Tomorrow I go to Maine to visit Kurt and Emily, she of the biscotti pictured above and the delicious fresh-ginger ginger cookies sent for the holidays (no photo but trust me on this one). The last time I saw them in Maine was June 2010 for their wedding, and the last time I saw them in California was this past fall for my wedding, so, y’know, it’ll be nice to just hang around and talk about other things like … I don’t know … food.

Actually, we’ll probably talk about food most of the time. And the rest of the time we’ll be cooking it. I always learn something new when I cook with them — Kurt got me into red cabbage one February, and I feel foolish I’d never really tried it before I love it so much now — and I always leave filled with inspiration or at least a new way of looking at things. I forget that cooking with the right people is one of my favorite past-times. Too often I am solitary in the kitchen – or with a sous-chef to chop the garlic – gulping down water after a run and throwing the quinoa on to boil before jumping the shower. Vegetables are stir-fried quickly, a glass of wine is poured while the silverware is assembled, and dinner is served. We – or, to be honest, me – often see food as fuel around here, which it is, no doubt about it. I can be a terribly utilitarian cook. But given the opportunity I also like to slow it down and talk and experiment along the way.

So when I say I am very much looking forward to my week in New England that would probably be a bit of an understatement. I cannot wait, in fact. My bag is mostly packed, my books decided upon, my ipod fully charged. I’m looking forward to frigid mornings, the deep blue of the river across the street to accompany me on my walks, a new cat to meet and snuggle with, early bedtimes, an exhale into the quiet and peace that I always find there. There isn’t much planned other than to hang out (I hope this will help my poor legs to rest and relax themselves after all the prodding they’ve endured lately (chiropractors are fantastic but, ouch)) and, yes, to cook. Maybe some ice skating, too, if I’m lucky.

I hope to write a bit from there; New England has a special hold on my heart and it’s been far too long since I’ve made my way ‘cross country. But before I set off to Boston in the morning I wanted to leave a recipe for a soup I made the other night. I meant to write about it more poetically but I just got back from a swim and my mind, like my muscles, is all loose and warm and not so good for prettily stringing words together. But I will tell you that it was the exact thing I needed last night after an amazing, hard(ish) yoga class stretched my hamstrings to their edge and all I wanted after was shower, vegetables, sleep.

I started making a chard and white bean soup this fall with the last of the tomatoes, and I’ve moved on into winter with a variation of such but with the main ingredient being cabbage. My husband jokes that cabbage has replaced cauliflower as my favorite vegetable lately – and indeed they are of the same family – but I scoff at that. Cauliflower and I are tried and true, forever and ever amen. Still, I do love my cabbage. I’ve been stir-frying heads of green cabbage from Richard, who grows gorgeous things at Firme Farms, with a chopped yellow onion and lots of garlic and white beans plus some thyme or basil (dried) if I feel like it. Then I make a pot of polenta and pile it all on top and it is just! the perfect winter meal. (And come to think of it, perhaps inspired by my brother). The soup is very similar, but with more vegetables and in soup-like form; there’s onion, garlic, carrots, celery, white beans, cabbage, and a little chard, too. It’s nourishing and healthy and brothy and salty and full of good vegetables and damn, if I hadn’t eaten the last bowl for lunch I’d be slurping up some right now …

This means, of course, that I must make it for my Mainers when I see them. What kind of guest would I be if I didn’t cook dinner a few times? The rest of it hopefully we’ll cook together, with that brilliant view of the sunset outside the kitchen window to keep us company.

Catch you on the east side.

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This is the time of year when all I’m doing is making up lists — constantly, consciously writing lists.

Example 1: For a holiday party this weekend, things still left to pick up
Acme breads
small (compostable) plates
small napkins
clementines
non-alcoholic delicious beverages
beer
ice
small cups
lights
xmas ornament hangers
arugula

(This may seem like a lot of things, but trust me it is far, far less than it was.)

Example 2: For a holiday party this weekend, things still to make
gingerbread men (and stars, and trees)
blackberry jam thumbprint cookies
roasted red pepper-white bean hummus
cranberry punch (day-of)
mushroom pizza squares (day-of)

(The already-made list includes things like flourless chocolate cake bites, cocoa-toasted and sea-salted hazelnuts, 1 1/2 smallish cheesecakes with gingersnap crusts, chocolate and dried fruit and nut candies, a faintly sweet, nutmeg-spiced cake … which means this little list feels like nothing at this point.)

These two are manageable, nothing to get concerned about. But they represent only two of the lists I’m currently maintaining — there’s the gifts for immediate family list; the edible gifts list; the gifts (+ edible) to go into the send-away boxes list; the ingredients for the second round of holiday baking list; the ideas for Christmas Eve (and perhaps Christmas) dinner — and what about breakfast? — list; the holiday cards list; the work party baking + gifts list; the things I must grab for tomorrow night’s dinner list …

(And tucked away is the idea for another list, the post-holiday week long weekend of New Year’s Eve/Day list, which involves wee menus and plots for picnics on the beach and a visit to a little pub in Muir Beach on the first day of the year … oh, am trying not to get too much ahead of myself.)

