A TIME TO GRILL

     When Ms. Cole, my indefatigable landlord, knocked on my door bearing vegetables too heavy for her, "Come down here Mr. and look what I have - pineapple, eggplants, the avocados maybe overripe, hurry, and plenty more in the bag; and by the way: Happy Summer!" Kale, ginger roots,...

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PICKINGS

“I never saw the moor, I never saw the sea; yet know I what the heather looks and what a wave must be...” —Emily Dickinson       I started as one of the prep-cooks at a high-end restaurant in NYC years ago and I remember the chef, passing at our station like a 3-star general,...

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PLUMERIA SALAD

      I am currently reading Richard Prum’s “Evolution of Beauty’ in the animal kingdom, most notably in birds, and the direction of the book is to understand the adaptive utility of apparent visual choice in natural selection. Least to say, it is an interesting “window” into the...

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HOT SPRINGS

          Mid-May in Maui, all-around energy soup of patani beans, baby sweet potato and sunflower greens. (The auntie at the Filipino store this morning said the beans and the sweet potato were perfect together for stock— and that’s just what I did, adding the softer...

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GERANIUMS AND BENTO

    It's sweet inside: candied beets and strawberry; and cashew-coconut-dark chocolate crumble cake (the candies have been shaped to a face). It's a gift for my lovely landlord this morning, tied with such care as depicted, and the desserts are arranged on a cutout page from an old Martha...

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