The Handstand 1987, pastel on paper, 30 x 41 inches

Artist Fred Stonehouse has been with us for the last ten days, making three wonderful prints.  He enjoys food and cooking so with Fred as an appreciative guest, I have felt free to cook whatever inspires me.

 

The summer heat means summer veggies ─ cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant ─ are available at Zweck’s farmstand.  I cannot resist the glossy black Asian eggplant or the fat, round Italian variety. We have had grilled eggplant, soba noodles with eggplant and mango, and eggplant risotto.

For Grilled  Eggplant, I rub the halved vegetable with lemon juice, then marinate all day in this:

Combine 1/4 cup shoyu, 1/4 cup sesame oil, 1/4 cup sherry, a couple of cloves of garlic, grated or finely chopped, some grated ginger.

At dinner time, grill over a hot fire until tender, turning once.  Serve with any grilled meat or fish or simply with a bowl of rice and a salad.

Soba Salad is a little more complicated.  This recipe is based on one in Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi.  Sauté a large, cubed globe or Asian eggplant in a three tablespoons of safflower oil until browned and tender. Add oil if necessary.  Set aside on paper towels to drain.

Cook 7-8 ounces of soba noodles in boiling water until tender, about 6-8 minutes.  Watch the pot as it tends to boil over.  Blow on the rising water or add a bit of cool water to prevent an overflow.  Drain, rinse in cool water and set aside to dry.

Chop a peeled mango into 1-inch pieces, slice half a small red or sweet onion into thin rings, and prepare the dressing.

For the dressing,  combine 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt and stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Add a big pinch of hot red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, the zest of a lime and its juice, and two cloves of garlic, grated.

Toss the noodles with the mango, onion, eggplant and dressing.  Add a big handful of chopped basil and one of chopped cilantro.

This Eggplant Risotto is also based on an Ottolenghi recipe.

Burn a large globe eggplant until the skin chars and the flesh is tender.  I do this right on my gas burner.  You could use the broiler or a gas grill but the stove top is the easiest.  It gives the eggplant just the right smoky flavor. Peel away the burnt skin and chop the flesh into 1-inch pieces.

In 2 tablespoons of olive oil, sauté a medium onion, chopped small, then add a garlic clove, smashed and chopped.  Add a cup of Arborio rice and cook for several minutes, stirring.  Add a 1/2 cup white wine and cook until it is almost evaporated.  Start adding hot vegetable or a light chicken stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often, until the rice is almost tender.

Add the eggplant, the grated zest of a lemon, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon butter, 1/2 cup grated parmesan.  Stir in a handful of slivered basil leaves.  Serve with additional parmesan on the table.  Buon appetito and happy summer!

Ars Longa 1998, oil on canvas, 40 x 48 inches  (Don Ed Hardy and Bud)

On these warm summer days I plan meals that can be prepared in the cool of the morning and served with little fuss.  And with the heat, cold soups are perfect to anchor a supper menu.

We are traveling to San Francisco this week to help celebrate the opening of Don Ed Hardy’s retrospective exhibition at the deYoung Museum so I needed to clean out my fridge.  I had beets from Zwecks’ farm and couldn’t bear to waste them so decided to make a beet soup.

I first made this  with a Walla Walla onion given to me by my friend Sue Macdougall, who grew upon a ranch near Walla Walla and orders the onions each year.  I didn’t have one today so I used a red onion.

First I steamed the beets until tender.

I sauteed half an onion, chopped, and two stalks of celery in two tablespoons of olive oil then added the steamed, peeled beets cut into chunks, a handful of dill from my garden and four cups of water.

This gently simmered, partially covered,  until the veggies were soft.  I cooled the soup for a bit before whizzing in the blender until perfectly smooth.  I tasted for salt and was amazed, as I am each time I prepare this, at the luxurious velvety texture.  Into jars and then the fridge to chill until dinner time.

 

Served with a dollop of Greek yogurt, a dusting of minced cilantro, and avocado toast topped with smoked trout along side.  A simple supper before our travels.

 

The Dragon Wall 1989, oil on canvas, 40 x 60 inches

Bud and Zoë have birthdays one day apart and we often celebrate together. This year we spent several days in Saratoga, Wyoming, soaking in the hot springs, hiking and searching for good food.

