weekend update may 4, 2014

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do;

 the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

Andrew Jackson

And then there's the fun of having lots to do, doing some of it, and watching someone else do a better job than you could. Especially if that someone else isn't out for your job, or out to reveal to the world your inadequacies. Especially if that someone is only aiming to give you a break, and not

aiming to break you.

All of our dinners this week were supposed to be an allergic reaction. That is, I had planned a week of allergy and inflammation fighting foods:  tomatoes, salmon, onions, and a veritable forest of dark leafy greens. 

so that navigating the fridge felt a little
like taking a jungle cruise.

Then, on a day that proved the truth of Andrew Jackson's aphorism, on a day when the only thing that sounded fun was finding a way to not to any of the things that needed doing, we had a visitor from far away. 

No, not that far away.
Only as far away as Texas A&M University.
(Though there are those who would say that the
Aggies spend most of their time on another planet.)

Our eldest son Danny's unexpected visit happily coincided with the unhappy, really truly dead, too rusty to even be used as a charcoal grill, death of our gas grill.

it had become the this of grills.
Not so great to begin with, and after that things
went downhill.

 And so it was that our eldest offered to initiate our new grill.
Perhaps you have a grown-up child of your own, and so perhaps you know how it feels to realize that your own passions have been transferred to your children and amplified. The feeling of seeing the things you were on a good day good at being the things they are everyday great at. For me, it feels like this:

You guys are amazing!
How did you get so amazing?!?
How did you all get to know so many cool things?!?
Will you teach me some of your cool things?!?
Plus when did you all get taller than me?
Because that is hilarious!!!!

I have in the past used a grill  as the sort-of stove that lives outside for days when it's to hot to use the stove that lives inside. But those days may be over. My eldest grown up son has a particular passion for cooking outdoors- put that passion together with curiosity and a lot of practice, and our eighty-eight dollar Big Lots grill somehow produced this:

grilled papaya, pineapple, ribs, corn, onions
and eggplant.  Gosh.
I have a lot to learn.

When a meal like this starts the week, food chosen merely for it's allergy fighting powers loses any glamour it might once have held. Take for instance, the Chicken and apple salad.  It seemed exciting enough on Tuesday, but by the time it was on Thursday's dinner plate, things had changed a little:

"Here."
"Here's a salad. I thawed some frozen chicken
for the top of it. Sorry, there are no leftover ribs"

The dressing of this salad is worth repeating though. It's a basic honey-mustard dressing that works well on many different vegetables. And the idea of apples and pecans on a salad is an idea that works all year round.
Here's a tip learned from the Kale Salad . Rubbing the kale between your hands AFTER dousing it with a little oil and sprinkling it with salt does wonders to make it tender enough for salads. True, it's an extra step, and it takes a little time, but when you consider how long it takes to chew a bite of raw kale, it sort of evens out. Plus, look what a deep pretty green the greens turn after a rub down:

Really good....for a salad.

Since nothing else could compare with the meal that started the week, it seemed safe to experiment a little with a weekend Tomato Pie.   A trip to a Farmer's Market hadn't happened but a trip to Trader Joe's had, so I decided to see how a nice grocery store tomato would do, even though the internet warned against it. To cut out a few empty floury calories, it became a one crust pie, with the pastry on the top of the pie only. Here's the haul from the grocery shop:

pretty nice stuff, even if they aren't
roadside stand fresh.

And here's the finished product, next to the second-day kale salad:

not a great grilled feast, but not bad either. 

Two things to remember for next time:

1) Kale salad really does hold up well overnight! It doesn't go all weepy watery limpy gross the way many lettuce salads do, and it doesn't go mushy black-green the way a spinach salad does. Edibility of leftovers alone just moved kale up into favorite salad green position. 

2) There are recipes for tomato pie that advise placing sliced or diced salted tomatoes in a colander to drain for at least an hour, and squeezing out the rest of the moisture. I wish I'd linked to one of them. Because what happens when you only drain the tomatoes for the quick five minutes it takes to cut the corn of the cob and get the cheese out of the fridge isn't a juicy pie-

it's a downright watery one.

The taste was good though, and that bottom crust would've been super soggy anyway. So, tomato pie? If you've got a good grocery store, all summer long, and not just on those weeks when you can get to a farmer's market.
So, a week of learning new things, and learning about things I'd like to learn.
And being fed a fantastic meal prepared by a person who grew up being fed by me. Which kind of blows my mind, in a very good way....
And I hope this week you know that it really does matter.
The way the things you do to nourish and nurture
the people you love.
The way you feed the world the best of you
and somehow keep it from eating you alive.
And I hope that this week 
once or twice
the good things with which you feed the lives around you
come back

and give you what you need too.