My lists are not organized on my computer — oh, if only — nor are they tacked up on the wall near my desk so I can observe, update, and amend them, nor are they kept in any kind of notebook or folder. Rather, they’re written on bits of scrap paper or in an old spiral book that I either misplace or file away, forgetting that indeed there is a list in there I might like to have a look at … I find little grocery lists folded into my wallet (brown rice, org. broccoli, tofu, almonds, laundry detergent was a recent one) or stuffed into my work bag to scatter like the snow we’ll never see in San Francisco when I pull out my bus card as I get on the bus. And yet I rarely forget anything I want to make or procure. Is it some sort of divine intervention? Or more likely my neurotic list-making brain also mentally files them away so I can never forget …

I like making lists during this time of year. It’s so much more fun than at any other time. Rather than a to-do of drop books off at the library, scrub the baseboards, take out the composting, my lists are full of delightful ideas such as lingonberry jam compote (??), look into making those nut/nougat cookie things you made last year [recipe copied out a cookbook in a store on Haight Street one chilly afternoon, so good luck to me if I can remember any more ingredients than the brown sugar], flourless peanut butter cookies — yes! Soon enough I’ll return to the humdrum weekday meals lists, but for now I’m trying to enjoy this time.

Also what I’m enjoying right now is soup. It’s cold here in San Francisco (I wore gloves today which for me = cold and yes, it is not as cold as East Coast-cold but it’s pretty cold for here). Last night I ate butternut squash + white bean soup prepared by my lovely husband of two months (today!), which is a testament to how much he loves me because he can hardly bear to look at orange squash without cringing (a childhood trauma involving rotted pumpkins in the garden is responsible for this), and the night before I ate a chard and white bean (theme?) stew made from the last of the chard from my guy at the market. I know it’s really time for kale but I’m still clutching onto that chard …

So when it’s chilly, I want soup. Also, when I’m busy with all the list-making and actual baking and wrapping up homemade jam and watercoloring my holiday cards I don’t have a lot of time to chop and dice. Soup is something that’s fairly easy, because you have to do a bit of work to begin with but then your stove does a lot of work to finish it off while you’re doing other things. Plus, if you cram it with vegetables, as I do, it’s nourishing, healthful, and yes and of course, delicious.

I made a cauliflower-leek soup for the first course for the Thanksgiving dinner, although we didn’t end up eating it that night because out of the woods (literally — OK, it was carried through from the neighbors’ house) emerged a gorgeous, creamy butternut squash soup that (most of us) lapped up quickly and happily. The following afternoon we planned to head out to the coast to sleep out for the night, but we first we ate cauliflower soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to fortify ourselves for the 6+ mile hike.

This is a simple soup, but it’s dreamy. Lots of leeks, garlic, and onions sauteed until soft, then a lot of cauliflower and good vegetable stock are added in. It’s all eventually pureed until smooth; no dairy here, yet it’s remarkably rich. I’m thinking of making another pot for the weekend, for after-party sipping and Sunday afternoon post-napping, when a few of those lists can be tossed — at least for this year.

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[San Francisco, September 2011.]

Currently, slowly consuming a piece of cake I baked for a coworker’s mumble mumble th birthday — chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and frosted with coffee buttercream. It’s delicious, and immediately after I finish it I will eat a plum to make up for all the butter. No photo because to be honest it wasn’t one of my prettiest cakes, although what it lacks in appearance (a bit scruffy this time, especially after withstanding a packed bus ride) it makes up for in taste. Eating it reminds me of another baking project looming on my horizon: a wedding cake. Specifically, mine.

I’m getting married in a few weeks. Have I mentioned that before? Probably … though I tend not to dwell on it too much, preferring instead to put my head down and plow through the (seeming) mountain of to-do’s. That was the point of all that blackberry jam I just finished off in my little apartment on Sunday, and I won’t bore you with the details of how much I obsessed over what kind of jars (Weck), how large (about 5 oz.), to attach ribbons or not (not), could/should I make my own labels or farm it out (farm it out; I have neither time nor patience for such things right now). Though I claim I’m ‘not really a wedding person’, an enormous amount of mental energy has gone into planning what essentially will be a 6-hour event, with a few others sprinkled there in before and after — but one thing, strangely, I haven’t obsessed about at all is the cake.

And why should I? I have tried-and-true recipes courtesy of Alice Waters; I’ve baked two wedding cakes (technically three, since I went overboard for my brother’s wedding and baked two) in the past year-and-a-half, one of which was done in said small apartment kitchen; I bake so regularly I feel like it’s my second job. I do worry slightly about transporting it an hour from the city into the country — but I’ve delegated that delicate task to my very reliable brother and sister-in-law and I’m sure it will be fine. Anyway, what’s a little dented cake between friends?