The route to Saratoga is round-about and we chose to travel via Laramie and the Snowy Range where my family had spent part of our summer vacations when I was growing up.  I had not been there in many years.  I packed a lunch to eat on the way.  The usual Wyoming wind was chilly and we ate quickly at a sunny picnic table ─  a quinoa salad, asparagus, and almond macaroons.  Roseanne has been baking a delicious cracker and I made a batch to accompany our salads. We ate them with hunks of cheddar.

Roseanne’s Crackers

Combine 1 cup spelt flour, 1/4 cup pepitas, 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup sesame seeds, 1/4 cup flax seeds, 2 tablespoons chia seeds, and 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt.  Stir in 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup grated parmesan (optional).  This makes a wet dough but it  is easy to roll out. 

Divide in two and roll each piece very thinly, say 1/8 inch, between sheets of parchment.  Lightly score the dough (I use my serrated roller) and slide the bottom parchment on to a baking sheet.  Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes, until lightly browned and firm.  Cool then break apart on the score lines.

We had begun our long weekend of celebration with a wedding.  Evan, an artist and Bud’s printing assistant, and his partner, Alanna, got married in a sweet ceremony at an historic ranch/park in Longmont, looking out over a small lake with the Front Range rising to the west. The weather in early June can be iffy but on the day, the sun shone and the dramatic gathering clouds held off from emptying with rain showers until late.

 

I was pleased that Evan and Alanna had asked me to bake cookies for dessert. They chose three recipes ─ Cappuccino Coins,  Ginger Hearts, and Evan’s favorite,  Almond Macaroons.  The Ginger Hearts are a dough I usually form as a log, then cut the cookies into coins.  Alanna requested hearts instead and they were perfect.  The recipe is here ─  Book Release.  I mixed the dough in my Cuisinart so the candied ginger would be well chopped, making it easy to cut out the hearts.  Roll the dough out thin, 1/8 inch, between sheets of parchment, then cut into the desired shapes ─ hearts, moons, flowers.  Bake until firm and lightly browned, 10 – 12 minutes.

The Almond Macaroon recipe is a favorite from Patricia Wells’ Vegetable Harvest.  Simple, delicious and, ta-da,  gluten-free.

Lightly toast 1 cup almonds.  When cool, pulse them in the food processor with 3/4 cups sugar until finely ground.  Add 2 large egg whites, (to make 1/3 cup), 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, a pinch of salt.  Drop teaspoonsful onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 375° for 12 minutes until firm and lightly browned.

Evan asked if I needed platters for the cookies but we had a surprise plan.  Bud made beautiful boxes from discarded Ana Maria Hernando proofs.

After the ceremony, dinner and a bit of dancing we hiked up the hill to our car, hurrying as we watched the dramatic, stormy sky about to break into lightening and thunder, rain and wind.

 

 

 

 

Dinner at the Beehive 2002, charcoal on paper, 22 x 28 inches

 

Yvonne Jacquette completed a lovely print with Bud during her two week stay in May. I enjoyed her company and her stories of living in Manhattan as a young woman, where she socialized with Elaine deKooning, Edwin Denby, Nell Blaine, and Alex Katz amongst others.  She makes astute and entertaining observations about the work and lives of artists.

Yvonne Jacquette, The River at Belfast, Maine, color lithograph

 

My cooking in those weeks changed a bit as Yvonne requires a gluten-free diet.  I  researched recipes and concocted delicious crackers and muffins made without wheat.  We all enjoyed these baked goods, probably because they use almond flour. Here’s the recipe for crackers from Against the Grain by Danielle Walker:

 

In the food processor combine 1 cup almond flour, 2 tablespoons raisins, 2 teaspoons sunflower seeds, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons water, 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil. Whizz until thoroughly combined then add 1 teaspoon sunflower seeds and pulse once until roughly chopped. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Form into a ball and roll between sheets of parchment until 1/8 inch thick. Use a serrated cutter, pizza cutter or a knife to score into 1 inch squares. 

Transfer paper to baking sheet and bake at 350° for 15 – 20 minutes until set and golden.  Cool on a rack for 15 minutes then carefully break apart.

