[San Francisco, October 2011.]

Fall: utterly, truly. The light is fantastic, slanting against San Francisco’s buildings in the late afternoons and curling around the cyprus trees in Alamo Square Park. Last Saturday I picked roma tomatoes and early girls, the very last of the season, from my parents’ neighbor’s garden (Linus the cat keeping us company), and basil, and lemon cucumbers, and so this week my fridge is full of roasted tomato and garlic soup, homemade tomato sauce, and pesto. The other night I baked my ‘make everything better’ cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip) and the house smelled deliciously of caramelizing butter and sugar, with a sweet under note of roasted cauliflower. Season’s change.

I love fall. I love October.

It’s not just because it’s my birth-month. October in California can be heart-breakingly beautiful. It can rain a lot, and some years it does, but if we’re lucky it’s a year like this one when the sun shines almost every day, the sky is that deep October-blue (I swear it’s only this particular shade during this particular month), and the breeze is mild. I remember an October about six years ago when I was spending time in Northern California as a sort of hiatus making the decision about whether I would finally pack up and move from Washington DC. I was training for the Marine Corps Marathon, my first, and spent hours and hours outside in the cool (and not-so) sun running up and down the back roads of Sebastopol and in the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was one of the Octobers we’re experiencing this year: not a drop of rain, the sky that inimitable blue, the days stretching long and full of sun. I don’t miss that time at all, because it was not a particularly good time, but I do miss the empty days a bit. I miss being outside so much.

Still, time has expanded again for me, and I am grateful for it. And so I chew over what to fill it with — running, of course; writing letters, yes; mailing off a few small packages, absolutely; contemplating the upcoming holidays, um, gulp; considering what to cook next, always. Also this week I made a sort of quinoa risotto with (frozen!) peas and chopped red onion and wilted chard and sharp cheddar cheese that I must, I really must, make again. It was delicious. I made it for dinner the day after my birthday — a treat to myself — and then I further treated myself to the cupcake my friend had procured for me from Miette as a belated birthday present:

[Chocolate cupcake from Jerilee, October 2011.]

I need to make a homemade batch soon, as well as more of that risotto ….

And I want to make

cauliflower soup
roasted butternut squash with maple syrup and sea salt (sorry, husband, but I must)
white bean and kale baked in the oven with parmesan
apple and pear ice cream
a tarte tatin
the perfect loaf of bread
vegetable-laden pizza from scratch
homemade ricotta cheese, and yogurt

[Milk and cookies, October 2011.]

But there are other things on my mind this October, when I’m not playing with the Thanksgiving menu (!) and dreaming about more roasted vegetable gratins. Specifically, writing projects and the reality that it’s time to dive back in. I wish I could show you the number of drafts I have in various folders and states of completion; suffice to say there are a lot. A very lot. (OK, maybe it’s better that you can’t see them. I would rather not see them myself.) Some are food-related, some are California-related, some are related to neither one of these things — but all of them are waiting not-so-patiently for me to pick up the thread I dropped during the last six months.

Truth is, I’ve been trying to work on a book proposal for … oh, let’s say it’s been a quite awhile. I wrote one a few years back and it seemed promising and even made its way out into the world but then there was that whole market crash and the publishing world sort of froze and alas it slunk off quietly to be retired as yet another one of my projects that didn’t go anywhere. It took me a bit of time to work up the mental energy to start another one, but I did … and then insecurity got in the way. (How writers are plagued with insecurity. I can barely even call myself a ‘writer’, even, it’s that bad.) What have I got to say, after all? So much has been said already; can my voice bring anything important to the mix? Or am I just contributing to more background noise? I don’t want to do simply to do — I want it to matter, to have meaning (see also why I got into journalism all those years ago).

I could write about vegetarian cooking; I could write about vegan baking; I could write about California and San Francisco and coming home and venturing out and about all the beautiful places I love in this state; I could write about how I cook not because it is this hugely meaningful thing but because it makes me feel good and I like to feed people (yes, please) and there is a peculiar satisfaction that comes from turning ordinary vegetables into something marvelous that transcends description; I could write about the bits and pieces that make up a life, punctuated by the meals created and consumed; I could write stories about living in this particular corner of the world — Northern California, but my Northern California — and the food that is grown and made and cooked here. But … does anyone really want to read any of that? Can you make that into something … more?

Lately I’ve been reading books about the West — the west as it was once, all forest and granite and desert and shore-into-sea, which is the same but different from the way it is now — written by Timothy Egan and Wallace Stegner and Steinbeck (I’ve even contemplated revisiting Norman Maclean, though he wrote not of the coastal west but of rivers and pine trees) because of the spare cleanliness of the prose, the images there. I fell down deep into “Angle of Repose” this summer and wanted never to climb out — I brought it along on our Yosemite trip, lugging the heavy tome with me as is my backpacking tradition — and I can imagine myself writing in a similar vein about San Francisco as it was just before the earthquake (well, I guess I have done this, but that draft also ground to halt due to my insecurity that I have no idea what I’m doing when I try to write fiction). Or the little towns across the bridge and up north; I long to write about them, too, all that history and magic that still exists (just go out to Pierce Point Ranch on the edge of Tomales Bay and tell me you can’t see the children who went to school there, probably slightly sullen they weren’t allowed out into the crashing day to run down to the ocean below but instead had to read about the Revolutionary War). California is my place, as you know, but dare I even hope to fit myself into the legion of writers who have and do write about it so well?

Well, we all know this is not a train of thought to let continue down the track. The ‘muse’ is nonexistent in my opinion, and instead of waiting and wishing for her you must just get going. Hard work and perseverance makes a writing life, and a bit of luck, and a bit of time, and maybe a small amount of talent, too, but for the most part you just have to work work work. And push aside the lingering feelings of self-doubt that your idea is tired and that even if you had a good one you couldn’t explore it fully. That may be the most difficult bit of all.

(I am putting this here to remind myself, in the sunshine of late October 2011, that the only way to get over oneself is to keep going.)

Spring is often touted as the season of renewal and beginning, when the earth stirs from its long sleep and bursts into bloom and brush. But for me, despite the time change, the shorter days, the cooler temperatures that make me wistful for summer, fall has always been my time to start things. I may not be settling my pack onto my shoulders and lacing up my boots before planting my feet firmly on the John Muir Trail to hike its entirety but perhaps I can do it metaphorically, this beautiful October. I can sharpen the proverbial pencil, square my shoulders, take a deep breath, look ahead, set off. I can take up the work I’ve let drift, and begin again.

And so I will.

[Inverness, September 2011.]

Fall is settling in though the calendar promises a few weeks more of summer — but look, the apples hang fat and heavy and ripe, leaves are turning brittle and drifting across streets and deserted paths in the Seashore alike, blackberries are coming into their waning days (though there are a few left, lingering until October perhaps), tomatoes silently beg to be used now immediately in great pots of sauce seasoned with freshly-picked bay leaves and the last of the basil, in soups with the last of the season’s oregano, or in feta-infused salads, the sun is making more of a regular — if late-breaking — appearance. In these in-between days I am drinking cups and cups of green tea, eating bowls of dried cranberry-studded oatmeal, and crunching on handfuls of salty pistachio nuts as snacks. I am wistful, wishful, pointing my thoughts ahead to mid-October when I shall have all the free time in the world I could ever wish for — yet at the same time I’m wishing time could s-l-o-w down.