This is what I’m planning: 5 tiers in 6,8,9,10, and 12- inch layers. The nine-inch will be chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache (for fun!); the rest will be the 1-2-3-4 yellow cake filled with alternating ribbons of homemade lemon curd and blackberry jam. All will be frosted with vanilla-laced butter cream.

Well I think it sounds nice …

I know it seems rather nuts to want to bake your own wedding cake, but I’m looking forward to it. So much so that the second thing I said after ‘OK!’ to my true love’s ‘will you please?’ was ‘I mean, YES, but can I make the cake?’ True story. Fortunately for me, as well as for my guests, he wisely agreed, knowing how I am.

(It’s nice to be known.)

It also probably seems rather nuts to make such a large amount of cake but! There is a reason for it. You see, I am a big fan of leftovers. Big fan. So I’ve procured some of those (recyclable, compostable) take-away boxes and will send pieces of cake home with whomever wants some as the night wanes. I’ll probably be sick of cake at that point and will be glad to foist it off on my unwitting guests (or witting; some coworkers have already logged requests for slice size). Thinking of that cake being enjoyed and savored in the days after the party — of my guests taking home little bits of my appreciation and love for them — makes me happy.

I can’t wait to get to baking (soon, soon).

Speaking of leftovers, I’ve been cooking and not photographing some pretty delicious dinners of late, including a smashing chard and heirloom tomato soup with white beans I made in less than 20 minutes last night after surviving the horror that is the Powell Street Sephora (served with cheddar cheese quesadillas). Luckily I do have leftovers of that so I may photograph it properly and share the recipe soon. Over the weekend I made pesto and greens beans and stirred it into whole wheat spaghetti, with corn on the cob on the side. Sunday night, after making and canning 23 jars of blackberry jam and sitting in the sun for a few hours, I was properly exhausted and didn’t feel much like cooking — so I made mashed potatoes with buttemilk and scrambled us up some eggs with feta, spinach, and tomatoes.

But the best leftovers, lately, involves a carrot soup I can’t stop making. It comes by way of Joy the Baker, and is a slight step outside of my comfort zone. I don’t tend to like carrot soup — carrots in soup, sure, but not straight up carrot soup. It always turns out too sweet for my taste. This recipe, calling for coconut milk, surely would follow that pattern — but then all that fresh ginger made me pause. I’m pressed for time these days and my cooking is in a slight fallow phase as I churn my way through weeknight stirfries and beans on toast and the like — and I’m trying to shake myself out of it. I decided, why not, to go for the carrot soup.

Plus — have you seen the produce at Bay Area farmers’ markets right now? If you haven’t, I’ll tell you: fat heirloom tomatoes literally bursting out at their seams, piles of gorgeous and tender corn, little sweet beets, carrots in great bundles, summer squash (!), chard … Needless to say, we’ve got it good. So I’m trying to cook from it and to get inspired by it — because despite the slight ‘decision fatigue’ I’m experiencing, if there’s one thing I never fail to get excited about it’s cooking. And I’m excited about this carrot soup. I added a lot of chopped garlic and a few small potatoes, upped the ginger, slipped in a pinch of chili powder, and called it a day. It turned out firey (but not too) and smokey and not-too-sweet — perfect for fall, and Indian Summer too.

Soon, free-bird time again. But until then, carrot soup.

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[Forget-me-nots, April 2011.]

So it’s spring now, even if it doesn’t always feel like it every day due to rain in the forecast and the way that wind still blows something fierce. But — it is. The air feels a little lighter, the birdsongs are different (and there’s more background chatter), dark doesn’t fall until well after 7 p.m., and, at least in Northern California, the hills and fields are poised in that gorgeous, fleeting moment before the dry stillness of summer robs them of their green (and it is dry, man). I don’t grow vegetables — one day, I do hope — but if I did I’d be out everyday with my hands in the dirt planting a kitchen garden to feed me and mine for the rest of the season and beyond. And I’d plant flowers too, though I seem to love best the ones that land where they please, wild and scattered throughout the woods (the spring forest is cool, but by no means unpleasant).

[Lunch, Saturday, April 2011.]

This weekend I cooked a little, which for me constitutes a very fine weekend. I also ate very well, because I am a fortunate girl with generous friends. First, there was a cauliflower-ginger soup that tasted like I should have been eating it during a yoga retreat, or to break a fast — by this I mean it tasted of pure health, fresh and sharp. We ate it with thick slices of a whole wheat walnut loaf I picked from Acme, before the ferry, and good sharp cheddar. The next morning after coffee in town but before my run, I scrambled lots of fresh eggs (by way of Oakland) with some parmesan and dried oregano; that along with toasted homemade bread carried me through the miles to Arch Rock and back. After that, we sat on the deck in the sun and drank beer and ate bowls of savory, substantial minestrone soup from NY Times columnist Mark Bittman’s soup primer published in the magazine a few weeks ago. I also baked a banana bread, adding in a bit of cocoa powder because I couldn’t find any chocolate chips and really, I like my baked goods to at least contain a modicum of chocolate if at all possible.