It’s not difficult to prepare meals without wheat/gluten but after Yvonne’s departure I was ready for a good dose of  bread.  I made pizza.

I mixed the dough and set it to rise first thing in the morning.  A long, cool rise makes for a flavorful, chewy crust.

Proof 1 teaspoon of dry yeast in 1/4 cup warm water.  Add 1/3 plus 1/4 cup water, 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Then stir in 2 cups unbleached flour (I put a tablespoon of wheat germ in the cup before measuring the flour), 1 teaspoon salt.  Combine into a moist dough and then knead until smooth.  Place in an oiled bowl and let rise until supper time.  Punch down when necessary.

I prepared the toppings in advance so they would be at room temperature when I used them on the pizza ─ sauteed onions and red peppers, a hot Italian chicken sausage.  I used the cheese I had in the fridge including the end of a piece of Brie, Catamount, Mexican Quesadilla and parmesan, making about 1 1/2 cups.

After flattening the dough and stretching it into an oval on a piece of parchment set on my peel, I scattered on half the cheese followed by a simple tomato sauce ─ a small tin of fire roasted tomatoes cooked  with garlic, sauteed in olive oil, until thickened. Then I spread the onions and peppers across the pizza, dotted it with the precooked sausage  and topped with the rest of the cheese.  I slid the pizza onto a preheated pizza steel in a  500° oven and baked for about 12 minutes.

 

 

Bubbles 2010, oil on board, 16 x 12 inches

My sister Mimi lives and gardens on Straw Dog Farm in central Missouri.  I spent last week with her as she recovered from a hip replacement.  Her home is a simple structure she and her late husband, Ron, built 37 years ago. There is a lot to look at, inside and out.  Wide plank floors, framed paintings and drawings, books, dried herbs, garden views from every window.

Mimi lives lightly on the land, growing much of her food and masses of native plants, recycling, and reusing.  She makes soap, puts up the vegetables, herbs, and fruits she grows, and the meat her neighbors share with her.  She heats and cooks with wood.

For the week I was the cook and general helper with Mimi ready to guide me (or boss me around) from her easy chair.  I learned to make cook fires in her wonderful wood-burning stove, adding large logs for heat in the evening when I finished preparing a meal (the weather was mostly cool and rainy).

 

I practiced tai chi in her gardens, under a redbud tree and near lovely spring flowering native plants. And of course, we had many long conversations about life and aging and our family.  We remember events from our shared childhood differently, one of us often saying, ‘no, that never happened, not that way’.

Every day I picked lettuce from the cold frames, parsley, tarragon, chives and sorrel in the culinary garden and asparagus growing in a long bed heavily mulched with straw.

We ate well, as Mimi has excellent stocks of home canned goods,  a freezer full of baked goods and those gardens.  We had steel cut oats with raisins and her home made Greek yogurt, stuffed sweet potatoes, and slow-cooked pork tacos with just picked cilantro and Mimi’s flour tortillas.  She rolls these very thin and then, over a good hot fire, cooks them for just a moment right on the stove top.

One day, she suggested I prepare an asparagus and tarragon soup, a new combination for me.  And so good.  This week I made another pot with the asparagus I had brought home in my suitcase.

First I sauteed 1/2 an onion, diced, and a chopped carrot, in a tablespoon butter and one of olive oil.  I added a diced small potato, a pound and a half of asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces, the tips set aside for the garnish, and the stalks from a couple sprigs of tarragon, saving the leaves to top the soup.

I added a quart of chicken stock and let the soup simmer until the veggies were soft.  Pureed it in the blender and reheated with the asparagus tips.  Sprinkled on chopped tarragon to serve.

What a pleasure to help my sister and experience a beautiful spring on the farm.

 

 

 

 

 

Pu’uhonua 1992, woodcut, 22 x 22 inches  (included in the Sharkive)

Last Wednesday was an exciting day here on Blue Mountain Road. Stephen and Pedro from the CU Art Museum arrived to pick up 3000 prints and associated materials from the Shark’s Ink. flat files.

Roseanne, Bud and I worked with Stephen and Pedro, emptying our Sharkive drawers into the beautiful boxes they had made.  We spent the morning unloading and then began the transfer.  At noon we stopped for lunch.

