinegar. As we caught up on the year we had spent in different cities, I didn’t even make it to the table – I just ate the entire slaw out of the bowl sitting on the kitchen counter. Luckily, I have an open kitchen. Luckily, she had already eaten. Lucikly, there was no need to share.

Miso brocco-slaw

The original recipe calls for ginger, but I left it out because it molds too easily and I rarely have it in my fridge (when I remember, I do freeze it). I adjusted the proportions and added soy sauce and sesame oil. The recipe works equally well with cabbage.

Enough for 2, if you’re willing to share.

- 2 T rice vinegar

- 1 T white miso

- 3 T vegetable oil

- 2 t soy sauce

- 1 t sesame oil

- 1 16-ounce bag broccoli slaw

- small handful cilantro, chopped (~1/4 C)

- sesame seeds

Make dressing. Whisk together vinegar, miso, oils, and soy sauce.

Make salad. Put slaw and cilantro in a bowl. Toss with dressing. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

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postcard

Whenever I travel, my sister asks for a postcard. I always buy a few. I usually write at least one. Sometimes I even get a stamp. Rarely does a card hit a foreign mailbox. Almost always, the cards are hand-delivered. And while one of the postcards has already been signed, stamped, sent, and received, until the others arrive, this post(card) will have to do.

Last month, my friend Sarah and I crisscrossed the Portugal-Spain border. The day I stumbled into Lisbon, still recovering from my red-eye and transfer in Munich, Sarah welcomed me with a box of pastéis de nata. Our time in Portugal revolved around these incredible custard tarts in a caramelized crust. Sarah wanted to sample pastéis de nata from every corner bakery and pasteleria we passed, but once I tried the original from Pastéis de Belém, I couldn’t go back to mere copies. I loved the ones in Belém so much that on our last day in Lisbon, we took a €15 taxi for one final taste. And we did take in a few sights, including ducks, peacocks, and a couple of Portuguese good luck symbols in a little park near our hotel.

If Lisbon was all about the sweet, then Seville was all about the savory and the sensual. (Ahem … tapas and flamenco.)

We started our time in Seville with a tapas tour. Best. Idea. Ever. What better re-introduction to a city I hadn’t visited since college than a four hour (tapas) bar crawl with a virtual local (Shawn) who can find food to satisfy any taste? I like fish and vegetables, Sarah wanted to try everything. And Shawn navigated our preferences as easily as she navigated around the Sunday after-churchgoers vying for space up against the bar under dozens of jamón hanging from the ceiling like the pots and pans that adorn my own kitchen. She also armed us for our own gourmand adventures over the next few days with lists of restaurant recommendations and real-time tweets about where to go and when to show up to guarantee a table early or to catch the kitchen before it closed.

Sarah’s done a great job of cataloging her favorite stops. Just like I can’t stop thinking about the best pastéis de nata in Belém, I keep replaying in my mind our meal at La Azotea until my mouth waters (as cliché as that sounds). After several days of largely fried foods, I was craving more vegetables than salmorejo could offer (more on that cousin of gazpacho in just a bit). La Azotea delivered.

We were greeted and seated just before 1:00 at one of only six tables. Just in time, too, because by 1:15, all six of those tables were filled and the waiters could barely squeeze past the lunching crowd crowding the bar.  Lucky for us, owner Juan helped us choose lunch and wine and dessert. Course after course,we pulled out our cameras and peppered Juan with questions.

When I asked for a recommendation on a good local wine store, Juan slipped out the front door with us, crossed the street and unlocked the door to Vinos y Más. Only open in the evening, the restaurant’s wine bar is filled with some of Spain’s best goodies, from local wines and olive oils lining two walls to cheeses and meats behind a glass case. Wine barrels scattered in the small space serve as high-top tables. I leaned against one as Juan helped me pick out several wines to bring home (to be carried back, as usual, in my suitcase).

When we finally followed the scent of orange blossoms  back to Santa Cruz, it was nearly 5:00 pm.

After days of stuffing ourselves with tapas and walking from monument to cathedral to clothing store, we dedicated our nights to flamenco. We saw one,  sometimes two shows a night: in tablaos like my favorite El Arenal and the more commercial Los Gallos; at Museo del Baille Flamenco – the flamenco museum where I also took a flamenco dance class (!!); at La Carbonería (Levíes, 18), a hidden-from-the-street almost subterranean bar with a nightly flamenc0 gathering at 11:00 pm. Clearly we should have hit La Carbonería before our last night when we had to catch a midnight bus back to Lisbon.