Oh. Autumn. The cool breeze, the bluest sky, the ruffled bay subsiding back into its placid, Indian Summer shimmer. I have packed up the camping gear but a little red tin canister of fuel for the stove is still kicking around my bedroom because I am too busy lazy to haul the backpack down and stow it neatly away — or maybe it’s just that I am in full acceptance that summer is practically over and I don’t want to be reminded too much that it’s so. Or maybe I’m just lazy.

Not too lazy to cook, though, and thank goodness. No matter how hectic life can get, and no matter how few minutes I may have, there is always time for the kitchen. Even if I’m producing the usual pots of quinoa with assorted veg, or quesadillas with home made (and not by me) tortillas, or vegan chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and not being particularly adventurous, the kitchen — in all seasons, though particularly during fall for some reason, could it be all the glorious produce? — is my place to be.

[Sebastopol, September 2011.]

In the midst of the blackberry picking-and-jamming week, I cooked a lot. I split my time between Marin and Sonoma Counties, spending a good portion of that time outdoors madly gathering berries and swimming in Ives Pool (I’ve finally conquered the one-and-a-half mile, hallelujah), as well as behind the stove. There were sweets — a Guinness chocolate cake for one, as well as a strawberries and cream-laden Victoria sponge, a batch of chocolate cupcakes, a vegan mixed-fruit crumble — and roasted cauliflower, big salads and corn on the cob. And there were also roasted chickens. Several of them, in fact, which has this vegetarian cringing slightly at the moral implications (though they were all raised locally, and supposedly humanely) though much more confident — and less squeamish — about preparing them than she used to be.

I am, and probably always will be, strictly vegetarian. I don’t miss meat, never crave it, disdain seafood (always have), and even the supposed ‘vegetarian downfall’ — i.e. bacon — doesn’t tempt me in the least. But I do feel as though I somewhat limit myself as a cook — and also I am marrying someone who, while not a meat-fiend, certainly enjoys it — by infrequently cooking meat. So I’ve been dipping in a proverbial toe into the meat-cooking waters, and not the smallest one either. I do try always to buy the animal of choice from a reputable source (by which I mean employs the words ‘free-range,’ ‘grass-fed,’ ‘local,’ ‘sustainably raised,’ etc.) which soothes my conscience a bit and also it’s important to me. Mostly I’ll do wild-caught fish either baked or sauteed, which is pretty easy and makes everyone happy. I’ve yet to purchase and/or cook a steak or other red meat — and that’s something, strangely, I’m itching to do and may attempt this weekend after a long-awaited visit to my farmers’ market. But mainly, lately, I’ve been roasting chicken.

What is it about roast chicken that feels homey, comfortable? Well, I don’t really known except for it does. And it’s easy to make — rub with olive oil (or butter) and salt and pepper and a variety of fresh or dried herbs, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the top (and put the other half inside, along with an onion), slip some sliced heirloom tomatoes into the roasting pan and add a decent glug of white wine, and stick in the oven for an hour or so while you make the rest of the meal. It is a lovely thing to make for fall, too, because it’s a good excuse to turn on the oven to warm up the house a bit as the temperature starts to cool down and is simple enough so you don’t have to think about it much; that means of course that you can turn your attention to your vegetable side dishes. This is the time to wallow in late-season corn, summer squash, rainbow chard, beets. You know what I’m talking about.

I wanted to share my new fail-safe for roast chicken. I do think most cooks have their standard roasted chicken recipe, and even though I’m a die-hard (it’s true) vegetarian I’m glad to finally have solidified mine. I’ve done chickens the Zuni Cafe way, which turn out tremendously, but that recipe involves a bit more work (you must dry-brine the chicken for a day or two before you plan to cook it, and need an oven that can perform well on a high-heat setting — ahem, not my crappy little apartment oven). Zuni’s isn’t the recipe you’d make on a Wednesday night after a long day when you’d like to use that hour the chicken is roasting to throw together a salad and bake a few potatoes and then enjoy a glass of wine during the 20 minutes you have left before you eat dinner. But mine — mine is.

I made this a few weeks ago and served it with a large pot of well-buttered mashed potatoes, still-snapping green beans and zucchini, roasted cauliflower, and a big salad. I made it again (mom’s request) a few nights later and served it with a bowl of barely wilted spinach, chopped red onion, and toasted pine nuts, roasted red and baby potatoes, and numerous cobs of corn. (I ate slabs of baked tofu, in case you were wondering.) It’s not on the agenda any time soon but it could be; it’s nearly fall, after all, and I feel like cooking comfort food. This is, for sure, comforting in both the act of making it and the way it tastes.

If you’re feeling extra ambitious — or have a surfeit of plums — while your chicken’s roasting, consider baking this brown butter blueberry plum bread I wrote about for the Point Reyes Light (to help out a friend of a friend, and also for fun). It’s delicious for breakfast, afternoon snack, or post-dinner, and is a perfect complement to fall’s shifting light and cooling breeze.

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[On the table, June 2011.]

I cooked a lot during the weekend. Woke up to pouring rain (pouring rain! In June!) Saturday morning and decided not to go to my yoga class but couldn’t really sleep in anyway. I dozed and listened to the water bang down in sheets on the windows, my old apartment virtually creaking and swaying in the storm. I often think it’s quite ship-like, and never so much so as when in the midst of a deluge of rain. We read in the soft gloom of 8a and had tea and went to the farmers market, where the guy who sells the eggs sadly was not there but there were cherries! in gorgeous handfuls, and baby spinach with dirt still clinging to its roots, and beets, and tiny carrots, and no asparagus.

I recently wrote a story for NPR, tbd publication but probably this coming Wednesday, which caused the flurry of kitchen activity and photographic effort. The bonus of doing a piece for Kitchen Window is that you are fed for days on leftovers; the downside is that you may have to cook four or five dishes in a day. Well — I do at least. Perhaps the more time-conscious thing to do is to spread it out over a few days … but then I do like the natural light … and I am not home during the day very often … and it sort of works for me to get all done in a day or two in a bit of a mad rush rather than spreading it out. I come up with the recipes, I fine-tune, I gather the ingredients, I cook, and then I take (many) photographs. It’s work I love and am always very happy to do; I wish I could do it more — every day even, or at least once a week.

[Carrots, pickling, June 2011.]

But cooking a lot at one stretch can create adverse effects. Sometimes I am energized by it all, galvanized to keep on going (and going) even if I’m sick to the teeth of washing all the dishes the activity engenders. I’m plotting dinner parties. I’m planning pick-nicks (well, if the darn sun would ever make an appearance). I’m wistfully coveting strange spices at the little grocery store up the street. I’m wondering how I can finagle my way into cooking Father’s Day dinner.

