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I’d already ordered a half pound of Cabrales at Pittsburgh’s Penn Mac deli when I asked the nice counterperson to recommend the best cheese for grilled cheese sandwiches. I think my cheese cred, established by selecting a smelly gooey bleu, pushed her beyond suggestiong cheddar to the magnificent, seasonal Beemster Graskaas.
Sculptor James Simon is one of my oldest Pittsburgh friends. Together, we’ve weathered the storm of finding our way in a new city. We’ve pulled together many art events (from literary readings to Sunday brunch classical music performances) in his studio space, embracing the idea if we can’t find it, let’s make it happen. Along the way, for the past 10 years, I’ve fed him.
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FoodThis blog exists because I published a novel. The novel exists because I worked at a bakery. The bakery, Ceres Bakery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, served as the start of my food education. The women there taught me most everything I know about baking and cooking and feminism and living a good, fine, adventurous life.
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Every March, as close to St. Patrick’s Day as I can get, I plant the peas in my backyard garden. Some years I scratch away snow and shove the round green peas into the stiff ground, not optimistic about their future. Other years, I’m in a T-shirt and it’s a luscious spring day. In Western Pennsylvania, people swear by this planting date.
It works. My peas are a glorious early crop that brings so much satisfaction. I tell people I don’t even know that I’ve just harvested my peas and pass out small bags of them to neighbors.
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After weeding all morning, I snip three large leaves from the Russian kale plant that has over-wintered in my garden and stumble inside out of the noon heat. The next thing I know I’ve got the cast-iron pan going on the stove, and after rinsing and de-stemming the kale leaves, I saute them for a couple minutes in a tiny bit of butter, adding salt and pepper, until they turn turn a rich, dense nutrient-laden green.
I dig the remains of some cheddar and piave cheeses out of the frig and thinly slice them along with a few slivers of yellow onion. After stacking all of this on some hearty sunflower whole-grain bread (cheese, kale, onion) and adding a swish of stone ground mustard, I grill it buttery crispy brown. About 10 minutes from garden to delicious sandwich lunch. Super. Yum.
This post is the first installment in a new series: Artists Eat (at my house) where artists come to my house to eat, and then share some of their art, posted here along with a recipe. I think it will be fun and creative and tasty. Or, that’s the idea.
We met for dinner at e2 in Highland Park on a rainy spring day. After hugs and kisses and it’s been way-too-longs, we tucked ourselves into the comfy table by the big chalk board and ordered 4 omgs! (tiny appetizers that make you say, you guessed it): gongonzola mess, roasted garlic, sauteed onions with caraway seeds, and roasted carrots. Add scrumptious crusty bread, and then more bread. We opened the first bottle of wine. Rick had found a deal on a luscious cabernet. (It’s byob at e2.)
We shared 3 entrees. Spicy shrimp risotto with arugula and peas, traditional beans and greens with cannelini beans and super nice broth for more bread, and then the portabello arancini (risotto balls) served with piave cheese and fresh tomato sauce. Three balls, diplomatically divided between four people. E2 is a great place to spend a rainy night. Excellent service, amazing food—laid back, fun, and fresh. Our server had corkscrew in hand as we finished bottle 1 and headed toward 2.
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It’s amazing how much happiness one apple can bring a household. There had been 6 apples, and in our house, this final piece of fruit would normally sit there until eternity sent it to the compost bin. Not sure why the final apple, the final anything, gets ignored around here. But the Braeburn that tottered in the big bowl we keep on the kitchen counter led me to pancakes.
Lately, we’ve been trying to eat everything we purchase to get maximum potential out of our (sometimes expensive) coop shopping, instead of letting good intentions wither in the crisper drawer. And so when I noticed the lone apple, I thought: progress, diced up, into pancakes.
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On Friday, I pulled the first radish from the garden. This beautiful little veggie inspired an improvisational grilled cheese sandwich. Garden to lunch in less than 10 minutes. Multi-grain bread with Minerva’s extra-sharp cheese, and then thinly sliced radish tucked within. The crunch. A revelation.
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Omelets. When I talk about omelets, I call them “nice.” I ask my husband, “Would you like a nice omelet for lunch?” Or, “Why don’t we have a nice omelet with that leftover curry?” I’m not sure what led to my friendly assumption about this food, but it holds up. A good omelet is so good–and easy to make. It’s the same with frittatas. They’re friendly. I especially like using them to finish up produce too small for anything else. One carrot left in the fridge? No problem. The answer, last Saturday, was a carrot-spinach-garlic-onion frittata.
I am an oatmeal-focused person. I eat it daily and make it from scratch in a pan with milk and oats and then all kinds of tasty things thrown in, depending on my mood: walnuts, bananas, dried cherries, crystallized ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, maple syrup. Last summer, I started making granola at the start of each week and that was easier–just add milk and banana–the tasty stuff already lurked inside.
Recently, I gave a reading at the amazing Antiquarian Bookstore in Brownville, Nebraska (an eclectic, tiny town nestled into the Missouri Valley) as part of the Wine, Writers & Song Festival. There are several excellent bookstores in Brownville (as well as a tavern (turned healthfood store) that was once frequented by Jesse James), and I purchased a used copy of The Essential Best Foods Cookbook by Dana Jacobi, at the wonderful A Novel Idea: Chapter Two, right on Main Street. As I flipped through the pages I hit upon Spiced Fig Bars on p. 279. Oatmeal spiced fig bars. Oatmeal. In a bar.
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