I’d volunteered for dinner duty and after the afternoon cup of tea and snack I rummaged in the fridge to see what I could put together. Cooking at someone else’s house, no matter if I know it pretty well, is always a welcome challenge (even if I have to hunt for the loaf pan for 5 minutes). Cooking away from my own kitchen, where I know exactly what I have and where it is, forces me to work with exactly what I have, even if there’s not very much. But I swear some of my best, my most creative meals come from these experiences — I rarely use a recipe (even then, I’ll go ‘off book’) and just kind of cook by feel, if that makes sense.

That night I had: fettucine, about a half-head of cauliflower, lots of onions, some frozen spinach, frozen chicken breasts. Not a lot, but certainly not nothing. The chicken I decided to throw in the oven according to package directions, simply roasting it until tender. But just plain chicken? Even a vegetarian such as myself knew that wouldn’t do. So I made good use of all those onions and cut up about three into fine strips which I then sauteed in olive oil and white wine, simmering them until very melting and caramelized. I added a splash of lemon juice and half and half to create a smooth, creamy, onion-infused sauce to serve over the chicken.

The rest was easy: red onion and garlic sauteed with some more white wine, the cauliflower added in along with a chopped red bell pepper and cooked down until tender, spinach, a touch of cream, lots of freshly-ground pepper and dried herbs to finish. I tossed the vegetables with the noodles along with about a 1/4 cup of parmesan and a ladle or two of the pasta cooking water I’d reserved to help bind it all. I didn’t eat the chicken, of course, but I hear it was good — simple fare, and delicious. A throwaway meal, though I like to document it anyway.

But the banana bread and the soup I wish I’d had for lunch today instead of of my usual quinoa + assorted vegetables. Not that I don’t love my usual quinoa + assorted vegetables (and a squeeze of lime), but like I mentioned it’s spring, if a bit chilly, and soup and sweet bread to finish really is just the thing. Bittman’s a genius, and this soup attests to that; the banana bread is my tried-and-true, but with a few substitutions due to the lack of chocolate chips and my thought that whole wheat flour would probably be a good idea (it was). I even — shhh — spread a slice with butter to have with afternoon tea. It was perfection.

Soup and bread, spring flowers, an unexpectedly delicious sandwich eaten outside while looking west from Mt. Vision — this is the stuff dreams are made of, or at least my dreams. Happy spring, and all of that.

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[In Golden Gate Park, March 2011.]

This past weekend I was in Phoenix where it was hot during the day but cool and dry at night, the stars fanned out across a clear sky sparkling like starfish. We drove through the desert, past cactus and Creosote bushes, to Sedona, where the red-rocked cliffs loomed large. It felt like summer: dry and hot and blazingly sunny with the deepest blue sky. Strange, then, to read about an earthquake in Japan that roiled the ocean into a massive wave of destruction; there were a few creeks and rivers in Arizona that we passed by but otherwise the landscape is dusty and empty of water.

Sometimes unfathomable things happen in the world — the earth heaves and groans and the oceans swell to unreasonable heights and wash away buildings, boats, people. And there is nothing for it other than to wonder; things are unexplainable but they are no less intense for our inability to comprehend them. All the while I was away this weekend one word tickled at the back of my mind: lucky lucky lucky to be so safe, so far away from danger. Such a small thing, really, but then again it is every thing.

I remember in 2005 after the terrible tsunami that ravaged much of Southern Asia I felt helpless, impotent. I wanted to donate money to the Red Cross and so I did, but I had so little; would it really make a difference? But I couldn’t do nothing. And so with my friends an idea began to form, in part inspired by the election fundraisers of the previous fall: a benefit party, with all proceeds donated to the Red Cross and earmarked for tsunami aid. About six of us pooled our resources and sent out many emails and came up with a simple menu. The day arrived and we cooked lots of pasta, made bowls of salad, opened many bottles of wine, slid pans of apple crisp into the oven, and hoped for a crowd.

All these years later, I’m still humbled and honored by the turnout — I think we drew over 30 people, and all came bearing cash and smiles and a hearty appetite. The meal may have been simple — spaghetti with pesto; penne with red sauce; garlic bread; green salad; baked fruit and ice cream — but the goal was clear: to help, even in some small way. And of course a way to appreciate the luck of our existence — as it often is — is through gathering together simply to be together, to be grateful for it.

Amazingly, life spins on — in Japan, in Southern Asia — despite everything. And we, the fortunate ones, can help and we can mourn and mostly we can keep going, no matter what. We can make soup, feel the sun shine down hot and heavy, look out over an immense valley bordered by mountains and hope only for this — peace and gentler days ahead, all throughout the world.

All weekend I did feel that yes, I am so lucky. I hope never to take it for granted.