I had prepared most of the dishes the day before – carrot soup, Royal Corona beans to top a salad, and cookies – so I needed only a half hour to ready our meal.

For the soup:

Chop a pound of carrots and a small onion.  Gently sauté them, in a covered pot, in two tablespoons of butter.  Add a tablespoon of basmati rice, the secret ingredient.  It provides some thickening and adds an elusive, delicious note to the soup.

Then pour over a quart of so of chicken broth.  Cook until the vegetables are soft.  Cool a bit then whizz in the blender until smooth.  Salt to taste.  Add broth, water, or cream if the soup is too thick.

Lunch included a green salad incorporating marinated giant Royal Corona beans, a cheese selection, a baguette from the St. Vrain market, and for dessert, tangerines and Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, (a recipe from the NYTimes’ Alison Roman.)

We finished the packing and loading in record time.  The Shark’s Ink. studio now has eighteen empty drawers ready for Roseanne to reorganize and refill.  The bulk of the Sharkive is resting safely in the museum vault.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was Sunday – Easter and the start of Spring.  My sister Susan, Charles, Corey and Liz joined Bud, Zoë and I, for a celebration lunch.  Bud made baskets from a discarded Ana Maria proof and I filled them with chocolates.

 

I made asparagus tarts, hot-cross buns,  a quinoa salad, a golden beet and arugula salad (The Little Things) this time with crumbled bleu cheese.  Zoë brought hazelnut/chocolate stripe cookies.

This tart recipe may be made with other vegetable fillings.  Try mushrooms, cheese and ham, spinach.  For one crust, a simple recipe from Patricia Wells:

Combine 1 cup unbleached flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup cool water.  Press into pie/tart tin.

For the filling for each tart:  sauté a leek, chopped, in a tablespoon butter until tender.  Cool.  Cook, in your favorite manner, a dozen or so stalks of asparagus until just done.  Cut into 2 inch pieces.  Grate enough gruyere, or cheese of your choice, to make 1/4 cup, packed.

Strew half the cheese across the bottom of the tart, followed by the leeks.  Add the asparagus.

In a measuring cup,  beat together three eggs.  Add enough milk to make 1 1/2 cups.  Pour this over the vegetables and top with the rest of the cheese.

Bake at 375° for 35 – 40 minutes or until just set and lightly browned.  Cool a bit before slicing.

The recipe for the hot-cross buns is from Gourmet, a clipping I stuck in my binder years ago.  Very delicious made with butter, eggs, currants, sultanas, orange and lemon zest and a touch of cinnamon. Instead of a pastry cross, I made an X cut in the buns.

A quinoa salad is a regular on my menus but this time I added mango, chives and chervil. (These herbs are some of the first volunteers up and flourishing in the garden.)

Cook a cup of quinoa. For the dressing :  combine the juice of a lime, a couple teaspoons of maple syrup, a teaspoon freshly ground cumin, a big pinch of hot red pepper flakes and 2 – 3 tablespoons olive oil.  Salt to taste after dressing the warm quinoa.  Add diced sweet red pepper, a cubed mango, herbs – chervil, chives, cilantro or your favorite – to taste.

Happy Spring!

 

 

 

Garden 2001, oil on canvas, 54 x 46 inches

After returning from our Mexico adventure, we slipped back into our working routine.  Artist Ana Maria Hernando was due for a ten day stay to make new prints.  After several days of work in the studio, the dreaded winter sickness felled both Ana and me.  She returned to complete her prints after a week of recovery. My energy is slowly returning.

After a week of bed rest, I was hungry for chilés and tortillas.  I had read an enticing recipe for stuffed sweet potatoes and had made them for Ana and Kenneth before we got sick.  And I’ve made them several times since.  Very seductive with the velvety caramelized potato, soft and sweet, topped with beans, cheese, and spicy pico de gallo.

First, halve the potatoes lengthwise and place cut side down in a baking dish. Half a potato makes an ample serving for one. Drizzle with olive oil, and a bit of salt and pepper.  Bake at 400° until soft and caramelized, about 45 minutes.   Squeeze and mash the potato in its skin a bit then top with a generous tablespoon of shredded Oaxaca quesadilla or cheddar cheese.  Add several tablespoons of warm beans ─  I had cooked Rancho Gordo Rio Zapes on hand.  Add another generous tablespoon of cheese and pop back into the oven to get hot and bubbly.

