I've got some homemade pickles pickling in the kitchen right now. These are really easy to make: dissolve kosher salt in boiling water, cool with ice, then add crushed garlic, sliced kirby cucumbers, and dill. Cover with cold water, weight with a plate to keep cukes under water, and let sit at room temp until desired level of pickleness is attained. They keep in the fridge for a week.
I've been eating like crazy these past few days. My office was closed for repairs yesterday, so Stephen and I went out for brunch at Sound Bites in Somerville, the best breakfast place I've ever been to. Then we drove out to Marblehead Neck and climbed around on the rocks by the lighthouse, and I read about the lack of cohesive food culture in America in my ex-May book*, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. When we'd worked up our appetites again, we drove to Whole Foods and bought stuff for a picnic: fresh mozzarella and baguettes, chick pea salad, black currant spritzers, romaine and Parmesan and lemons for Caesar salad. I was thinking about this passage from the chapter in The Omnivore's Dilemma where the author goes hunting for wild pigs with two guides:
Being Europeans, as well as accomplished cooks, Angelo and Jean-Pierre take lunch very seriously, even when out in the woods some distance from civilization. "So I brought with me a few little things to nibble on," Jean-Pierre mumbled. "Me, too," chimed Angelo. And out of their packs came course after course of the most astonishing picnic, which they proceeded to lay out on the hood of Angelo's SUV: a terrine of lobster and halibut en gelee, artisanal salami and prosciutto and mortadella, Angelo's homemade pate of boar and home-cured olives, cornichons, chicken salad, a generous selection of cheeses and breads, fresh strawberries and pastries, silverware and napkins, and, naturally, a bottle each of red and white wine.
Okay, so ours wasn't that fancy. But it was nice, and the weather cooperated.
Today, we picked up the first box from our CSA share. Inside there was Boston lettuce, parsnips, spinach, and what I think are turnips. (They're completely white, but turnip-shaped.) So we had mashed potatoes and parsnips for dinner. The parsnips look like pale carrots, and added a carrot-like sweetness to the mush. And we had salad. I'm not sure what we're going to do with the albino turnips yet, and we may give the spinach away. No one here is really into the bitterness.
* Yes, there's been more book-of-the-month fickleness. Lugging around the thick, hardcovered Animal, Vegetable, Miracle proved unsustainable, so I left Barbara Kingsolver for the much leaner, lighter Mrs. Dalloway. Things have been going well with the new book, except that I misplaced it last week, so now I'm bookless and the month is over. Gotta catch up!