And then other times I can’t stand to cook again for a little while. The thought of whipping, stirring, sifting … it’s all too much. Inspiration has fled, the kitchen is too shiny and bare to be mussed up again, I like the dish towels to remain in their clean piles. Unfortunately this happened just in time for dinner on Saturday night, after the photographs had been edited and safely uploaded for publication. Fortunately, though, there were those fruits of my earlier labors in the form of roasted red and sweet potatoes, a delicate baby lettuce salad with thinly sliced radishes and a lemony vinaigrette, and my personal pièce de résistance — an ethereal and supremely fluffy soufflé that was the best soufflé I’ve ever made, hands down.

That night we feasted — and by ‘feasted’ I mean we ate it all, every single bit. An entire head of lettuce was in the salad! Not a scrap of soufflé was left! It was devoured in about 10 minutes flat, washed down (by me) with an icy cold glass of orange juice that hit all the right spots, particularly, I hope, the one that has not quite fully kicked this lingering cold. It was a sort of breakfast for dinner, but it suited me just fine with the rain still drizzling morosely down outside and some HBO brain candy on the television. It fortified me, I well know, for the slightly enormous run I pushed through on Sunday — but I will save that for another time.

Now it’s Monday afternoon with the dishes washed, the cooking inclination creeping back, the farmers markets shining again with their usual allure, and I am hankering after that soufflé. I want a reprise. I’m analyzing it from a few days out and I stand by my statement: it was the best soufflé that has ever come out of my wee kitchen. Of course it wasn’t my first, but none before it have been quite so addictive. I will save the photos and recipes for Wednesday but I wonder … was it the weather? A trick of fate? The exuberant addition of Parmesan? Spring eggs? June’s gift to the unwitting cook? A reminder to keep on cooking, even when burnout creeps around the edges?

I think I shall have to make another, post haste, to find out.

[Tuesday night, San Francisco, April 2011.]

Friday, and I am soon to go north, out of the city. A blowy day, clear and blue and chilly, though the fog is just starting to come in. Marvelous things loom on the horizon: sleeping in a quiet house, a dog, coffee at Toby’s (Coffee! at Toby’s!), the possible assembly of banana bread, a run in the cool sun. Even farther off on the horizon are secret (and delectable!) baking plans, trips to take, baseball games to watch, households to combine. It all comes so fast and so slow.

I wrote a story for NPR’s Kitchen Window about artichokes — here, if you’re so inclined to read — which I have tried very hard to learn to love (or at least like). I like them a bit more than I did (but mostly in cheesy spinach dips, or on pizza, or in a soup) though I’m still working my way up to them. Another vegetable you don’t like? my brother mocks me from Maine. Still — there’s only a dreaded one: Eggplant. I don’t love every single vegetable of course, but I do like most (more to learn to like more include mustard greens, kale, spaghetti squash, okra); I will never like eggplant again (probably) after a disastrous run-in in college with awful, awful cafeteria eggplant parm (as a side note, my betrothed also detests eggplant which I take as another sign we’re Meant To Be) that’s put me off to it for the foreseeable future.

But I wonder — how long must we try to like things when we just don’t? I mean, how long must I keep on giving artichokes (or okra) another chance? For example: peas. For most of my life whenever I ate them I choked them down reluctantly but didn’t much enjoy the experience. As I got older I stopped eating them altogether, because when you’re a ‘grown up’ you allowed to do whatever you want, or at least be in more control of what goes on your plate. So right: one summer afternoon I sat down to an early dinner and there on the table was a dish of bright green peas and they looked very pretty, being so bright and green, that I spooned some onto my plate and salted them just a little and why, they were quite fine. Now I’m tap-tapping my fingers in impatience ’til they come back into the market; fresh peas are one of my spring delights.

Could that happen, too, with artichokes? With kohlrabi? With — gulp — eggplant?

I guess I’m posing these questions to myself today, a gusty Friday because I wonder just how open I truly am to the new experience. I want to be, sure. But is it worth subjecting myself to eggplant again, when I loathe it so? I suppose I won’t know unless I try. Baba ganush it is, then!

In the meantime: To get through the rest of this blowy day that’s getting chiller by the quarter-hour, to eat a handful of pistachio nuts, to buy rye bread at Acme, to take the ferry north looking solidly forward. To go.

[Cranberry 'jellies', December 2010.]

I’m a big fan of homemade gifts. BIG fan (this is lucky for me, because I’ve heard some elves in Maine have been busily working away on special treats). For someone to take the time to make me something with his or her own hands — note: this also applies to things like dinner, preferably some sort of delicious vegetable soup or vegetarian soft tacos laden with from-scratch guacamole. Ahem. — means the world to me. If I haven’t mentioned before, it’s these things that make me happiest: a container of cookies sent across the country; a birthday cake by an inexperienced baker (it turned out beautifully); the gorgeous wooden cutting boards my brother made for me a few years ago. I love a pretty new shirt, too, of course, but there’s something about the homemade … Am I right?

So it should come as no surprise that I’m deep in the process of organizing my own offerings. Already I’ve made: Meyer lemon butter cookies, upside-down cranberry cake, chocolate truffles, sesame seed cookies, many, many batches of candy — these were both for my NPR Kitchen Window piece about homemade candy (story and a plethora of recipes here) and for gifts. My grandma received a few of the cranberry ‘jellies’ (you cook cranberries and pears together along with a lot of sugar and some pectin, and somehow it miraculously comes together to make sweet, fruit-infused little candies … oh, but you can read all about that here), the coffee-pistachio toffee has been distributed near and far (and I’m making another batch later today), along with my usual handmade holiday cards. I like to say it’s a sickness, this baking/candy-making/DIY thing, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh, it’s so soon. SO soon. I really can’t wait.

But before I wrap up the last plate of cookies and present it to my beloveds on the morning of the 25th, I have something very important to do: make cocoa-dusted, sea salted, roasted hazelnuts. I’ve been holding on to this recipe for over a year, if you can believe it, and there’s really no good reason for it because it’s a) incredible b) easy c) VERY GOOD d) perfect for holiday gifts. It comes via Joy the Baker and it came to me because here in San Francisco there’s a fancy chocolatier called Recchiuti who makes all sorts of delectables such as s’mores, interesting little truffles and caramels (some with lavender, even), chocolate sauces, and these to-die-for cocoa-dusted almonds that sparkle with crisp salt and are absolutely addictive. I’ve sent them to New England, brought them home to Sonoma County, and even mailed them away over-the-sea if that gives you any indication of how good they are. I do not fool around with my packages; each one is carefully thought-out, tailored specifically to its recipient, and all components thoroughly tested before it slips into the mail box.

