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mrissaNausea levels have been high and food correspondingly fraught. But! We have entered into that beautiful part of the year, and that is the part where ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
markgritter's garden makes decisions for me.
Today, for example, I peeled two tiny cucumbers--one of them barely bigger than my thumb--and washed lo these many tiny currant tomatoes, and I put a little Asiago Caesar dressing on that, and I ate it, and it was good. And while I was eating that, I had in the oven two halves of a little slender eggplant, face down, rubbed with just enough olive oil to make them not stick to the pan, and they got a little crispy along the edges, and I put lemon juice on them and that was it, just lemon juice, and oh, they were perfect, soft in the middle and crispy along the edges. And then I thought about it and decided that this was a lovely lunch except for the protein, so I had some hazelnuts and some milk. And then I thought as how maybe one of the little dark-chocolate sea-salt caramelsmarkgritter got me for my birthday might do, and so I ate that. And that was lunch.
There are a great many things in this world more complicated. But this one was extremely fine, and I thought I'd say. And people maybe sometimes think that eating more vegetables is complicated even if they have the kitchens and the time, and it isn't. It isn't complicated at all. You wash the eggplant, you whack it in half, you stick it in the oven with a little olive oil, you pull it out again and there is lemon juice, and there doesn't even really have to be lemon juice. But there could have been basil. Or there could have been oregano. Or there could have been rosemary. Or salt. Or fine-chopped tomatoes with all of these things. But there didn't have to be. Just lemon juice would do.
So little depends on the damn red wheelbarrow, but it's an awfully fine red wheelbarrow anyway, is the thing.
markgritter's garden makes decisions for me.Today, for example, I peeled two tiny cucumbers--one of them barely bigger than my thumb--and washed lo these many tiny currant tomatoes, and I put a little Asiago Caesar dressing on that, and I ate it, and it was good. And while I was eating that, I had in the oven two halves of a little slender eggplant, face down, rubbed with just enough olive oil to make them not stick to the pan, and they got a little crispy along the edges, and I put lemon juice on them and that was it, just lemon juice, and oh, they were perfect, soft in the middle and crispy along the edges. And then I thought about it and decided that this was a lovely lunch except for the protein, so I had some hazelnuts and some milk. And then I thought as how maybe one of the little dark-chocolate sea-salt caramels
markgritter got me for my birthday might do, and so I ate that. And that was lunch.There are a great many things in this world more complicated. But this one was extremely fine, and I thought I'd say. And people maybe sometimes think that eating more vegetables is complicated even if they have the kitchens and the time, and it isn't. It isn't complicated at all. You wash the eggplant, you whack it in half, you stick it in the oven with a little olive oil, you pull it out again and there is lemon juice, and there doesn't even really have to be lemon juice. But there could have been basil. Or there could have been oregano. Or there could have been rosemary. Or salt. Or fine-chopped tomatoes with all of these things. But there didn't have to be. Just lemon juice would do.
So little depends on the damn red wheelbarrow, but it's an awfully fine red wheelbarrow anyway, is the thing.
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Date: 2010-07-29 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 05:50 pm (UTC)So -- not "a lot of trouble" by any reasonable measure, no. But "more trouble than I'm used to" for a lot of people, I think.
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Date: 2010-07-29 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 06:02 pm (UTC)Even about the same as soup and sandwich and fruit -- though these days you could get single-serving soup in a microwaveable container, I guess, instead of using a saucepan and a bowl (makes less and less sense the more people you're serving lunch to).
way beyond drinking milk from the carton to save dishwashing
Date: 2010-07-29 07:58 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I suspect most people think of scrambled eggs as a very simple dish. Even though it calls for washing the container one breaks the eggs into, and the pan.
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Date: 2010-07-29 06:28 pm (UTC)But your eggplants beat me by a mile. Next time!
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Date: 2010-07-29 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 06:38 pm (UTC)So, your version of lunch would include a trip to the farmer's market, but that itself is a very good thing. For next to it is a consignment shop with, lo, wonderfuls and wackeys.
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Date: 2010-07-29 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 09:22 am (UTC)Next year, I'm going to see about growing veggies. I'm hoping for zucchini, peppers, that sort of thing.
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Date: 2010-07-29 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 08:03 pm (UTC)The bit about the eggplant is just poetry, that's all. I am glad you are getting to eat such lovely fresh vegetables.
P.
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Date: 2010-07-30 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 09:30 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2010-07-29 10:57 pm (UTC)My new favourite thing is satuéed asparagus. Take frying pan, heat on high, add minced garlic (which I buy in a jar rather than doing myself, because it's one aspect I can make easier) and maybe one teaspoon garlic-infused olive oil. Take five slices of thin-cut dried cured Pamplona salami round, cut (takes six passes of a knife, max), toss in once the garlic is browning. Cut up some asparagus (cut off the ends of the stalks with two passes of a knife, then cut all the stalks in half crosswise with two more passes of the knife), throw it in too. Add one teaspoon lemon juice. Stir. Turn down heat to medium-low, cover with lid, ignore for five minutes. Stir. Cover again, ignore for five minutes. Remove, plate, sprinkle with parmesan, consume.
Takes fifteen minutes, very little effort, and is delicious. Dishes that need to be cleaned: one plate, one fork, one paring knife, one cutting board, one frying pan. Or, in my case, thanks to the awesomeness of the dishwasher, none if I don't feel like it! Though usually I do wash the frying pan because I'll be using it again the next day and the dishwasher usually only gets run every three days.
For me now, that is a nice super-easy meal, and I am terribly glad to be able to do it, even if there are still days where the most I can manage is sticking a box in the microwave and sitting down until it's done. (And those days are why I have set up a system of cooking a lot on days when I can, and then freezing most of it. Because then I have decent microwave dinners instead of boxed crap!)
Though now I am craving eggplant. If I could manage the five-minutes-either-way-plus-maybe-five-minutes-inside walk to the grocery store, I would totally make it happen. Where are the pneumatic tubes when you need them?!
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Date: 2010-07-29 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:51 am (UTC)Anyway. Asparagus is AWESOME! It is one of my favourite vegetables, along with brussel sprouts. Mris has many clever ways of doing yummy things with asparagus that require equally low effort (if not less!) and perhaps would share some with us. *halo*
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Date: 2010-07-30 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 02:32 am (UTC)The asparagus thing sounds just lovely.
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Date: 2010-07-30 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 06:54 pm (UTC)(Big tomatoes grow unreliably in our garden due to direct-sun considerations and a short season, but the cherry tomatoes and the cucumbers never let us down.)
Why, you eat them. Cutting them in half beforehand, for example if you're going to put them in a salad and want to reduce their tendency to escape, is optional.
I think the implication was that I could get BORED with eating fresh, warm-from-the-garden-sun cherry tomatoes more or less nonstop for two months. Um, no.
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Date: 2010-07-30 08:08 pm (UTC)