Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill to appear. Do please bear with me!
A View from 14 years ago: MONDAY, JUNE 14, 2010
My cherished brilliant gifted beguiling young friend, Christopher Baswell* is in process of restoring a venerable two-story house up the Hudson which he calls Big Brick. A dazzling cook and gardener, Chris just read my entry about dodging about in my kitchen and emailed the following (which I quote with his permission):
“My own version of cook-simple-for-me-alone was this weekend. I got to the house very late (I love driving up late at night when the traffic has thinned) and without going to the grocery. The one thing my immediate area lacks is a decent grocery. It’s either something called Price Chopper or a 40-minute drive.
“Anyway, next afternoon I faced a fridge with (among other leftovers of the family visit) a pint container of crumbled feta and two large aging portobello mushrooms. Oh and a big sweet onion and some whole wheat tube pasta in the pantry. So chopped a quarter of the onion, softened in olive oil while I chopped the aging mushrooms; softened them in same little frying pan, covered mostly so their liquid would be there to finish the pasta. Branch of thyme from the pot garden outside and a grind of pepper. Pasta cooked barely al dente, with a dip of its liquid in the sauce, then drained and dumped back into its pot to finish with the sauce liquid. Off the heat and tossed with a generous handful of the feta. NO SALT since the feta so salty on its own. It came together beautifully & I will repeat for guests. Takes no time at all. Do you know that 3 ingredients cookbook? I was trying to emulate that. I guess my dish had 4.”
I’d add a salutary word or two but it’s suppertime and the temperature has gone down from the high 80s to the 70s and Cakes and I are off to the market to fetch portobello mushrooms, feta, and some whole wheat pasta, yummmmm…
2024 Nota bene: In response to Chris’s question, I can recommend a delightful new (January 2024) cookbook, “Jamie Oliver 5 Ingredients Mediterranean.” The charismatic young Brit knows his way around the kitchen and around good things to eat, and makes a fun game of cooking simply, cooking smart. It’s often been the answer to my 5:oo o’clock bleating, “What on earth am I going to make for supper?”
I might also add that fourteen years and one month later, Chris and Big Brick are abiding sources of inspiration.
*Anne Whitney Olin Professor of English at Barnard College and Columbia University; Acting Director, Film Studies.
