Menus and grocery lists February 19, 2014

If music be the food of love, play on

Shakespeare

I neglected, in all the ups and downs of cooking through gravity, to mention one of the year's most important food holidays. It's an easy oversight- Valentine's day may be one of the year's most important food holidays, but that doesn't mean it's an important cooking holiday, now does it?

well, I suppose it all depends on what you're cooking.
(I wonder if this "what's a little cannibalism between friends"
 attitude may explain why so many chefs are in the kitchen
on Valentine's day instead of on a date)

It's an eating holiday, but an eating out holiday- the second busiest day of the year for American restaurants- in fact, 61 percent of consumers celebrate Valentine's day, and of those, 34 percent give the gift of a dinner out. Wait....If 34% give dinner out as a gift, that means that another 34% are eating out with them, and that makes 68%. Which is more than......wait again.....

so, this is why math has never been
called the food of love.

It's music that is the food of love- and always has been:

here's an ancient pictogram in which a long ago Romeo
asks his love to a concert after the giant beast roundup.

flash forward a century or seven,

and we have this love-struck girl thinking that if
she can just keep tapping those right hand notes,
it'll be a nice long time before Dad starts to wonder
how the lesson is going.

and more recently, we've got Woodstock, where music was famously in the air, and there was

lots of lovin' everywhere.

but sometimes, the most powerful food of love is, well, food. 

Conjure up a memory of falling in love, or a memory of feeling safe and loved, and chances are, there was  food nearby. Food -whether it's a  four course dinner or a box of chocolates- is, to misquote Mister Rodgers, one of the many ways to say "I love you".

And if I neglected to observe the high feast day of Love last week, I'm making up for it this week.  Thanks to my excellent sister-in-law, I have here on my left a copy of "The Hungry Ear", a pretty little book stuffed tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey with poems about food and drink, and I'll be cooking through these yummy poems all week long. 

Here- I'll show you what I mean:

Wednesday: Pot roast with mushrooms 

Mary Oliver's poem Mushrooms, and Mark Strands poetic memories of his mother in the poem "Pot Roast" Serve as tonight's inspiration. The recipe calls for dried porcini mushrooms, but I can actually but fresh ones for less money around here, so I'll be using those, and this may cook in the slow cooker. Maybe.  Either way, it's a great end of winter meal

Thursday: Beans and rice  

This  poem, "The bean eaters" by Gwendolyn Brooks, is everything a bowl of beans and rice ought to be- simple, homey and satisfying. Any leftover pot roast gravy would be terrific stirred into these beans, and and leftover beef can be chopped up and stirred into the pot, or sliced and served along side tonight, or served with risotto and greens on Saturday.

Friday: Tilapia with peach salsa and Grapefruit salad

The first of two dinners this week that feature peaches- I know, it's impossible to find good fresh peaches right now, but read this charming poem "A meeting" by Wendell Berry and tell me that you can wait till June for a peach. Frozen peaches (not canned) will work just fine in this salsa, and the fish should be super nice next to this lovely "Meditation on a Grapefruit" by Craig Arnold. Oh, I mean next to this simple avocado and grapefruit salad, which we will be spooning on top of salad greens.

Saturday: Greens and Risotto 

Since I have yet to figure the in and outs of collage creation on this laptop, I can only give you a picture of the greens, and this poem by Lucille Clifton, "Cutting Greens" that'll make you want to sharpen your knives and enjoy the preparation. William Matthews, in "Onions" makes the delicious observation that onions can lead to all sorts of happiness- like risotto. If you've ever made risotto, stirring and stirring and adding liquid a teensy bit at a time, you'll be as curious about this easy recipe as I am. This is our vegetarian meal of the week, but any leftover pot roast or fish would be very nice here. Actually, there's not much that's not nice with risotto. 

Sunday: Baked Chicken and Peaches  and peach salad.

There they both are! Frozen peaches again, and the salad recipe actually calls for them. I confess to a little bit of skepticism, because, you know, that is not a picture of frozen peaches.
Any leftover risotto or rice will be perfect with this.
These words from the beautiful poem "From Blosoms" by Li-Young Li will tell you everything you need to know about why peaches, all out of season, sound so wonderful this week:

"There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to 

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom."

I hope that for you, this week is filled with that kind of joy-

joy that feels like wings.

 I hope you have time to learn more

about what it is that makes you and those you love

feel beloved.

And that you find a way to share-

to give and receive-

the food of love,  even if it's the sort of food

that could never fit on a plate.