Flamenco is all about the interplay between the dance, the music, and the song. Assuming that I would mainly watch the dancer, I found myself again and again drawn to the guitarist’s fingers strumming, plucking, tapping the strings and reflected in the dancer’s expression and fanning hands.

My dance training always emphasized that even the most difficult step should appear light and effortless. In flamenco, emotion is at the fore and effort-full movement follows. They literally dance from the soles of their feet to the tips of their fingers. The result is passion. It’s not always pretty, but it’s very very real. (Can you tell I’m planning to take some more classes?)

Don’t worry…I didn’t forget about that salmorejo  recipe I promised. Every day (sometimes twice a day) I ate this tomato-only, slightly thicker with the addition of more day-old bread, riff on gazpacho. Or maybe gazpacho is a riff on salmorejo. Luckily, I love them both.

Salmorejo

Salmorejo is a creamy chilled tomato soup thickened with bread. It is traditionally served with a sprinkle of diced egg and ham.

Gather.

- 8-12 ripe tomatoes

- 2 garlic cloves

- 1/4 C sherry vinegar (can substitute wine vinegar)

- sea salt to taste (I used ~2 t)

- 3/4 C extra virgin olive oil

- 2/3 day old baguette (~200 gm) — in a pinch, I’ve used pita!

- Fruity olive oil (Spanish arbequina is perfect for salmorejo – if you can’t get it in Spain, Unió is my favorite and available online and at Whole Foods)

- 2 eggs

Purée. Core and roughly chop the tomatoes. You can peel them for a smoother consistency, but I haven’t found that it makes an appreciable difference. Throw them in blender with the garlic and purée. A lot. The mix will be a light red. Add vinegar, salt, and regular olive oil. Keep puréeing until smooth and orange. This can take a few minutes. You might need to do it in 2 batches.

Soak. Tear up the bread and drop into the blender with the tomato mixture. Let soak for about 15 minutes until soggy.

Boil. Hard boil the eggs. Cool.

Purée again. Once the bread is good and soggy, purée until smooth and even lighter orange.

Garnish. Drizzle with a special fruity olive oil and sprinkle with chopped egg (and ham if you want).

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share a little sunshine

The past month has been characterized by two constants – snow and travel. And unfortunately (or fortunately in some cases) the former has been interfering with the latter. I’ve managed to miss both major snowstorms here in Boston, returning to an icy runway and snow piles well above my waist.

Over Christmas, Meira and I went out to San Francisco to visit her brother and sister-in-law. And their two pups. We ate and ate and drank and ate. It was a gluttonous few days including the times when we did cook at home. In the span of 48 hours, we had three different beef dishes — brisket, Micah’s cholent (hopefully the subject of a guest post), and hamburgers. We rounded out shabbat dinner with a few of my old standbys — butternut squash soup and apple cake — and some new favorites that I picked up from Eliana. Before we get to the recipes and as I pack (yet again) to head out of town, I figured I’d share a little sunshine (I hope it still comes through in my experiments with sepia) on this gray gray Boston day.

Roasted Bites

I didn’t grow up eating brussels sprouts and always avoided them based on reputation. But, Eliana showed me how to make them fabulous. And the sweet potatoes were a concoction that I had been dreaming up as a ravioli filling, but I like them so much on their own that I have yet to mash them to fill some pasta.

Brussels Sprouts

Preheat oven to 450ºF (or even higher). Cut sprouts in half or quarters, toss on a cookie sheet, and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. 10-20 minutes later, they will brown and crisp up, ready to pop in your mouth.

Sweet Potato Candy

The maple syrup caramelizes but is not too sweet and the cayenne really spices things up.

Again, heat the oven to 450ºF. Peel and cut sweet potatoes into 1-inch cubes.  Toss on a cookie sheet (are you sensing a theme here?), drizzle with maple syrup, a squeeze of lemon, and olive oil. Add your favorite spices – I used turmeric and cayenne. 15-25 minutes later (depending on size of sweet potatoes) they’re ready.

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more than sometimes

I got home from work last night inspired by chard. Again. Though this time, a little less frenzied.

Like last time, I balanced my Diet Coke with a glass of Cabernet. I was craving something creamy and earthy and rich. I replaced the pasta and feta with polenta and provolone, added mushrooms to the chard, and doused the mix with some wine from my glass (and then refilled my glass). I called the vegetable mix a ragoût. Because I like how that sounds. Ragoooo. And because it’s French. It comes from the verb ragoûter – to restore the appetite, to stimulate, to stir up; goûter means to taste. I didn’t need my appetite restored, but I did need my appetite fed, and this did the trick.

