"It was wonderful two years ago: all I had to do was to close my eyes and my head would start buzzing like a bee-hive. I could recapture the taste of kouskouss, the smell of olive oil which fills the streets of Burgos at noon, the scent of fennel floating through the Tetuan streets, the piping of Greek shepherds; I was touched." (Jean-Paul Sartre)
Inadvertently in my readings I would come across food literature like the aforementioned quote, and often I find it in novels not about food - somewhat appropriate, if fortuitous, to start a blog. Here’s a secret (“recipe”): writers already have a working framework they hang on to in their heads and tenaciously will shop for details, as I’m a book cook, so there I go. My “starter” is lifted from a diary of free association from an existentialist bard - a bit heavy, yes, but his “bread” is optional. (I was actually thinking of bruschetta in the title but opted not; it’s a figurative decision - some savories you allow to bloom late in the taste.) I wilted a whole head of butter lettuce with the olives and petals, and in the braising added sunflower seeds and alfalfa sprouts. I was craving warm salad for a change, and thought it would be great with toasted pumpernickel German flat bread, then splashing plum vinegar and red pepper flakes over my plate as finishing touch.
"Edible wild greens are available everywhere seasonally for the picking but great care must be used. If you are in earnest about pursuing this economical, healthful hobby, consult an authoritative text or better still a local enthusiast.
"Here is a charming quick-trick decoration. Just before serving, select some delicately colored, open-petaled flowers, like hollyhocks. Remove the stamen. Cut off all but 3/4 inch of the stem. Arrange the flower on the cake. Place a small candle in the center of each one." - (excerpts in the) Joy of Cooking
Sunday isn't only food-writing day it is also a synthesis of sorts becoming of me a hands-on cook who appreciates food's utility for health as essentially for my long, humble practice in the poetic arts. I don't really have much going on in the island, but I know for sure that my proprietress will have a bag of vegetables (and fruits if I'm lucky) waiting for me on the staircase every Sunday, and that's an assignment to fulfill in the kitchen because already love was in them in the giving and I will get busy for love in return. The beauty of her generosity also comes in a paper note attached to the bag telling me about cute stuffs. Gary, the mountain apples came from a yard up the hills! By the way, you've got mail, too (with a smiley emoticon). It's hard not to be grateful in life when relationships are forged like a handmade pendant wrought intricate and delicate and when you open it there's a heartwarming picture of a mother and son-like friendship. The caring is so deep - and food becomes communion.
Coring those apples and peeling the skin in stripes to keep the tannins in the taste and slicing up identically the cucumbers seeded, and making a quick pickled salad for a side to a stewed eggplant-carrots-baba ghanoush is an assembly production on my line (compartmentally I have a running filtered water sink to wash and prep the vegetables, and on the wood chopping board counter space my produce taking turns on the knife, and finally to the hot pot where it'll all come together as dish du jour). Even if so for a few years now, I'm happy to be alone, I'm alright and healthy, the future is going to be O.K., because I know someone downstairs I share, we share, our food and home, I have a beautiful place to write and abundant provisionally is where we live like in an orchard. Sartre has written about the human condition from the lens of philosophy, however they are idealized in common thread of events one belongs to under the skin. He writes about he in the tactile and in the approximate sense of a standard life day-to-day he enspirits. The French brought artichoke plants and culinary flowers for cultivation in the highlands of Da Lat, Vietnam, and they taught the locals to use these flowers in soups and stews, and in garnishing condiments/amuse bouche. They make food look pretty and tasting another level of satisfaction. My mind reads and travels when I write, and land on my plate. As simple as that, I finish cooking and earnestly eat what I've begotten from all this living.
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