Soup, salad, shrimp and cat

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So, I'm looking out my kitchen window a few days ago, and I see this: Nutmeg scaling the roof of the garage. After this photo was snapped, he considered throwing himself into that forked tree -purposefully and deftly of course- but decided instead to perch on the very spine of that roof and sit a spell. Not two minutes later he was running pell-mell down the slope and then he disappeared. I was worried until a friend said, "Well, you don't often see cat skeletons in trees." Nutmeg showed up at the front door of our home a half-hour later.

Cats. It's all that can be said. And I love them, and him, for that. He is so damn sure of himself!

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Hubs has worked late every night since whenever I last saw him. I think that was Sunday. Poor guy caught my cold and then gets slammed. Because I'm Mrs. Silver Lining this week (except for a marginal breakdown yesterday afternoon; different story for different time), I decided to make one of my favorite soups and have a vegetarian friend over for lunch as she would enjoy it so very much more than my carnivorous T.

This Leeky Sunchoke Bisque did not disappoint because it never does. It's just a damn good recipe of which I'm proud, not least because it always reminds me of why I save my Parmesan and pecorino rinds and how wise that is. Mmm...cheesiness! Plus sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes; they are NOT artichokes so this moniker is both odd and misleading.), leeks, shallots, nutmeg, buttermilk and so on.

Unfortunately, this is not a pretty soup, but imagine the inner glow of health and hale you get with each bite. It's enormous!

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I also made some bread. Though my friend said it was good, I imagined I'd forgotten to put the dough in loaf pan and had, instead, lined up some soggy hockey pucks. Mon dieu. I brought some to the boys at pick-up and they were thrilled. Until they took a bite.

"Mom, this bread is HARD."

"Yeah, it lacks moisture. Or something."

"Maybe if I hit it with a cheese hammer?!"

What, pray tell, is a cheese hammer? Oliver swears he meant sledge hammer but forgot the first word. The point remains, the bread was a #fail. Hilarious.

Then the breakdown occurred -SOS- and then I made my beloved farro salad with gold beets and pecans and feta and herby oil. Then I made some browned-butter and pimenton shrimp and felt myself settling back into an even keel.

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As I sat quietly with my newspaper and this fine meal and some wine, I read about the insane measles outbreak and cursed the anti-vaxxers. I sipped some wine, turned the page and read an incredible essay so as to let the ire go. Nutmeg purred at my ankles and I called it a day.

Caramelized fennel, leek and orange; the farro again; jury duty

Friends, I do not want to go to jury duty tomorrow. I simply don't. I love to vote, am committed to community involvement and so forth and so on, but jury duty does not float my boat. In the least. Ah well. I did a great deal of cooking today which was a lovely way to spend much of Monday: smothered okra for lunch; caramelized fennel, leek and orange; the fab farro salad again... I also seem to have the dessert-craving tapeworm again so sprung for a jelly-filled, powdered-sugar-dusted beignet at Whole Foods, the best of their bakery goods (in the context of those that are good because many are not). It was, as always, fantastic.

Nanny and Mom often made smothered okra when I was growing up. I am an enormous, enthusiastic fan of okra except in gumbo where I truly believe it has no place. #honesty

Anyway, smothered okra is one of those crazy-simple, crazy-good comforting home foods that makes me happy. I hadn't thought about it in ages, but when I took the boys to Louisiana in August, Mom had just made a huge batch with a bushel of Louisiana longhorn okra some friends had grown and given her. I swear I ate 90% of the batch and have been craving more ever since.

Today at the market, I saw some decent okra. At $6 a pound I didn't get more than would feed me, but it made such a sublime lunch. I sat in silence, on a stool at my counter, breathing in the scent of long- and slowly-cooked okra in bacon fat. I wondered why on earth I gave up bacon for so long. I marveled anew at how good something with two ingredients -three if you count salt- can be. And I thought of home.

Sunny Sunday and a lovely meal

Today was beautiful. The sky was bright, fully illuminated, alive. A definite briskness remained, but the nascent spring's softer contours rounded out what stubbornly remains of our elongated, deeply chilly winter. Despite the fact that I don't put much stock in weather forecasts, I took the mid-70s proclamation for Sunday at word and wore shorts to Jack's baseball game. This was a slight overreach but by the time it wrapped up, my goosebumps had subsided and actual warmth was penetrating my epidermis. Brava!! My little boy and his teammates were darling to watch and though they lost 13-0, I couldn't have been more proud. Room for improvement! Four of the women in my writing class and I really clicked and decided to forge ahead as a group, teacherless and fearless. This afternoon was our first "class" and not only was it great to hear each of their voices but also wonderful to be back in the student saddle. And then back to the boys, the evening routine and dinner. Most everything was from our trip to the farmers market this morning, the produce at the height of just-picked freshness, the turkey from a happy bird slaughtered humanely, well as humanely as slaughter can be. It was light, flavorful, simple and good.

I grated these carrots for a Moroccan salad: raisins, olive oil, fresh ginger, cinnamon, honey and lemon juice. It's always good.

I oven-roasted the leeks, with just some olive oil, salt, pepper and two small pats of butter. And with the turkey breasts, I heated up the good-old cast iron skillet and made a quick piccata, minus the breading, heavy on the lemon and capers. Bellissima!

And now, the Mad Men season premier. Aah!!!