* Tonight I’m going to prop my eyes open (4:15 wake-up this morn) as long as it takes to make this soup for dinner — I made it last week with farmers market potatoes and a bunch of lovely leeks; it’s not fancy, but it’s comforting, nourishing, and leaves me feeling exceedingly glad simply to be alive. As I chopped the garlic, I remembered I had gathered a few bay leaves on my last foray to Inverness and. I knew they would be exactly what this soup needed to transform it from mere week-night dinner to something much more enticing. This soup is still mellow and smooth — with all those potatoes, how could it not be? — but hints of water and trees. It is of and from the forest, which beckons with all its unexplored beauty and mystery.

(Of course, you may make it without bay leaves, and it will still taste hearty and delicious.)

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[A tiny bit of sun and summer in Sonoma County, July 2010.]

It’s pretty boring to complain about the weather, I know, especially since it could be so much worse. But the weather lately — and by ‘lately’ I mean since the beginning of July — in San Francisco has been awful: cold, damp, grey nearly every day. Maybe a few hours of sun here and there if we’re lucky. But it’s been rare.

Summers like these are so different from the sweltering ones through which I plodded back in DC. Then, I mentally shook my fist at the humidity — much in the way I currently am shaking my fist at the fog — and logged my daily miles through a haze of heat and heavy sun. I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me that one day I’d be living in San Francisco and Julys would pass in a blur of windy white days, that I’d run 16 miles on a Sunday afternoon along Ocean Beach and it would be so misty it would feel like rain. I would never have believed I’d long for just a few days of hot sun, hot air, hot everything.

But that time has come, disbelieving though I still might be. The only hot things I’m experiencing lately are soups, by the pot-ful. And by “soups” I mean delicious vegetable soups crammed with the bounty of the farmer’s markets just to remind myself that, darn it, it’s August and summer is slipping by at a quick clip, even though I feel marooned in June — or March. Not to be overdramatic, but I’m sitting here typing this wearing wool socks, a hoodie, and have wrapped a wool blanket around my shoulders. So it’s like that.

Still, last weekend I chased the sun a bit up to Sonoma County and that was grand: the fog burned off by noon almost every day and while it was pretty chilly at night during the day the sun shone strong and bright and I sat in the backyard for a little while reading Vanity Fairs and drinking ice water. I had a few back roads runs and became properly hot and dehydrated. I picked some blackberries and got dust on my feet. I ate ice cream. I longed for fall and Indian Summer. So it hasn’t been all bad.

Also, I’ve been baking a lot, and not only as an excuse to turn on the oven: a towering, citrus-laced cheesecake with blueberry compote; two dozen vegan chocolate cupcakes; carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting; a German chocolate cake (my first ever) stacked high with toasted pecans and coconut and silky ganache; a red velvet birthday cake; as well as various batches of oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies here and there, a small angel food cake, dog biscuits.

But on the whole this summer has seemed like a strange dream — we are drifting in the sea of fog that has, by all appearances, settled in for the long term, marooned on this peninsula bordered by bay and ocean, the temperature hovering at no more than 60 degrees most days. And so I am biding my time for October, and white-gold sun. I am making pesto with the basil from Saturday’s market haul to remind myself of the true season. I am thinking about what fruit to combine into a cobbler (nectarine-peach-blueberry, most likely). I am hoping the Giants make up those games this weekend against San Diego. And I will keep on eating soup, because strange summer or no, it feels like the right thing to do. The sun will come, if I have to will it here with all my strength. In the meantime …

Many Vegetabled Soup, for a cold summer
I made this a few weeks ago on a Friday I was working from home, and the sun, it was obvious, was not going to make an appearance. Woe. I needed something steaming hot and nourishing. So I dredged the vegetable drawer, threw a lot in a pot, and came up with this. Any substitutions will do — just make sure to keep the garlic and potatoes, for heft.

4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 small yellow onion, diced
6 or so shiitake (or button) mushrooms, sliced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
4 small red or new potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 head cauliflower, broken into florets
2 cups spinach
1 cup English peas
1 cup white beans
2 cups vegetable broth
olive oil
salt and pepper

In a soup pot, saute the onion and garlic in about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook a few minutes more. Add the carrot, potatoes, cauliflower, vegetable broth, and 3 more cups of water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cook until vegetables are fairly soft, about 15-20 minutes. Add the spinach and cook until wilted.

Remove from heat and strain out a few spoonfuls of the vegetables and set aside. Puree the soup with a stick blender or in a food processor; don’t make it too smooth. Return to pot, add the reserved vegetables, peas and beans. Reheat until the peas are tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and/or any other herbs you like.

[The other night, May 2009.]

Last week was hot. I drank copious amounts of iced coffee in my parents’ backyard while toasting my toes in the little pool of sunlight allowed to break through the trees (I still marvel at all the trees my dad planted when my parents moved there. A true city boy, I think he saw a bare acre of land, imagined it swept full of green, and planted so many trees it’s now hard to lounge about in the sun anymore), and at the Giants game I didn’t even need the scarf I’d brought. I love when it’s warm like that.

