A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday, after I’d read as much of the newspaper as I could handle, and while listening to smooth jazz on my “Sunday station,” I heard the kitchen calling. It doesn’t call very often, so when it does, I try to listen.

First, I made a casserole, then I baked a quiche. And finally, I whipped up some granola. Nothing “went” with anything else. Nothing was supposed to. One dish was to give away, another to use up some leftovers. The granola was to replenish my supply.

The menu items aren’t important, though; it’s how I felt preparing them, what a few hours in the kitchen can do for a body (and a mind) when the body and the mind aren’t on deadline. There is something — much! — to be said for the whisking of eggs and cream, for the rolling of piecrust dough, for the slow stirring of a white sauce.

It gives one time to think, to gently unravel thoughts that may have gotten tangled earlier in the week. I won’t be spending today in the kitchen; that’s for sure. But I treasure the time I spent there yesterday.

(This time, I cleaned up as I went along.)

This morning I was up before daybreak preparing a crockpot dish for dinner tonight. It wasn’t like I had to rake the coals and start the fire, but the recipe did require a prodigious amount of chopping, and given the attention it gave to a meal hours away, I did feel a bit like a pioneer woman.

This is veering dangerously close to an earlier post about the habits of cookery. But it also brings to mind the fact that time spent in the kitchen is often time spent in one’s own head.

I don’t mind spending time in my head, depending upon what’s rolling around in there. This morning it was mostly thoughts of how I was making dinner before I even had breakfast. Luckily, donuts have arrived, so all is well.

With a new year and the pace of life picking up, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for weeks: I made granola. Nothing earth-shattering about this except the way I felt when I was making it, which was hungry. Very hungry.

It dawned on me as I stirred the oats, nuts, flaked coconut and other ingredients, that if I lived even 100 years ago, certainly 150, I would usually have had to bake, boil or toast my breakfast. There would have been no instant oatmeal, no cold cereals to pour into a bowl with a splash of milk (or not), no containers of yogurt at the ready. I would often have been hungry while preparing a meal.

As it stands now, much of my food is “fast food,” since I often get by with salads assembled or leftovers reheated. And if I’m preparing a meal and already starving, I just dip into the cupboard for a handful of almonds and the pangs are staved off until hot food is on the table.

What struck me this morning is how instantly gratified I am in the kitchen and how rare this condition is throughout human history. It’s an awareness I’d like to keep in mind. And I will … once I dig into the granola.

Luckily, I heard it was National Chocolate Day before yesterday ended. But I didn’t hear about it before writing yesterday’s post. So this tribute is one day late — but just as fervent.

As it turns out, it was the radio that gave me the news. I was on my way home from the grocery store — with five dark chocolate bars and three bags of chocolate Halloween candy (in case there are leftovers).

Chocolate: where do I start? That it makes every day a little bit better. That it is a tonic, an anti-depressive, a panacea. That it is the perfect mingling of sweetness and fullness on the tongue.

Luckily, I had some of my current favorites on hand to celebrate last night, a knock-off brand of M&M’s. Which means I consumed chocolate with a thin candy shell, perfect for portion control. Because if there’s one thing I know about chocolate, it’s that you must control it … or it will control you.

Already afternoon and no post! It’s as good a time as any, then, to write about granola.

I do as little cooking as possible these days, preferring to make large quantities of something and consume it for days. Granola fits that bill. A sweet-and-savory delight — made from a recipe supplied by my sister-in-law — this concoction has become my breakfast yogurt complement of choice.

It includes generous quantities of oats, coconut, seeds, nuts and dried fruit bound together by equal measures of olive oil and maple syrup. It seems to hit all the right taste bud notes.

Even though I skipped it today — I have to ration myself — it’s good to know it will be waiting tomorrow. After all, it’s the breakfast of champions … or something like that.

Eating local conjures up images of farmers’ markets and $12 quarts of strawberries. But for the last week or two, we’ve been eating hyperlocal. 

Our chief suppliers are the basil growing in a pot on the deck, which just yielded enough leaves for a delicious pesto sauce — and mostly the next-door neighbors, with their well-tended garden of beans, squash, cucumbers and tomatoes. 

The beans have been lightly boiled, salted and buttered. (I usually steam vegetables, but these thrive with a more old-school treatment.) 

The cucumbers have been sliced thin and served in a peppercorn ranch marinade (this dish courtesy of yet another neighbor) or simmered in broth then whipped with yogurt and dill into a cold soup.

The squash have been mixed with onions and breadcrumbs and turned into a casserole. And the tomatoes … well, they’re yet to come.