Having gardened for over 12 years, you would think I’d made my peace with vegetables. Yet, I hadn’t seen any point in growing cucumbers until last year. I don’t particularly like cold soups and cucumbers strike me as a bit slimey in their just-picked state. But then I realized I could pickle them. And a full-on household infatuation with pickles kicked in.
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People are fierce about their pizza, taking sides in heated, generations-long arguments regarding thick, thin—crispy, chewy. But all that territorial debate goes out the window if you make someone a pizza from scratch in your home. It’s like coaxing a wild animal into submission, sitting someone down in front of such a miraculous, inventive thing.
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I grow a variety of heirloom tomatoes in my garden and in the past week they’ve kicked in. My favorite, the tomato I would take with me to a desert island, is the Black Brandywine. It has a dusty red bottom that rises to a crown of green. The inside meat is dense but still perky. A slice of this tomato grilled with Gruyère in between multi-grain sunflower bread is the answer to many of life’s problems.
As I tucked my finger into the room temperature cheese and took a small taste, the creamy texture accented by a tiny ting of lemon, I realized I had been—for years—eating an unimaginative imitation. The ricotta I’d spooned out of a tub and layered into my lasagna was just the idea of ricotta, a rough estimate. Here before me rested the real deal. This ricotta sang a little tune, as it shimmered in its authenticity.
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Conversation and a big bowl of steaming mashed potatoes traveled around the long oak table the day I first heard about my dad’s egg route. It was another Flick holiday, a plate of ham, a basket of rolls—everything eventually passed to the card table, pushed up snug to seat the 20 plus people my family has become.
My dad likes to reminisce, and I like to ask questions. We talk through dessert (usually a selection of 5 or 6 homemade pies), and continue sometimes even after most everyone else has retired to the living room to nap and watch sports. While I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast, he easily recalls the name and hometown of a person he worked with for two months, 58 years ago.
I learned that day that the urban eater’s desire for local farm fresh eggs isn’t a new thing. That the act of farm-to-table kept my parents in gas money and connected to both the city and their rural roots for the first four years of their marriage.
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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.