So basically I was (nearly) bankrupting myself by buying and distributing these addictive roasted nuts and I realized I needed to rein it in a bit. Fortunately, I realized this right around the holidays last year which meant I certainly had to make them myself, or at least a version of them. So I did. I used hazelnuts, because my mom loves hazelnuts (as do I), and just regular old cocoa powder (so perhaps they were not quite as exotic as Recchiuti’s — no matter), but yeah: they turned out pretty great, salty-sweet and with a perfect crunch. I’m sorry I’ve kept them to myself for so long (it’s just that I sort of forgot once the flurry of December was over); so, in the spirit of the season, here is my recipe, adapted to fit my own particular wonts, though of course you could do almonds instead, or a mixture, or or or. Whatever you do, I think these will absolutely satisfy. They’re on schedule to be made next week, and if I had more time today (and/or more oven space) I’d make them now, immediately, no kidding.

Next week: lemon cream pie, upside-down cranberry cake, more cookies, and why my PG&E bill will be higher this month than for any other during the year.

Salted, Cocao-ed, and Roasted Hazelnuts, adapted from Joy the Baker

3 cups hazelnuts
8 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
2 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place a rack in the center. Spread nuts out on a half sheet pan (17x12x1-inch). Toast nuts for 10 minutes. Remove from the sheet pan and set aside. Note: If your hazelnuts still have skins, the may loosen and begin to peel. You may go through the nuts with your hands and loosen and remove any peels that might be ready to come off if you like.

Scatter the butter pieces over sheet pan and place in the oven to melt. This should only take a few minutes. Remove the pan as soon as the butter is melted.

With a mixer, beat the egg whites until they just start to hold their shape, then gradually add the sugar and continue to whisk on medium-high for two minutes. The mixture will be sticky and shiny, but may be a bit thinner than meringue.

Sift the cocoa over the top of the beaten eggs and fold in. Pour the chocolate mixture over the toasted nuts and fold in.

Spoon the coated nuts on top of the butter on the baking sheep. Spread out into an even layer.

Bake nuts for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and quickly stir a bit. Return to the oven for 10 minutes, remove and stir once again. The meringue will look like it’s drying out a bit. Add the salt. Sprinkle it on top of the meringue and nuts. Return to the oven for a final 10 minutes, remove and give it one final stir, breaking the nuts up a bit as you stir them.

When done, the butter should be absorbed and the nuts and coating crisp. Let cool completely before handling. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

[Dinner, quickly, November 2010.]

I had planned to do a post today about vegetarian main dishes appropriate for the holiday table, but all that has fallen by the wayside because on Saturday night I had a dinner party, and at that dinner party I served something I must tell you about right now immediately because it was simply so good. Actually, more like good x 100. If you can imagine.

It comes by way of the reliable smitten kitchen: a gratin of thinly sliced sweet potatoes and wilted greens baked with a healthy heaping of Gruyere cheese until bubbly and hot. I do love a gratin — who wouldn’t, with all that cheese? — though I haven’t made one in ages; for some reason when it came time to prepare the vegetarian, gluten-free option (I also roasted my second Zuni chicken, to great success and few leftovers) my mind fixed on the idea of sweet potatoes, preferably in a bath of milk and cream, and wouldn’t give it up.

I had initially thought about making sweet potato soup (instead, I decided to save it for Thanksgiving) and a spinach souffle to cozy up with the chicken. Maybe a big pile of those gorgeous green beans at the Fillmore market and some sort of green salad. But the more I thought about it the more nervous I got about basing a souffle on a flour-less roux (I’m not yet well-versed in substitutions) and started mentally casting around for other options. She’d linked to a post about the gratin in a recent piece and I kept coming back to the idea — but then I’d have to switch up the soup plan (can’t have too much of the same flavor). Back-and-forth I went (I mentioned I’m slightly obsessed with cooking lately?) until finally I accepted my fate and bought two pounds of beautifully grubby sweet potatoes, loads of spinach, and crossed fingers my ersatz roux job would work out.

It did.

This recipe is delicious. I know that’s a terribly overused word in food writing but — we all have different concepts of what constitutes ‘delicious’ and I think no matter your interpretation this dish will exceed all expectations. Is it the Gruyere? The use of seasonal vegetables? The way the ingredients bind together in a sort of dreamy, fall-inspired harmony that would transition nicely into winter as well, easing us into this most hectic time of the year? Whatever — if I hadn’t already lined up my vegetarian option for Thanksgiving this year I’d be making this, despite doing so just a few days ago. I’d like a piece of it right now, actually. Oh! I’ve just remembered I have one portion left for my dinner tonight! Yet another thing for which to be thankful.

I’ve made some adaptions to the original recipe — swapped spinach for chard, used milk instead of cream and actually added a bit more — but the basic principle remains: Wilted spinach. Sauteed onions. Thinly-sliced sweet potatoes. Lots of salty, gooey, melted swiss cheese. Happiness on a plate — for vegetarians and meat eaters, both.

The rest of my menu came together just fine, as often happens once you nail down a few important dishes. I cooked for a good part of the day: Sweet potato dip; cauliflower-leek soup; the sweet potato-spinach gratin; bread salad a la Zuni; apple-carrot-fennel-slaw; salted, rosemary-ed, and roasted chicken with potatoes and tomatoes; green beans and shiitake mushrooms and shallots; chocolate cream pie. I didn’t take many photos (see: blurry dinner table above); it was one of those nights when being in the moment took precedence (not to mention it gets so dark so early these days.) The memories will suffice.

So: Thanksgiving. I’m ready. I hope you are, too. If you’re looking for a few more ideas, here are some resources to help prepare your own vegetarian additions to the Thanksgiving feast:

My recent NPR Kitchen Window story, heavy on the vegetables, lighter on fat: Thanksgiving Dinner with a Lighter Touch

My post last year: Thanksgiving Sans the Bird

The vegetarian Thanksgiving story I wrote for NPR, November 2008: A Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Vegetarian Thanksgiving in the New York Times: via the Well blog

The SF Chronicle’s vegetarian Thanksgiving round-up: with lots of photos

And for fun, a Thanksgiving piece I wrote for my erstwhile column, “Common Walls,” in the San Francisco Chronicle: A small apartment Thanksgiving with all the fixin’s

But seriously — make this gratin.

* A vegetarian Thanksgiving menu follows the recipe, rather lighter on the cheese, but still very delicious.

Sweet Potato and Spinach Gratin, adapted from smittenkitchen.com

This is listed as serving 12, but the six of us made fairly short work of it, with just a bit leftover. I told you it is good.

Serves 12

1/4 cup (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 pounds spinach, stems removed
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
2 cups whole milk
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons flour
2 pounds medium red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams), peeled and cut into 1/8-inch thick rounds
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried thyme
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/4 cups (about 5 ounces) coarsely grated Gruyére cheese

Prep greens: Cook onion in 2 tablespoons butter in a wide 8-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring, until softened. Add the spinach, pinch of nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring, until wilted. Transfer greens to a colander to drain well and press out liquid with back of a large spoon.

