What Made This Simple Supper So Good?

It wasn't anything I planned to post here, so the only image is one of the food on my plate. 

Here's how it went:

In one pan, I browned mild Italian sausage. Into another went diced onion and garlic and eggplant, and, when the vegetables were almost done cooking (in olive oil), fresh diced zucchini, a can of diced tomatoes (because the heirlooms from earlier in the week were all gone), and some herbes de Provence. Finally, sausage into the vegetable pan so the flavors could blend, and then the whole served over spaghetti. Nothing fancy, nothing to "write home about" -- except that it was delicious! 

David gave all the credit for the taste to the sausage, and certainly that taste was in the foreground, along with the herbs, but for me it was the smooth undertone of eggplant that brought everything together. Try it yourself and let me know what you think.

"Is It Worth It?"

Back in June

That was my husband’s question, when I told him I have an idea for next year’s garden and how I can combine straw bales with the first stage of raised bed constructions. “It’s worth it to me,” I answered, and he did not push me further. 

Before the olives

I tell the dog, as I choose vegetables from the garden,  that my Greek salad contains “all things bright and beautiful.” Cucumbers are soft green, peppers soft yellow and bright orange, tomatoes as red as red can be. Since we don’t live in the south of France (let alone in Paris), I’ll need to buy olives at the store in town, but it pleases me to look at my own garden’s bounty in a bowl. In the garden, stiff training supports that held heavy peony heads earlier in the summer now bear aloft fat purple fingers of eggplant. A few of those split in two and brushed with olive oil can go on the grill next to a couple of chops, and with salad on the side, that will be dinner.

eggplant this morning

Yesterday’s forecast of “scattered showers” for Wednesday and Thursday has been downgraded to “partly cloudy,” with hope for rain pushed back to next Monday. Having to water my garden every morning and evening, though, keeps the daily status of that riotous jungle clear in my mind.

“Is it worth it?” 

In terms of what? Given the cost of plants and straw bales and fertilizer and the time spent watering, am I saving money over buying the same vegetables at the store or the farm market? Well, they wouldn’t be the same vegetables, would they? Not to me, they wouldn’t. It is worth it to me to feel that I am inhabiting my own life, rather than simply commuting to and from a house and visiting the country as a tourist. I am living, here and now, on my home ground. 

The piper must be paid in any life. Is life worth living, with all its work and troubles and woes? I say yes. 

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