Food thoughts: what are yours?
July 22nd, 2008
I just clicked on that revolving photo presentation in the margin a moment ago. I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. It was a portion of spoonbread! I haven’t even thought of spoonbread since I posted that article and recipe. It was just delicious. Why haven’t I even thought of it?
What food occupies the top layer of the mind right now?
Tomatoes. I bought a book yesterday that is just different recipes using tomatoes. They are late this year, so they are just beginning to ripen and should stay with us until November, when we will take advantage of Puglia’s longer summer and buy from the Pugliese farmers every Saturday. I’ve already Post-It marked several pages to try, and have started wondering if any of the newly discovered regional dishes will make up readily for twenty.
Lamb. I still have half the lamb I bought this spring. I am pondering slow-cooking a leg in the fireplace for lunch in the garden. Or I could invite just one person and flash cook the rack.
Green beans, or fagionlini. I helped Amelia pick hers this morning right after I picked mine. Mine provided two fists full, hers a whole basin full. We discussed various recipes in which the bigger and more mature beans are good. Amelia went in to prepare Fagiolini alla Greca for lunch! I decided to make a puree one day and a sformato another day. Mine, who live under a walnut tree, are never going to provide that many, but this time of year you can pick anyone’s beans and they’ll thank you for it. If they are not completely stripped they stop making new beans.
Pickles. The cucumbers are really coming on and the dill is almost heading. If the plums don’t hurry up and riped, I may make some pickles from them, too. There are too many to just eat, even if you made plum cake everyday until they were over.
Suppers. When the heat recedes and you can take pleasure in making food just-so for happy people who are happy to eat what you make. Here below is a supper from a few weeks ago. What pleasant people they were! Think what size that table must be to hold fifteen and still have room for another fifteen. What a gorgeous villa that is, and what a terrific kitchen it has! If you ever need eight bedrooms, just ask.
What makes you think of food, and what food are you thinking of this season?
Entry Filed under: Italy, plums, cucumbers, tomatoes, Italian food, cucina, contorno, vegetables, street markets, cookery, lamb, agnello, orto, garden
11 Comments Add your own
1. Barbara | July 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Right now I’m waiting for the deluge of tomatoes! I want to make pappa al pomodoro and panzanella and caprese salad until tomatoes are running out of my ears!
2. Mary | July 23rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Well, it’s cooled off today, so I’m actually thinking about cooking. For a while it was so hot we were doing fresh cheese, salad, tomatoes or tortarelli and prosciutto for dinner just about every night - except when the guy who sells the roasted chickens comes into town, then we’d get one of them. I love the fresh vegetables though at this time of year and I seem to be starting on a shellfish kick - made zucchini and shrimp with penne pasta for lunch.
3. Palma | July 24th, 2008 at 5:07 am
It’s hotter than hades here. Brad’s doing grilled red potatoes and zucchini, tilapia, and watermelon for dessert.
Last night he grilled scallops AGAIN with lime olive oil, salt and pepper. YUM
4. amanda@A Tuscan View... | July 24th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Next year I want to try and grown green beans here too but we have to clear the rubble first!
My foods of the moment are plums, I\\\’m just about to take the girls to pick them. Figs, I can\\\’t wait for them to ripen and for supper tonight, thin slices of chicken flash fried with garlic, sage and marsala, maybe a rucola salad and some of those green beans.
My latest craze however is ricotta, I am completely addicted to it at the moment and feel compelled to try every one I see. Have you tried it for dessert with granulated sugar and a squeeze of lemon?
If you need any help eating the lamb, there\\\’s only four of us:)
5. michelle of bleeding espresso | July 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am
If you can’t tell from my blog, I’m on a watermelon kick. I found some NZ lamb at Lidl (yes, we finally got one closer than two hours away!) last week…YUM!
6. Dermott | July 25th, 2008 at 9:01 am
The two-legged dog around here who seems to know about these things has been harvesting zucchini by the ton - and having to find news ways to use them; faggiolini - first two crops finished, the third on the way; patate - not enough to warrant the space they take; melanzane - undersized but nice; lamponi - almost finished but fabulous; fragole - scrumptious; carote - “Amsterdam Forcing”, highly recommended for early maturity and good taste; insalata, obviously; early-variety tomatoes, obviously; and, I’m told, there are flowers on the zucca vines and baby cocomeri on their vines.
7. admin | July 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Hmmmm, that might be an appallingly high outcome from a city orto! Are you sure that is in good taste?
I cannot grow any root crops in summer without getting worms so they are fall/winter crops. My lamponi are just starting. I ate the first single berry yesterday! The first handful will become grappa alle lamponi because they aren’t making it this year– remember that cake soaked with it?
Fagiolini are now splendid. Pomodori are starting to wander in.
8. Alex | July 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
In the summer season, the scent of barbecues brings on food thoughts in me.
I love meat or fish cooked out in the open. My favourite is probably a substantial, but tender, fiorentina steak. Wonderful!
Brings back memories of last years hol down in Tuscany.
Alex
9. admin | July 30th, 2008 at 10:24 am
It is far too hot now to cook outside, secondo me. The local pizzeria, however, grills Fiorentina over coals pulled from the oven, and I would let them do it. After 8 PM, in the sidewalk cafe, let them do the sweating! Hols in Umbria are just as memorable…
10. Snowpea | August 1st, 2008 at 1:17 am
My current favourite is roasted cauliflower. It’s the season here in Quebec and they are fat and sassy and cheap. Why didn’t I roast this before? I’ve been missing out.
11. admin | August 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
One of my memories of the fern bat period is an appetiser course that wasa a whole cauliflower, steamed, coated with mustard and then grated cheddar and roasted. I liked it a LOT.
I also like curries made of collie. Right now it is green beans a casa mia. Pounds and pounds are jumping off my 40″ square bean plot!
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