Make sauce: Combine milk and garlic in small saucepan; bring to simmer; keep warm. Melt two tablespoons butter in a medium heavy saucepan over moderate heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, whisking, one minute, then slowly whisk in warm cream/milk and boil, whisking, one minute. Season sauce with salt and pepper.

Assemble gratin: Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter deep 9×13 baking dish. Spread half of sweet potatoes in the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, a quarter of the herbs and a 1/4 cup of the cheese. Distribute half of the greens mixture over the cheese, then sprinkle salt, pepper, a quarter of the herbs and 1/4 cup of the cheese over it. Pour half of bechamel sauce over the first two layers then continue with the remaining sweet potatoes, more salt, pepper, herbs and cheese and then the remaining greens, salt, pepper and herbs. Pour the remaining sauce over the top of the gratin, pressing the vegetables slightly to ensure that they are as submerged as possible. Sprinkle with the last 1/4 cup of cheese.

Note: My sauce was a bit less than what I expected, possibly because I used cornmeal instead of flour. I added an additional 1/2 cup or so of milk after I’d assembled the vegetables to make sure there was enough liquid.

Bake gratin for about 1 hour until golden and bubbly, and most of the liquid is absorbed. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Note: I baked this in the morning and then let sit for most of the day to free up the oven. While the chicken rested, I reheated for about 10 minutes. It was perfect.

Vegetarian Thanksgiving –> One whole meal

Use those quintessential fall vegetables — butternut squash or a pumpkin — here. I’ve chosen to highlight squash as the centerpiece of the vegetarian table because — while I do love a nice polenta-stuffed acorn squash with homemade sundried tomato pesto — I like to keep things simple and if not easy, then easier. And this is pretty darn easy.

1 large butternut squash or pumpkin, halved with seeds removed
olive oil

1. Oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a baking sheet, and then lightly oil the cut halves of the squash. Place cut-side down and bake for about a 1/2 hour, or until soft (check occasionally to make sure it’s not too soft).

2. Remove from oven and put, cut-side up, in a baking dish. Serves 6.

With tomato-bean “salsa”

1 can black beans, or 1.5 cups prepared dried beans
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped, or one small can crushed tomatoes
1 bay leaf
dried basil or oregano
olive oil

1. Sautee the onion and garlic in olive oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, about 5 minutes. Add the bay leaf and herbs, and cook about a minute more. Add the tomatoes and reduce heat to low. Simmer a few minutes to let the flavors blend, then add the beans. Stir to combine and simmer on low about 5-10 minutes, adding a little water or red wine if you have some open (and I hope you do).

2. Pour the tomatoes and beans over the squash and return to the oven to keep warm.

With polenta and pesto

1 cup polenta
3 cups vegetable broth or water
1/2 cup pesto

1. Bring the water or broth to a boil a heavy saucepan. Slowly add the polenta, whisking to combine, then reduce heat to low. Keep on low for about 10 minutes, stirring often.

2. Stir in the pesto (add more if you like). Fill the butternut squash halves with the polenta, and serve immediately. (If not serving immediately, cover with foil and return to oven to warm. You can definitely make this earlier in the day and gently reheat before sitting down to dinner.)

With wild rice and mushrooms

2 cups wild rice
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
10 mushroom (shiitake or crimini work well here)
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup white wine
olive oil

1. Put the broth and a dash of olive oil in a heavy saucepan. Add rice and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until water is absorbed.

2. Meanwhile, sautee the onion and garlic over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the bay leaf and salt and pepper to taste and cook a few minutes more. Add the mushrooms and cook a few minutes until beginning to soften. Add the wine and cook until mushrooms are soft.

3. Remove bay leaf. Add the mushrooms and onions to the rice and stir well to combine. Pour the rice over the squash and serve immediately. (Again, if making in advance, cover with foil to make sure the rice doesn’t dry out if you put in the oven for a bit.)

Green beans with zucchini squash and fresh corn

1 1/2 pounds green beans
4 small zuchini
fresh corn from two ears
1/4 cup fresh basil
olive oil

1. Wash and slice the zucchini into thin circles, then halve. Wash and trim the green beans, and cut into third. Cut the corn off the cob and reserve, and wash and coarsely chop the basil.

2. In a large saute pan, heat as much olive oil as you’d like (I start with about 2 Tb. and add more as needed). Add the squash, and keep heat on medium high, stirring frequently to make sure it doesn’t burn. Reduce heat to low as the squash softens, adding a little more oil or water if necessary, then add the green beans. Cook for a few minutes, then add the corn and the basil and stir to combine.

3. Cook over low heat for about 5 minutes to let the flavors blend, and for the vegetables to reach desired consistency (I like mine pretty soft, but it’s all personal). Season with a little salt and pepper, and serve.

Serves 6.

Roasted fingerling potatoes

If you can’t get fingerlings, small yellow or red potatoes, quartered, will also work.

25 fingerling potatoes, or 15 small red potatoes (or a mix of yellow and red)
5 cloves garlic
olive oil
salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Wash the potatoes, scrubbing well (do not peel). In a large baking dish, spread out the potatoes. Press the garlic, and add to the dish along with enough olive oil to coat. Add a sprinkling of salt.

2. Swirl the potatoes, garlic, oil and salt around with your hands, turning the potatoes as necessary to coat well. Put in the oven and bake about 45 minutes, until pierced with a fork.

Serves 6.

Baby spinach salad with walnuts, clementine, and lemon

Salad on the Thanksgiving = essential. I need raw vegetables to go along with all the delicious (but heavy) traditional dishes.

Baby spinach (I am deliberately leaving off an amount here because how much you’ll use depends on how many people you’re feeding)
2 clementines, peeled and seperated (or one small can mandarin oranges)
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1. Toss the spinach with the fruit and walnut to well combine.

For the vinaigrette:

1 Tb. lemon juice
1 tsp. finely chopped lemon zest
1 shallot, finely diced
salt and pepper
5 Tb. olive oil

1. Combine the lemon juice, zest, 1/4 tsp. salt and shallots in a small bowl. Let stand 15 minutes.

2. Whisk in oil and season with pepper to taste. Taste, then correct the balance, adding more oil if necessary.

3. Pour dressing over salad and toss well to coat.

[Spetses from the boat, August 2007.]

My coworker just gave me the August issue of Saveur, which is the Greece issue, and just a quick glance-through has me sighing, and exclaiming over the photos (oh, it is so real, so truly Greece), and wistful for that place — and also wanting to cook. Soon, soon.

For me, everything began with Greece in both the real and literary sense. It was the place from where my grandfather came, providing me with my name and my very existence. It was also the first country I visited outside of the United States. And it was the place that informed my childish imaginings –- a country of golden light and mist over the hills, strangely resembling the California landscape to which I was accustomed though I wouldn’t know how similar they are until later when I finally visited.

Hellas, agapi-mou, I’ll whisper into the stillness some nights before I fall asleep. Sweet dusty country of battered boats and ferries filled the brim with cars and mykanakis roaring back onto to land at the docks. Younger, I always pictured the Mediterranean as perfectly clear with a deep, true blue farther out and indeed it’s mostly thus though I have seen it also muddy and wild after a storm.

