Start with a Mistake

 

--But that can't be an instruction, can it? I mean, if you do it intentionally, it isn't a mistake. My mistake was at the store, when I bought the can of crushed tomatoes rather than diced or whole for homemade chili. But they worked out okay, maybe especially with the pinto beans I use now (instead of kidney beans) for their creamy texture. Still, the chili only needed half the can. 

So a couple nights later I fried up half a dozen strips of bacon, drained and broke them into pieces. Sautéed onion and mushrooms. Added the cooked bacon...

...crushed tomatoes, salt, oregano, herbes de Provence, and simmered for a long time. That is the not-so-secret secret: long, slow simmering.

Served over tortellini with grated Parmesan cheese, the resulting dish was perfection. And perfection being the moving target that it is, it's pleasing to hit it once in a while.

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.

Domestic and Wild Peppery Foraging

Wild mustard

The little farmhouse kitchen, redolent in winter of soup and fresh-baked bread, lively with stirring and bubbling, falls still as summer comes on, with bookstore and yard and garden demanding unceasing attention.

Few Parisians can afford the space for private gardens. For outdoor relaxation they depend instead on large public green spaces, such as, near my old friend Hélène’s apartment, the Luxembourg Gardens. (A world in itself, that!) But even without a burgeoning potager (kitchen garden, as the English call it), Hélène cultivated pots of herbs in a sunny window. And by the way, it’s smart to restrain perennial herbs in pots, no matter how much ground you have available, as some of them, given garden room, will develop Napoleonic ambitions and try to take over your entire world, making much more otherwise unnecessary work.

Taking a leaf from Hélène’s book, then, and because time and energy allowed me to reclaim only about half of my former vegetable garden, neglected for the past two years, I have done some of my food planting in containers this year – tomatoes, radishes, even collards (I have my doubts about the collards in a container, given the size of a full-grown plant, but if we eat away at the outer leaves fast enough, perhaps they can be kept in check) – as well as, among the flowers, nasturtiums, a colorful edible addition to summer salads.

Tomato plant and radish seedlings

Radish thinnings

Our first summer salad supper was Thursday evening. The radishes needed thinning, and the young sprouts were far too tasty to throw in the compost pile. Since the thinning task coincided with the last blooming of a local wild mustard – another delicate, edible, peppery cruciform, much like the spring’s toothwort in flavor – radish sprouts and pepper blossoms made a nice addition to the green salad, strewn atop after Greek dressing had been drizzled over lettuce and tomatoes.

Ah, summer! Supper on the porch! Flowers on the table and on our plates! Now, if ever, come perfect days....