I like writing about food, as it happens, and so to this end, here’s another unedited post on a variety of food-related things.
It’s asparagus season, I think, south of us at least, where it’s warmer and doesn’t feel like the spring has a windchill. To commemorate the appearance of these green stalks, I made Melissa Clark’s recipe for white beans on toast topped with asparagus. I went to a local bakery for fresh bread… a country-style loaf for the adults and something plainer for the kids. And that’s precisely the beauty of this meal: the adults can have their virtuous meal of beans made from scratch - soaked the night before and lovingly simmered - while the kids can top their bread with deli ham and sliced pickles, or slathered in peanut butter and dotted with bananas. Everyone finishes their meal happy with very little extra work on the cook’s part.
Our second asparagus-themed meal was a riff on (again) Melissa Clark’s Cacio e Pepe with Asparagus and Peas. I used a single cheese and had fresh linguine from the store. It was a satisfying meal mostly because the children can’t seem to get enough of pasta.
Now, I have something I have to correct… Our family has had the lazy habit, as one does with inherited recipes, of referring to a particular cabbage slaw as “Chinese Salad”. I even posted about it here. A week ago, Deb Perelman posted a Poolside Sesame Slaw that I am looking forward to trying… I mean, if it ever gets warm enough to consider going poolside. She made a note of the usual name for these kinds of salads and linked to two articles on the subject. Perry Santanachote’s “Stop Calling It Asian Salad” clearly expresses the problem and is concluded by seven actually-Asian salad recipes. As she writes, the article is “about words and how they matter”.
I’ve enjoyed diving into two cookbooks: One has been online-only and the other I picked up at the library after learning that the author was Canadian. The Stained-Page News is a fun newsletter about cookbooks and its recent edition included lots of photographs of the unique page design from a cookbook titled “Leon’s: Ingredients and Recipes”. I relish good design and this cookbook was highlighted for its whimsy and smart layout. This can be glimpsed here.
The second cookbook is Tessa Kiros’ Falling Cloudberries. I paged through this tome, with chapters dedicated to geographic locations and could almost feel a nostalgic ache for travel and wholesomeness. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, except to say that thoughtful writing and cozy pictures of imperfect scenes and telling details can open a gate for the mind to go and wander about where it has never been. Kiros’ Instagram evokes a similar feeling and it makes me want to post anew. I thought “cloudberries” was an invented idea, like “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, but no! They are an actual fruit.
Earlier this week, a fellow tutor and I had a whole conversation about food. There’s this place in Scotland, she was saying, where she ate this fantastic dessert and had thought to snap a picture of the menu. Home again, the flavour lingered in her mind and so she retrieved the picture to recall the name and since adopted this simple-yet-impressive treat as a go-to dessert. I served it to our guests today, with a blackberry coulis and a mint leaf and it is indeed wonderful. It is called a Lemon Posset.
There! That’s a quick tour of the food-related things that have been on my mind! Cheers!