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Turkey Time

Turkey Time

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The other night I had a funny anxiety dream. I was strolling through a store on Thanksgiving afternoon, casually browsing, picking up treats for the holiday meal, when I suddenly realized that I had not put the turkey in the oven. Not only that, but I had failed to bake the pumpkin pies the night before. 

As I frantically tried to figure out how to feed 20 people with no turkey or pie … I woke up. 

Ah yes, I thought groggily, a Thanksgiving anxiety dream.  When I came to full consciousness the next morning, I remembered my middle-of-the-night panic with a smile — but a jolt, too.

Yes, I was given a reprieve. But the big day is coming up. I hope I’m prepared!

(As close as I can come to a turkey photo: a turkey teapot photo!) 

Iced Tea!

Iced Tea!

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As the mercury begin to settle back into more seasonal temperatures, I’ll celebrate the record-breaking warmth of the last  few days with a photo of my favorite beverage, iced tea.

Here it is in a hero shot from yesterday, when it slaked the thirst brought on by 80-degree weather. 

So as my laundry crisped outside and I attempted to write a paper instead of swinging in the hammock (which is what I wanted to do), my beverage of choice sweated and cooled and looked as fetching as a glass of iced tea can look. 

You’ll have to excuse the green shoots that seem to cascade from the side of the side of the glass. That’s not extra mint, but the fronds of a spider plant peeping out on either side. 

Sláinte! 

Perfect Peaches

Perfect Peaches

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It’s as if the peaches had been practicing all season to look this rosy and smooth-skinned, this thoroughly delicious.  “Last big picking,” they were billed, giving those of us who’d come to haunt this particular booth at the Wednesday farmers market ample warning: don’t expect this fruit again until next July. 

I felt the same tug in my heart I’m getting when I notice turning leaves or lowered light. 

But who can complain when the tilt of the sun produces peaches like these? 

(The astute observer will spot an interloper in this photo. I threw in a lemon to keep the peaches company.)

Portugal’s Pastry

Portugal’s Pastry

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I’ve mentioned them before, the pasteis de nata, the national pastry of Portugal. After finishing the box of six purchased in the Lisbon airport, I began to dream of the dense, flaky pastry, the creamy custard filling. 

The dreams led to research, a recipe and a video tutorial. The process would take four hours with no guarantee of success. It involved multiple foldings of dough and applications of softened unsalted butter. I tried to imagine myself doing it and couldn’t quite conjure the picture.

But surely in a major metropolitan area, there should be a bakery that sells pasteis de nata. So I began searching for such a place. I found one in a faraway corner of the city, then another right in Reston. I met friends there Friday to sample the wares. Not bad for a stateside rip-off. 

Then yesterday, a neighbor who visited Portugal recently herself dropped off a packet of six pastries. She found them, of all places, in a Lidl store, a discount grocer that apparently has a bakery! Who knew? 

I haven’t yet tasted the delicacies, but they sure look like the real thing!

The Salad Green Blues

The Salad Green Blues

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I don’t usually read the food section of the newspaper because after decades of slinging hash I enjoy spending less time in the kitchen. But yesterday, I found myself pulled in by a piece that trashed, of all things, lettuce!

The author, Tamar Haspel, was not subtle: “Lettuce is a vehicle to bring refrigerated water from farm to table,” she began, explaining that the crop is 96 percent water. Then she launched into a discussion of why eating salad was bad for the planet (it consumes too many resources in exchange for too few calories and nutrients) and bad for us (it provides a halo effect for all the less healthy stuff we mix in with it — croutons, fried chicken strips — and is more likely to make us sick, since it can be contaminated with food-borne pathogens and we eat it raw). It’s not that we shouldn’t eat salad, she concludes, but that we should realize it’s a luxury to do so. 

As a person who builds many meals around salads (albeit forgoing iceberg lettuce, the most watery of salad greens), and who has sought them in vain in countries where food isn’t as abundant, I have to say that her piece was an eye-opener. I won’t be giving up my baby romaines and arugula anytime soon … but I’ll try to include even more beans, nuts and other nutritious add-ons when I eat them.

Over Easy

Over Easy

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Too often I’m distracted. I wait too long to flip them over. But this morning the timing was right and the eggs were perfect: just runny enough to coat the whites.

Over easy has a nice, free-and-easy sound. It says flapjacks in the morning, a pot of tea brewing, the whole day ahead. 

Never mind that most mornings aren’t like that. So the words promise—but only occasionally do they deliver. 

Melded

Melded

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Yesterday I chopped onions and celery and carrots. I peeled potatoes and sliced them into quarters, then eighths. I unearthed a bay leaf from the spice cabinet and found some parsley from the fridge.

The potatoes were snowy white, and the large carrots made ducat-like rounds, fell from the knife with a crack and a burst of sweetness. The puny celery (is there a shortage this year?) needed little skinning. The onions were less pungent than some, so my eyes didn’t water.

The kitchen filled with the aromas of simmering beef and marrow bones, as I added canned tomatoes and the sliced vegetables to the broth. The mixture simmered, and with each stir, the vegetables softened, adding their juices to the broth. The individual ingredients began to give way, to meld, to become one.

It took most of the afternoon, but by dinner time there was a passable vegetable soup to sip. It was delicious, but it will be much better tomorrow. And even better the next day.

‘Tis the Season

‘Tis the Season

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The door is wreathed, the gifts are wrapped, the cards are mailed. But there is one more sign that the holidays have truly begun: I’m having cookies for breakfast.

It was a matter of necessity. I needed to remove at least two from the cookie tin in order to fit them in. 

But the fact is that all dietary decorum has broken down. 

‘Tis the season…

Wednesday Market

Wednesday Market

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I remembered just in time yesterday, remembered that it was Wednesday and the farmer’s market was happening in my church parking lot. The church doesn’t sponsor the market, just offers it a place to be. But having it there gives it a welcome familiarity.

As the summer has deepened, the produce offerings have expanded — and so has the carnival aspect of the event. Yesterday the parking lot was so full that I thought for a moment a service must be going on. But it wasn’t a service, just a lot of vegetable-lovers — and more. 

This market includes bakery booths and a barbecue place, organic meats and micro-greens. A steel drum player gives it a Caribbean beat. As I squeezed tomatoes and peaches, I spotted a fleet of cyclists moving effortlessly down the road. For a moment it felt like summer would never end. 

Eat Your Greens

Eat Your Greens

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The parakeets consume mostly seed (and a prodigious amount of it, too, I might), but every so often I dig up some dandelion greens for them.  The plants are pesticide-free and full of nutrition. 

Interestingly, though, when I’m actually looking for weeds, I have trouble finding them. Or I should say, when I’m looking for dandelion greens I have trouble finding them. They’re increasingly pushed out by the Japanese stiltgrass. 

Ah yes, it’s a battle of the weeds in our yard, with the much-preferred dandelions on the losing end of the scale. Which means that when I do score a clump of them, Alfie and Bart tuck in with all the ardor those little beaks can muster. 

In my more earnest moments, I think the birds have the right idea: eating seeds and greens — and singing their hearts out the rest of the time.