I’ve only gone to Greece in the summers: once in July and twice more in August. When my brother lived there for a year he’d call me from a pay phone during his first few weeks on the island where he’d landed up. February, and I could hear the rain in the background because it was so quiet then, all the tourists safely at home in Athens for the winter. At first he had a tiny apartment he had to scour out upon move-in with not much heat, and I tried to imagine him from my bigger apartment in San Francisco, so far away.

“It’s cold here,” he told me once and we were silent a little, letting the rush of the international phone line fill up the space between the words. I could see the dark, wet streets, the few cafes that were open spilling their light out onto the stone sea-wall, the horses that usually crowded the narrow alleyways shut up for the season.

Greece in the summer is hot and messy. Dogs linger around the train stations and the souvlaki sold down by Piraeus is pretty much the worst souvlaki you’ll eat when you’re there (the frappes, however, are icy cold and delicious). It’s dirty and sometimes it’s hard to breath through the smog and heat. And yet in Athens and Thessaloniki almost all the apartments have balconies and on almost all of the balconies there are plants: bright flowers spilling over the sides, herbs, strange palm-like shrubs with fronds that lift in the occasional, longed-for breeze.

I don’t know what it’s like in the winter -– my brother tells me on the smaller islands it’s quiet and people save up their summer earnings because there is not much work in the off-season, or else they go to Athens –- but I promise myself I’ll go sometime. In the cities at least the bakeries will surely still be open and if I can’t swim I can prowl the ruins of the Acropolis in the rain. I would like to see Athens just once not pressed down with the blasting white heat of summer.

[Spetses, harbor, August 2007.]

As a child I was fascinated with Greece from the moment I learned my grandfather was born there. Though I never got to have him in any real way, he left me my first name (he was “Nicholas” and so I was “Nicole” — or so I like to think it went this way) and my last (originally it was “Spyridakhs” though it was changed, probably when he came through Ellis Island, to “Spiridakis”), a wish to find my lost relatives that is yet unfulfilled, a wicked ability to acquire a good tan, and an affinity for cooking.

Then, I wanted to learn everything. I wanted to breathe Greece. I let audio tapes of the ancient myths lull me to sleep at night and proudly identified with my ancestral land when my skin turned ever browner in the summer. I longed to go, even though I couldn’t speak the language other than a timid “yassou” and “please, thank-you, what-time-is-it.” Greece was my destiny; I knew this before I set my feet onto its dusty roads for the first time.

Rather predictably the first time I went there I found the reality did not live up to the glossy fantasy –- how could it? I had swooned over the country for so long it had grown in my mind into a mythical place of sheep and ships, sweet milk flowing like the nectar the gods and goddesses drank on Mt. Olympus, buildings standing white and sharp against a smear of blue sea. Nevermind I couldn’t speak the language (or read it, for that matter) — I knew it was my place.

[Mt. Olympus, photo by Simo, August 2005.]

It took me three tries to love it. The first time I went I was just 21, traveling with my college boyfriend, and neither of us could speak the language. It was my first transatlantic flight and I sat up through the night wide-awake and clenched with anxiety until I caught the first bright glimpse of the Mediterranean. The man next to me told me how to properly pronounce Aegena (with the hard ‘g’; we’d always thought it was with a soft one), where my grandfather had grown up, and wished us luck.

Athens was brutally hot. The airport was filled with jostling travelers and cigarette smoke; few signs were in English. People rushed around frenetically. I dug my backpack out of the heap of bags that made up baggage claim –- in those pre-Olympics times things were somewhat … disorganized (it’s much better now). Finally we caught a bus into the city, me drooping with heat and fatigue and wanting only to sleep. Everything felt strange, incredibly foreign, and I wondered what I was doing there.

The second time was better. I met my best friend –- a Greek-American -– in Thessaloniki and traveled with him even further north to his family’s village in the mountains. The first night there we drank icy cold retsina and ate tzatziki thick with garlic and cucumbers, onion ‘pita,’ and good, fresh bread. We climbed high through the woods to drink from a mountain spring and ate cold cucumbers rubbed in salt. We visited a matriarch of the village who offered us corn roasted on a wood-burning stove and potatoes dipped in sugar, all of which she’d grown in her sprawling garden. I felt a little bit like I belonged.

But the third time I went to Greece something shifted into place. Maybe it was because I was visiting my brother on one of the beautiful islands –- Spetses –- or because I’d been there before and finally knew a little bit of what to expect. Whatever the reason, that summer I slipped under its skin and it under mine, inexorable and finite. I come to my love of the place now with a more clear-eyed love that sees it both for what it is and what it could be.

[Spetses, harbor, August 2007.]

The last time I went to Greece was over three years ago now and some days it feels so very far away. All I really did was sleep and eat and swim and eat and swim and swim and swim and read on the little rocky beach that was my brother’s favorite. I probably have never been so tan in my entire life and I never got sunburned. We ate languid meals during his lunch hour and then I was dispatched back to the beach for my afternoon. The day I left I felt like planting my feet on the dock and wailing; it was impossible to imagine coming back to the states.

One day we road bikes to the supposed best restaurant on the island (and it was very good) up the hills and past the horses in the blazing sun. The last bit was down a dirt path and as soon as we got the beach we threw the bikes down and jumped in the water to wash away all the dust and sweat. We drank beer with dinner and rode back through the deserted roads to town, me stopping every so often to take pictures of the bay and the boats anchored there. It was so quiet I could hear the wind rushing through the dry grass. A tanker ship sailed serenely in at dusk

Every day I drank cups and cups of coffee and frappes and slept dreamlessly and deeply at night even so. I’d have coffee first thing in the still, heavy mornings right when I woke up, with the milk heated in one of those little Greek coffee pot-tins on the hot plate. Then I’d walk through the narrow, hot streets to the kafenio near the boat yard where my brother worked to meet him for a mid-morning frappé (mine I liked metrios, and with a little milk) or met his girlfriend Emily at a restaurant above the dock to watch the ferry come in. We cooked enormous meals at my apartment –- roasted chicken, vegetables baked in the little convection oven, drizzled honey over nectarines and thick yogurt –- and sat outside drinking dry white wine.

For a long time previous, though, I eschewed the tastes of Greece. An early aversion to eggplant meant moussakka, that heavy, baked casserole full of eggplant and cheese, was out. Olives for a long time I found to be too bitter, maybe because I was mostly only familiar with the tinned kind strewn across pizza and I didn’t like those. I turned my nose up at feta for years –- it was too salty, too crumbly, too unfamiliar. I may have draped myself in sheets at Halloween pretending I was Artemis, the goddess of hunting and nature, or wished for a swim in the Mediterranean every time I shivered through another Northern California summer along the coast (the Pacific Ocean, of course, being cold in all seasons), but I missed out on the really good stuff: the food.