Sitting on my kitchen counter is a little wooden sign that says

I cook with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food. (W.C. Fields)

This statement is true. Very true. But I’d like my to add wine to the food more than sometimes.

Mushroom Chard Ragoût over Creamy Polenta

Make these two dishes at the same time. It takes about 30 minutes from start to finish. Scoop a nice mound of polenta in the center of a wide bowl and spoon the ragoût around the

Creamy Polenta

- 1C medium or coarse grind corn meal

- 4.5 C water

- salt

- 2 T butter

- 1/2 C provolone cheese, shredded

Add polenta and salt to cold water in a small pots. Whisk a few times and bring to boiling. Turn the heat to low and whisk every minute for the first 5 minutes. Continue to whisk every few minutes until all the water is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes for a total cooking time of 20-15 minutes. Add butter and shredded cheese and salt to taste.

Mushroom Chard Ragoût

- 1 T butter, 1 T olive oil

- 1 onion, chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 3/4 lb mushrooms, sliced

- 1 big bunch of red chard

- 1/2 C red wine (I used a rich Cabernet)

Heat butter and oil in a wide skillet large enough to fit all the chard. Sauté onion and garlic until transparent. Add sliced chard ribs, cover, and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and stir for another ~8 minutes until mushrooms darken, release their fluid and then reabsorb it. Add chard leaves and cover for another 5 minutes to wilt. Add wine and heat until liquid reduces, another 5 mintues or so. Add salt and pepper to taste.

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the drive back

On the way back from the Berkshires last weekend, Rachela and I almost ran out of gas. And when you’re looking for a gas station, you inevitably can’t find one. And then the gas light goes off and says you have another 30 miles to go before you should panic. And then you drive another 5 miles. And you’re told you should really panic in 7 miles. And those extra 12 safety miles? They disappeared. Of course, when you finally find someone fixing his tractor at the side of the road and inquire about a station, he points you to the top of the hill where you can see a Gulf sign peeking out behind a church.

After we filled the tank, we began our search for farmers markets. We had seen loads of them throughout the weekend, but didn’t want to buy anything to have it sit in our room or the car in the sweltering heat. So when we were finally ready to load up the car with fresh fruits and vegetables, none were to be found. We drove by a wigwam. And an Indian circle dance. When I read the word dance, I jumped out of the car, ready to join in. Until I saw a half-dozen pot-bellied men in loin cloths and feather headdresses stomping their feet around a bonfire. We were back in the car and on the road fast. Really fast. So fast that we had to do a quick U-turn after we passed a sign for fresh-picked corn. U-turn accomplished, we rolled into the driveway and found a makeshift table set with ears of corn, plastic bags, a metal box and a sign stating,

Corn.

Picked this morning.

$6 a dozen or $0.50 each.

Please leave money in the box.

We promptly picked a pair of ears each, deposited our dollars in the box, and waved at the proprietress as she stepped onto her front porch to shuck.

We then passed a larger farmers stand with a greater variety of produce. I grabbed a few tomatoes, a handful of small cukes, and several large zucchinis.

And they sat in my fridge for almost a week while I toiled away in the office, ordering dinner in to sustain me during my late working hours. And then, only this weekend, did the vegetables come out to play. An Israeli salad. Corn roasted in the husk, eaten over the sink. And simple roasted zucchini with Mediterranean spices.

Roasted Zucchini

Adapted from a recipe for Roasted Zucchini with Ricotta and Mint from this August’s Food & Wine. 

Additional note 7/10/12: after salting the zucchini, make sure to rinse off all the salt. You can always add more salt to taste, but it’s pretty hard to remove it! 

Preheat oven to 450ºF. Dice 2 large zucchini into a medium-sized dice (1/3 – 1/2 inch). Salt generously and let sit in colander for 5-10 minutes until some of the zucchini’s liquid is released. Rinse zucchini and dry well. (The salting helps prevent the zucchini from getting soggy.) Toss with 1T olive oil, salt, and pepper. Shake onto a baking dish and roast for 25-30 minutes until zucchini starts to brown. Add 2 t cumin and a few pinches of crushed red pepper and roast for another 2-5 minutes until the spices are fragrant. Scoop into a bowl and sprinkle with the juice of half a lemon. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a few mint leaves and a scoop of labane (or leave off the labane for a non-dairy option).

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