Predictably, this week is chilly and a bit gray. Oh San Francisco, how fickle and temperamental you can be! (Note: I am not complaining; after experiencing the five months of dead heat and humidity that marks every summer in Washington I’m perfectly happy to wear my down vest in late July when the fog blows in.) But it’s spring, and in spring all sorts of strange things can happen, including weather fluctuations, a two-out, two-strikes, walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, and a ferry ride to Marin when it’s clear enough to see all the constellations from the windy deck.

After such excitement it makes sense that when the temperature drops a bit I find myself wanting not much more than to curl up in bed early with a book (or, I’ll admit it, a few past season episodes of the Office, thick wool socks required) and a cup of tea. I’m looking for little excuses to bake (cookies are upcoming for my weekend). I’m working my way through some neglected Gourmet magazines. And I’m making vegetable soup.

Is it OK to mention vegetable soup again after I did so recently? I hesitated sharing this recipe because really it’s a riff on the one I wrote about last month, but it’s so good I just have to. Pretty much it’s the same sort of idea but it’s blended — the vegetables are cooked down in a bit of water and then pureed within an inch of their lives, with the couscous thrown in at the end. I think it’s even better than the original version. It’s become my new favorite thing.

Today is just the littlest bit warmer. The sun has pushed through to burn off the fog and I want nothing more than to lace up my hiking shoes, make a cheese-and-avocado sandwich, and fill up my water bottle to set out for Wildcat along the winding trail. I imagine it’s bare and booming on the beach and perhaps warm; those are my very favorite kind of days out there. Near to sunset pelicans will flap by stoically and if you’re very lucky a seal will swim parallel to shore as you call to it like a dog. It feels so far away from where I sit in my little brick-braced office and I am wishing for it this morning. What is it like there today?

(I do so love it, that beautiful country of salt and rain.)

In this not knowing we surrender to delicious possibility: for example, if I go out to the beach this afternoon will it be as sunny as it is in my neighborhood or will the fog have blown in already? If I run my oven a little hotter will I kill my cupcakes or actually cook them a bit faster? Will a mish-mash of random vegetables cooked soft and then whirled together turn into a soup of small magic or will they be completely inedible? The unknown and unknowable all at once.

So you go to the beach anyway and the fog is in though it was hot at home, and maybe you wish you’d stayed there after all, drinking your ice water on the roof. But the light is suddenly beautiful and soft — all that grey — for taking photographs. Everyone has fled and it’s deserted and wonderful, a small gift. After all the cupcakes are fine, if a little dry, but that’s not the end of the world. And your soup, oh, your soup is a thing of delicious beauty, to be savored and exclaimed over for its simple pleasure.

Life, so short, whisks by in a flash and I know I’m young even if I’m not as young as I was and sometimes I wish I could grab up the things I know I want and have them all now. Oh, I do wish. And yet I know that taking a deep breath and just being in the moment is essential, too.

In the meantime, there are early bedtimes and bowls of vegetable soup and all the time in the world.

Spring Greens Vegetable Soup with Israeli Couscous
Note: This is a very loose recipe, and can be made with pretty much any vegetables you have in the fridge or which you particularly like, and in any quantity. I’d avoid potatoes, though, as it will make the soup take longer to cook and also will make it a lot heavier.

1 head cauliflower, washed and broken up
1 bunch spinach, washed and coarsely chopped
asparagus
green beans

1 carrot, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
5+ cups vegetable broth or water
1 cup cooked pearl couscous
salt + pepper
various herbs if you like

In a large soup pot, put in the water or broth and the vegetables and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

With an immersion blender or in a food processor, puree the soup until thick and well-blended. Return to pot and add more water if you would like a thinner consistency. Add the couscous and salt and pepper; stir well to combine.

Serve hot, perhaps with a splash of soy sauce at the last minute.

[First strawberries of spring, March 2009.]

It’s spring.

I went back to the Fillmore Farmers’ Market this morning after a too-long hiatus (baby, I’ll never cheat on you again, no, I swear) and it kind of blew my mind. I wandered around in a half-daze, dazzled by the new strawberries, asparagus for $2 a bunch, radishes plump and bursting. I went to my favorite guy and could not help telling him “It’s beautiful! All of this!” because, honestly, it was: crinkly bunches of red and green chard, spinach by the handful, celeriac rugged and stained with dirt, fat carrots cuddling up to each other in wide baskets, leeks, green green green in wide swaths across the tables.

“Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot.”

“No, seriously,” I said. “It’s all gorgeous. Wow.”

Then he told me this year he’ll have fingerling potatoes, all kinds, and I felt like I’d dissolve into the rain right there. I love fingerling potatoes and the farm from which I used to buy them doesn’t come to that market anymore; I’ve been sorely missing them for well over a year. Now, however, if I can just hold on ’til the end of May my longing will at last be requited.

My haul: one bunch asparagus, one avocado, one basket strawberries, new potatoes, one cauliflower, small bit of spinach, one bunch Italian chard, one bunch radishes, one carrot, a few broccoli, one dozen organic, fresh eggs. This all cost me about $20 and the kid from whom I bought the asparagus thanked me cheerfully for coming out in the “sprinkles.” I think I loved that kid.

