So we picked up our second box of farm-fresh, CSA veggies this week. Three kinds of tomatoes, carrots, beautiful zucchini, green and burgundy beans, red potatoes, corn on the cob, white nectarines, and a dainty English cuke. Delicious! We find ourselves scouring cookbooks looking for new and lively ways to use this abundance. This weekend I made fresh tomato sauce, blanched and froze about 3 quarts of green beans and corn, and made a terrific tomato, potato, and olive gratin for dinner. (See Deborah Madison's great book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.) The flavors in tonight's dinner were so amazingly complex that Joe and I a hard time not eating more and more of it. (Sophie had a hard time starting with it. The capers kind of threw her off her game.) Thyme, fennel, lemon, two sauteed red onions, kalamata olives, and those capers created this complex sweet/savory combo that was hard to beat.
We were thinking about how lucky we are to be able to spend our days planning and carrying out and enjoying great meals. We can get great produce easily and inexpensively, and we can enjoy preparing and freezing things like beans and tomato sauce safe in the knowledge that this is not our only avenue for the winter. What luxury! In some communities, even here in the verdant Central Valley, there are communities where people can buy liquor or a quart of milk, but not fresh fruit or veggies. The poorer people are, the less access they have to healthy food and the more likely they are to suffer from obesity and its host of companion illnesses. And I get to spend my weekend playing with food like a hobby. Weird and sad. Our world has come a long way since people grew their own food for sustenance. Maybe that is not such a good thing in some ways.
Anyway, I'll put the soapbox away now. Hope your weekend is happy, and if you want the recipe mentioned above, just say the word.
We were thinking about how lucky we are to be able to spend our days planning and carrying out and enjoying great meals. We can get great produce easily and inexpensively, and we can enjoy preparing and freezing things like beans and tomato sauce safe in the knowledge that this is not our only avenue for the winter. What luxury! In some communities, even here in the verdant Central Valley, there are communities where people can buy liquor or a quart of milk, but not fresh fruit or veggies. The poorer people are, the less access they have to healthy food and the more likely they are to suffer from obesity and its host of companion illnesses. And I get to spend my weekend playing with food like a hobby. Weird and sad. Our world has come a long way since people grew their own food for sustenance. Maybe that is not such a good thing in some ways.
Anyway, I'll put the soapbox away now. Hope your weekend is happy, and if you want the recipe mentioned above, just say the word.
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