Fortunately I grew up a bit and my taste buds developed. Perhaps it was just that I finally forced myself to expand my palate. After all, how could I be a true Greek if I didn’t eat the things so indicative to that dusty, wind-blown place? As a vegetarian I couldn’t eat fish or meat -– a shame, my brother would later tell me, shaking his head in regret that I’d miss out on lamb slow-roasted outside during a spring afternoon and liberally flavored with rosemary, garlic, and olive oil –- but there still were so many other things to snatch up and devour.

Olives, especially when perched alongside a cold glass of retsina and a dish of pistachio nuts, are perfect during a lazy afternoon in the shade (or anytime, really). They’ve become one of my staples when I serve appetizers and it’s rare I’ll have a dinner party without placing small bowls for olives and pits within easy reach of my guests. While it’s unfortunately true I still can’t stand eggplant, I’ve fallen hard and fast for fried zucchini ‘coins,’ particularly when they’re eaten outside at a seaside taverna. And feta -– oh lovely feta. I’ve learned to love that pungent cheese baked with tomatoes, gently warmed on the stove in a pool of olive oil, scrambled quickly with eggs and spinach, or simply crumbled over salads laced with cucumber and mint.

My dad wasn’t –- and still isn’t –- much of a cook when I was growing up. But he always made dolmades, the Greek dish of grape leaves stuffed with slow-simmered rice flecked with onions and tomatoes. The recipe he relied upon is from a book titled “Can the Greeks Cook!” which apparently my grandfather gave my mom when my parents married. They are the best grape leaves I’ve ever had in or out of Greece, and they are still the only ones I’ll eat and then ask for more.

When I’ve made these dolmades myself they never taste quite the same as his version. Probably this is because there is an inexplicable sweetness to a dish your dad has made you because he knows you like it -– an invisible ingredient that serves to elevate a humble meal of grape leaves and rice to something memorable and lasting. Or maybe it’s because I don’t make them enough; I am working on remedying that situation as often as possible.

Living in California, the place that is forever home to me and where I am most contented, I find I miss Greece. It’s a patient, quiet, back-of-the mind ache that is nonetheless always there, a particular kind of homesickness that can’t really be assuaged by looking at photos or eating a certain kind of food (though I try.). And really, Greece has never been my home – I didn’t grow up there, after all, and I don’t even speak the language! But perhaps these things aren’t necessary at the end of it: to love and miss can’t always be explained. It just simply is.

See also a piece I wrote for NPR’s Kitchen Window, on feta:
The Making of a Feta Fan.

Dolmades

1 jar grape leaves, 15 oz. (or fresh, if you’re lucky enough to have them)
1 cup rice
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
5 cups water
3 onions, chopped fine
2 Tb. tomato paste
2 Tb. chopped parsley or mint
Salt and pepper

Soak the rice for 20 minutes in two cups of cold water and one teaspoon of salt. Drain. Sauté the onion over a medium flame with one cup of the water until tender, about 15 minutes. Add oil and cook five minutes. Add rice and tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste. Cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add parsley and cook for about three minutes. Add half the lemon juice and cook for five more minutes. Spread out the grape leaves and place one teaspoon of the filling in the center of each one.

Starting from the stem of the leaf, turn in the ends and roll tightly. Arrange in layers in a medium saucepan. Pour remaining lemon juice over the rolls, and add one cup of water.

Cover and bring to a boil for five minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes. Add one more cup of water if needed. Reduce heat to low, and continue to cook for 15 minutes or until rice is tender. Serve at room temperature.

My brother has become adept over the years at introducing me to vegetables I’ve ignored — or rather, overlooked. I don’t have a particular aversion to these, mind, it’s just that maybe I gravitate toward the stuff I know for sure I like (for example: spinach — it’s a rare meal of mine that doesn’t involve spinach it seems –, cauliflower, shiitake mushrooms, beets). I owe my fairly recent conversion to adoration to him, not to mention my ongoing kale obsession. I trust him implicitly when it comes to produce. When it comes to produce, in fact, I think he is my Main(e) Man.

The six months he spent working on an organic farm in Virginia were some of the most delectable of my life. I’d visit him when he came in to work the various farmers’ markets around Washington (once I remember getting up on a Friday morning to hang out somewhere near capital hill but not minding the early hour really because I knew I’d be given such deliciousness. After, I had lunch plans in Georgetown and I lugged about 3 pounds of tomatoes with me in the heat because, well, those tomatoes!). Sometimes I’d even come home on a Saturday afternoon to find he’d visited my apartment (he had, of course, a key) on the way back from the Mt. Pleasant market — I’d find fat bunches of kale stuffed in my fridge, or drooping, beautiful tulips on my dining room table, or the most perfect summer squash piled on the counter.

He’s a good guy.

All this to say that when I visited him in Maine this winter I ate very well. In addition to being a good guy he’s also a good cook — a really good cook — as is his fiancee. I mean, I wanted to visit to spend time with them, sure, but I also knew I’d be fed very, very well.

(Is that wrong?)

Well: eat well, I did — homemade pizzas with cheddar cheese (yes! try it!) and roasted pepper (bacon on one, for the omnivores), vegetarian beans and rice to commemorate Fat Tuesday, not to mention meals eaten in and around Portland and Bath. And one night he made a pot of brown rice and stir-fried a head of red cabbage and red onion in olive oil and mixed it all together — bowls of which, of course, were sprinkled with parmesan cheese — and it tasted so good I became a cabbage fan on the spot. All through the rest of the rainy San Francisco winter I made and ate that dish (sometimes with a veggie burger crumbled in, sometimes with a bit of extra cheddar cheese, sometimes with some sort of other soy protein) and thanked my lucky stars for Maine, and brothers, and sister-in-laws-to-be, and missed them.

(Sigh. Luckily I will see them in June for a big wedding party.)

So: cabbage. I mention this today because I am off to the East Coast tonight, late-night, to see some Greeks and chase around a and remember why I love upstate New York. Though I’ll have eaten dinner, I’ll be hungry once I get on the plane (no matter how much I’ve eaten beforehand it never fails) and will be bringing a little something on which to nibble away the hours. I just wrote a piece for about what to take along when traveling and so I will take my own advice and pack up my new favorite salad.

This salad? It involves red cabbage, of course, but raw, with loads of other raw vegetables, as many as you like, all lightly doused in a lemony soy-tahini dressing. It’s a perfect thing to take on a plane (or for lunch at the office, or just to eat for dinner) — fresh, sturdy, with a good crunch and enough heft to satisfy any hunger pangs.

My brother didn’t make this for me — the only cabbage I’ve had by way of him has been cooked down into silky smoothness — but he certainly inspired it. This proves my theory once again that we are never truly alone in the kitchen; even if I came up with this on a warm(ish) night many, many miles from New England there’s no way I would have had a cabbage in my fridge if not for him.

Hopefully one day we can eat this together, too.

Red Cabbage Salad

1/2 head red cabbage, grated

1 carrot, peeled and grated
4 radishes, chopped
1 beet, peeled and grated
handful pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tsp. soy sauce
salt and pepper

optional additions: (grated) jicama, apple, cucumber ….