[First asparagus, March 2009.]

Oh, it’s spring.

It’s spring and chilly here in San Francisco and the sky is spitting down rain but I ran six miles anyway and talked to my best girl in London and did some writing and it was a good day. It’s spring and three years ago yesterday I moved back to California and the Obamas are putting a garden in the White House and I celebrated both these momentous occasions today with a bowl of asparagus and spinach soup.

When I read the NY Times story the other night that the first family will plant a garden at the White House for the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II I nearly leaped out of my chair. I’m sure I’m not quite as excited as Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, or those guys who drove a bus around the country advocating for a national garden, but I’m pretty darn excited. I love the impetus behind it, as reported in the Times:

“While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern. … Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs. Virtually the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said with a laugh.”

This is the Edible Schoolyard taken to Washington on a grand scale, and it’s a powerful statement about the change needed in how we view food in the United States. It’s unbelievably fantastic that eating seasonally has been put in the spotlight by one of the most powerful people in the world and I can’t help but to hope it will trickle down to the greater population. Of course it’s impossible for every family to have a garden — I am mentally planning out my own plot for the day I have a bit of land to plant on but unfortunately that looks to be a ways off as I’m firmly entrenched in the city — but the idea of eating local, seasonal produce is the most important one. Even if we can’t grow the stuff ourselves it’s still very possible to take advantage of this concept by visiting your local farmers’ markets or even just making sure to buy locally-grown fruits and vegetables at the grocery store by looking at the labels.

It’s such a simple concept, really, to eat as people did for centuries by the turn of the seasons but along the way somehow it got trampled by the busy-ness of life and we forgot. The garden at the White House is a reminder that it’s important — so important — in terms of the environment and our own health.

In this spirit I came up with a sort of tribute to spring this afternoon — a bowl of vivid greens, punctuated by creamy white beans for a bit of protein. I used the first beautiful bunch of asparagus of the season (I tend to eat a whole lot of them around this time because they’re just so … gorgeous and exactly right), a bit of spinach and not much else. I left out the dairy and flavored my soup only with salt, pepper, and thyme; it was just right for this cold, gray day. March is not exactly going out like a lamb this year but there’s still a week left for it to sort itself out.

And it’s spring! Tomato season suddenly doesn’t feel like an impossibly far-off dream and everything is pretty much smooth sailing from now into the slow slide of summer.

Even if today felt like this

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

- Carl Sandburg, Fog

Asparagus and White Bean Soup

1 bunch asparagus
2 cups spinach
1/2 onion chopped

1 cup white beans drained and rinsed
4 cups water or vegetable broth
salt and pepper
pinch thyme (optional)

Sautee the onion in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the asparagus and water and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and cook for about 5 minutes until the asparagus starts getting tender. Add the spinach and more water if you like, then cover and simmer for five more minutes. Add the salt and pepper and thyme if using. Remove from heat.

With a stick blender or in a food processor blend the soup until smooth. Add the beans and return to the stove to reheat gently.

[Sunday soup, January 2009.]

Sunday afternoon from where I sit on my third-floor perch the church across the street has gone quiet for the day, all the morning hustle and activity stilled down to a few stragglers making their way home. The sun streams through my beautiful tall windows and I make a cup of tea, read an old beloved book about Ireland. It’s a sweet, slow, kind of day — a perfect Sunday afternoon when I’ve inexplicably got the sniffles again (drats, I thought I was over this!) and a back that’s a bit sore and pleasantly aching from the earlier yoga class. It’s a day for clean laundry and a bit of tidying, a few phone calls East and setting my mind to the week ahead.

It’s a day, then, for soup.

Now, first off, let’s talk parsnips. You knew I was going there (didn’t you?). Parsnips are sort of the carrot’s unfamiliar cousin — not ugly, necessarily, but not particularly beautiful either. They’re lumpy, a bit misshapen, but also a lovely pale shade of white that shines in the habitual afternoon gloom of pretty much every place in winter except San Francisco this weekend (sorry, non-West Coast friends! But it’s unusual, I swear.). I feel certain if parsnips were a person they would be a girl in one of Alice Munro’s short stories: often the narrator and quiet observer — the one who rarely hesitates to share her judgment and feelings with the reader but the one who also detects the subtle poignancy and underlying sweetness of life.

For parsnips are rather deceptively sweet. Unexpected, maybe. They seem like they should taste earthier and perhaps more bitter given their appearance; in fact, they’re quite mellow and sweet. Like their bolder, brighter relative they are often best curried or laced with ginger or, if you’re my brother, roasted and well sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil. I would imagine they’d make a nice puree, perhaps even with potatoes, though I haven’t tried it; I could see thin slices roasted even longer to form crisp chips, an sensory illustration of that elusive and longed-for partnership of the sweet and salty.

