I’ve been a foodie forever. As a child I cooked with my mother; my first restaurant gig happened here in Vermont when I was visiting my father and he volunteered me to pitch hit at a local Swedish restaurant. For two nights I cooked more Swedish pancakes than you can imagine and sliced, diced, chpped items for the smogasbord. I’ve grown food and cooked food for decades. The novel I’m working on (Her Last Cookbook) contains lots of recipes–always with approximate measurements–and many of the protagonist’s food memories. The lunch I cooked today will probably end up in the book!
Often I find my own cooking pretty ordinary, but today, OMG, today’s lunch was spectacular. Of course partly that’s because of the very local ingredients. It took all of maybe 8 minutes to prepare.
Chop up fresh lettuce and arrange on your plates (ours is from our garden); put two saucepans of water on to boil. Meanwhile grate a nice pile of parmigiano cheese. When the pans of water are boiling place asparagus (ours came from our garden) in one and drop eggs into the other for poaching. (Our eggs are purchased from a neighbor, about a mile away.) Have ready fresh lemon juice and olive oil. Only cook the asparagus 4-5 minutes. Remove with tongs, shake water off and arrange on lettuce. Sprinkle with olive oil, lemon juice, salt. Remove eggs with slotted spoon or spatula, let water drain off, place on top of asparagus. Shower the grated cheese on top. That’s it. So, so good. At the end you may have some watery remains on your plate. So what!
#food,#asparagus,#novel
Oh so good and healthy!