In a large bowl, toss all the prepared vegetables. Stir in the tahini, lemon juice, soy sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well, adjusting flavors if you like. Serve with pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top.

I think when John Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden ” … and mixed with these were splashes of California poppies. These too are of a burning color — not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies” he was writing about Northern California in August. I know it, in fact, because he and I are like-minded and dogged in our love for this place in all its seasons.

People always say California in summer is ugly, all that withered grass and dry earth. But I like to think of it as ‘golden’; and anyway I don’t mind it too much because there are bay trees and poppies and the smell of the sea to make up for it. There’s really no place else I’d rather be right now.

The other day I had a picnic in Divide Meadow, with cheese and champagne (!) and tomatoes and potato chips. It was sunny, and very still and quiet. The wind rushed through the grass in the way it does but I wasn’t cold at all. I meant to read but instead looked over the field and wished a little bit for chocolate and that I’d brought my pack so I could spend the night by the the ocean at Wildcat Camp. I have spent so many afternoons there — in rain and sun both and I thought about how I might like to build a little place for myself on the hill overlooking the ocean with the branches dropped by the oak trees there.

Or maybe it was just the thrill of an unexpected picnic that made it so.

Lately there has been

- much coffee at Toby’s in Pt. Reyes Station, with what I think must be my new favorite brew (Taylor Made, from my home town)
- sun and wind
- dolphins off of Keyhoe which I never have seen before in all my years of going there
- cheese

- beer with lunch
- green tea in the park
- my npr story on lavender

But mostly there has been sun and the fog coming in slow and early as tends to be its wont. Perhaps that’s why I love it here so much: the changing light and the stillness. August always feels very still to me for some reason, perhaps because it’s the end of summer and that fall-feeling is lingering around your heart a bit even if you’d prefer to wish it away. I would like to grab time by the hands and sit it down with me for just a little while longer — summer, please stay.

{Roasted tomatoes with lavender, for an npr story, August 2009.]

Here it is: I absolutely might consider breaking up/not even going out with someone if we didn’t agree on certain food … things. (I can hear my brother’s shout of disbelief all the way from Maine as he reads this — and then, Nicole, you are so difficult!*, but it’s true.) And Julia Moskin might agree with me — a recent essay she wrote for the Times mentions a break-up with a guy who made horrible salad dressings and, even though he knew she couldn’t bear to eat them, begged her to anyway (“Can’t you just eat a bad salad?” he’d ask. Her reply: “Reader, I dumped him.” Mine: Life is too short for a bad salad.).

But just as we tick off things we might like in a potential mate — non-smoking, non-toking, kind to animals (particularly Labradors) and small children, gainfully employed or at least motivated to get that way, a baseball fan, a native Californian or close enough, etc. — I wonder if we might also add the subject of food to the list.

I confess I certainly do.

OK so it’s true I’m a vegetarian but that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to those who eat meat — quite the contrary in fact. I have a (now not-so) secret wish to make a (local, grass-fed) steak for someone else because I’ve never done so before and I always like a challenge. I cook fish occasionally and I certainly eat at least my weight in cheese throughout the year. But if a potential mate had an aversion to chard? Or — gasp! — roasted cauliflower? Beets? It’s gotta be a dealbreaker. Call me crazy, prejudiced, what-have-you, but I’m deadly serious about my vegetables.

Me, I love food. I moon on (and on) about the perfect chard(/radishes/heirlooms/patty-pans/garlic/green beans/etc.) from my favorite farmer at the market so very sincerely, and it would be hard to spend lots of time with someone who didn’t see eye-to-eye on that. I bake at least twice a week, mostly using eggs from the market and local butter (oh, it’s so much better when it’s from around here I swear). I think about food about 85% of the time (the remaining 15% is divided like so: 5% running, how much time do I have for it this week; 2% writing and what I would like to write about next; 2% missing beloved friends not in San Francisco; 2% vacation, when?; 2% what cupcakes I will bake for sweet friends’ upcoming wedding; 1% gosh, I would like another cup of coffee; and 1% needing vacation desperately). Or, not to put too fine a point on it: if you don’t see the value in a strong, bitter, completely delicious americano I don’t think we’d have a future together.

If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

Is that so wrong?

Anyway, I am not really closing myself off to anything. I’m just saying. You know, so you know.

[Roasted cauliflower and tomatoes, two of my favorite things, August 2009.]

Last night I made myself a cup of tea and while it brewed ate a small dish of mint chocolate chip ice cream (Straus, thanks). Then I stretched out on my futon couch with a book, my legs good and worked from my earlier run. I had Beethoven burbling out quietly from the stereo as I sipped, and my book (Jane Alison’s The Marriage of the Sea) I swear I wanted to devour whole it was so delicious. Right now, I thought. Right now I would not like to be anywhere else but right here in this moment. Could it last forever, this sense of ease, of peace? You know it: that feeling that all is right with the world just for this very moment.

Perhaps I had that sense of well-being because of something that happened thousands of miles away from where I was — in Maine — and which really is one of the most wonderful things ever to happen though I was sadly oblivious having left my phone in the other room (I did, however, get the first call, which …!!). My brother and one of the sweetest, funniest, smartest, loveliest, best cooks I know will get married next spring and I can’t even tell you how amazing that is. I am so very glad they have found home in each other and I can’t wait to see their lives together continue. I feel like I have always a little bit held his heart in mine for safe-keeping and while I will always do that she is the best person to take care of it and I am so glad she will. She will take care of it forever and he will take care of her (which is equally as best, for I love her so truly) and that is what is the most beautiful thing of all and how it must be always. I must confess of course I know it’s not about me but, dear brother mine, thank you so much for marrying this great girl! I can’t wait for us all to cook together again, and for years to come.

These two have a similar food sensibility. I’ve written about how they made more than do without a real kitchen for months on Spetses (and really, if you can survive three months together on a beautiful but hot Greek island you can survive anything together) and have eaten the food they’ve cooked together often. Which I think supports my earlier supposition: those who cook (or at least like similar food) together stay together.

They are a perfect illustration of this.

I must also confess I just love who I love: the true hearts, the sweet and kind and sarcastic too, the ones who see the beauty in the littlest things, the ones who hold your hand because you both need it, the ones who drive you to the airport an hour from home just because, the ones who say yes John Steinbeck, yes Yosemite, yes red wine, yes gin, yes roasted tomatoes, yes coconut cake, yes dogs, yes water, yes love, yes always.

So, please, give me the dish washers, the chard-lovers and lavender-appreciators, the beer swillers and apple pickers. Give me those who will sit on the other end of my couch on a Sunday eve and press feet against mine, who will smile secretly at the breeze coming in through the window in a great wave of sea and salt to push out the afternoon’s cooking smells — smiling as if to say, Yes. I know exactly how you feel.

(And if my particular person happens to lap up Brussels sprouts (and Talisker) as eagerly as I, well, I’ll be all the luckier for it.)

* he means this in a loving way. No, he really, really does.