I had a parsnip kicking around my vegetable drawer for awhile, a holdover from Christmas dinner. Last year on new year’s eve I made a sort of mish-mash soup of parsnips, carrots, and asparagus and it was fine, but I wanted to make something more seasonal (alas, we must still wait for a few more months for asparagus). Then, too, I’ve been watching The Tudors second season on netflix all weekend and was in a fairly British state of mind. Luckily, though I’d gone late to the Saturday market there were still a few decent parsnips at my favorite seller’s stand, so: Parsnip-apple soup it was!

This soup is pretty plain, I’ll be honest with you. But isn’t there something to be said for the plain and simple? It’s a straightforward soup, one that is not particularly gaudy despite a liberal hand with the curry powder (in fact, it’s not gaudy at all, which I find to be one of its charms) but which manages to endear itself nevertheless through the good winter staples of apples, potatoes, and parsnips (if I’d had turnips, too, now ….). The curry and turmeric in which the garlic is sauteed at the very beginning gave just enough kick and lingering aftertaste to save it from being simply a bland puree; I also thought about adding a handful of spinach at the end but decided to keep it clean after all.

So I had a nice bowl for dinner, early because I sunned myself out a bit on the roof and want to aim for an early bedtime. It’s just the tiniest bit sweeter than I usually like — though as we know I am quite the bittersweet rather than the milk chocolate kind of a girl — so I the next time I might add freshly grated ginger and a bit more curry powder (and maybe even a judicious sprinkling of cayenne). Right before settling in to eat I poured in just a slip of cream because I was feeling decadent and, why not? It smoothed out the bite from the curry (but only a little bit), and I savored my bowl with slices of good toasted walnut bread spread with tart, lemony hummus and sprouts.

[Baklava, January 2009.]

And the best thing of all! I found still in my fridge a few pieces of baklava and those, along with a cup of tea, shall round off my Sunday evening.

2009, I think you and I are going to be quite the pals.

Curried Parsnip-Apple Soup

3 parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 apple, peeled and chopped
3 small red potatoes (or one russet), peeled and chopped
5 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
6-8 cups water

salt and pepper

In a large pot, sautee the garlic in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the cumin, turmeric, and curry powder and sautee a few minutes. Add the chopped vegetables and mix well and cook for about a minute. Add the water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer vegetables until tender, about 20 minutes. With an immersion blender or in a food processor, puree the soup until creamy and smooth.

Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

[In the backyard, November 2008.]

Actually, I suppose that should be pre-Thanksgiving lentil soup, because I cooked a big pot of this delicious, vegetable-laden goodness last Tuesday for my office as a little pre-holiday celebration and also to sort of cleanse our palates for the big feast that was to come in just a few days. But I think the Saturday afternoon after the crumbs from the herb rolls, apple pie, corn bread stuffing, and mushroom galette have been swept away would also be the perfect time to slow down and have a bowl of this simple, nourishing soup.

My office is pretty neat in that we have an enormous, light-filled kitchen with a Wolf stove and all the various cooking accouterments you could wish for. I’ve baked pies and other coworkers have made latkes and sometimes we take food up to the roof where we’ll have a barbecue — and this is all at work. I am fortunate enough to have coworkers who not only encourage me to indulge in my penchant for cooking but will eat nearly everything I make willingly and, dare I admit it, fairly happily. We had some mushrooms and carrots leftover from a previous salad-making in our communal fridge and I thought it would be grand to use them up in a soup. I posited making a split-pea but a few, ahem, weren’t so keen on that idea so I’ve filed it away for when I’m back in my own little home kitchen (Sunday night, perhaps, I can finally make myself a nice, stewy, spinachy pot of those bright green legumes). Lentil, I thought. Most everyone likes lentils (and, I must add here that the one coworker who previously professed not to enjoy them very much did actually eat her entire bowl) and they’re cheap and quick to cook.

So in between a few edits I sauteed onion and garlic, dumped in lentils, and crumbled bouillon. Another coworker made corn bread muffins, and I’d brought in a pumpkin pie. People wandered in and out remarking on all the good smells, and around 12:30 we all convened in the kitchen to sit down to hot, brothy bowls of soup, munch on muffins, and cut thin slices of pie.

It was a fine afternoon.

Legumes are the vegetarian’s saving grace — all that protein, all that calcium — and there are so many ways to prepare them quickly and healthfully. Lentils are perhaps one of the fastest to cook, as they require no soaking in advance, and if popped into a pot of soup the cook can wander away to have a cup of tea while they simmer toward silkiness — or, if you’re so inclined, do a bit of work at the same time.

Lentil Soup

2 cups lentils, rinsed
8 cups water
1 cube vegetable bouillon

1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. dill
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 pound spinach
2 carrots, chopped
10 mushrooms, sliced
1 can crushed tomatoes
olive oil

In a large pot over medium heat, sautee the onion and garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and carrots, adding a little water if necessary so they don’t stick, about 5-10 minutes. Add the salt, pepper, and dill and stir. Add the lentils and stir a few times, then add the water. Crumble the bouillon and add. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes or until the lentils begin to soften. Add the spinach, tomatoes, and more salt and pepper to taste. Cook about 10 minutes more.

Serve very hot, with bread.