 

Have a bowl of pico de gallo ready to garnish the potatoes. (Chop twenty cherry tomatoes into small bits, add a slice of onion, diced, a pickled jalapeño, chopped and a handful of chopped cilantro.)

Another dish I make when craving chilés and tortillas is scrambled egg tacos.  These are perfect when we are tired and the fridge is rather bare.  I usually have tortillas on hand and have found the organic Mi Rancho brand to be excellent.

This is a fast and furious meal to prepare.  Have a pico de gallo salsa ready, beaten eggs in a bowl, (two per serving), cheese grated, salad prepared and dressed, plates warmed, beer poured.

On a comal or iron skillet heat the tortillas in a tiny bit of oil until softened.  Lower heat to keep them warm and spread with some ancho or chipotle puree. These are the slider sized tortillas.

Meanwhile heat the skillet for the eggs and add a couple tablespoons of butter.  When sizzling, add eggs  and scramble to your likeness. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Divide the eggs among the tortillas, top with cheese and garnish with the pico.  I put the remaining salsa on the table to add as desired.  I serve a simple salad of greens and sliced radishes, dressed with olive oil and lime, and sprinkled with toasted pepitas, alongside the tacos.  Garnish with sliced avocado.

 

Zoë in Cabo 1988, pastel on paper, 22 x 30 inches

Why do preparations for a journey make home so appealing?  As excited as I was to spend two weeks on a Mexican beach, I felt reluctant to leave our hillside bathed in bright winter sunlight.  I suddenly had ideas for writing and painting and cooking.  But we had tickets and reservations, we were going.  I ordered a slew of books, emptied the fridge and packed.

I roasted the peppers I had bought before remembering our imminent trip and stored the peeled strips in the freezer.

I used other bits and pieces I was reluctant to throw out for our lunch salad ─ a small piece of goat cheese, an unopened package of smoked salmon, the remains of a jar of Marcona almonds, a ripe avocado, the end of a cucumber.  The fridge was empty.

We flew to Cancun where we picked up a rental car and drove south.  Our destination was Nah Uxibal on Bahia Soliman, just north of Tulum, where we rented a studio casita.  Enrique and Kara had recommended the place, a quiet spot on a beautiful, shallow bay.  We made few plans other than to read and walk and swim.  And to eat in restaurants.  I wanted a true holiday, one that freed me from the responsibilities of my kitchen.

 

I resisted the temptations of the market and only prepared simple breakfasts and lunches.  We ate dinners at a fancy hotel just down the beach that served delicious grilled fish, ceviche, and pasta. We had mole enchiladas at nearby Oscar y Lalo’s and drove into Tulum to eat a roasted habañero salsa and fish tacos at La Barracuda.  We had tasty ceviche with apples (!) at Tábano and in Akumal ate Mexi-California style dishes at Turtle Bay. And lots of guacamole and totopos.  Lots.

Of course, the plan was to relax and so I did not take any photos.  Sorry!

We left our little paradise to visit several archaeological sites ─ Cobá, Chichen Itza, and our favorites, Tulum and Muyil. Here is Bud after descending the grand pyramid at Cobá.

We returned home to cold and snow, the memory of our morning walk along the sunny shoreline hard to recall.  It was late and we were weary so I prepared a supper of grilled almond butter sandwiches ─ one with jalapeño and banana, the other with McNish’s raspberry jam.  And then, happy to be home, we were off to our own bed and dreams of stone pyramids, palm trees and the ever-changing cobalt/emerald/turquoise Caribbean.

 

Sixth Grade Friends 2003, charcoal on paper, 42 x 50 inches

I am fortunate to have groups of friends who like to eat together. The best meals are those to which we all contribute.  At our house, I am the principal meal planner and preparer, so dinners shared with cooks/friends are a joy.  And not just for the varied dishes everyone brings but for the company.

Six of my art girlfriends came for dinner last week. Sherry, Jane, Jen, Teresa, Ana and Karla. What a wonderful band of artists.  We talked about artist residencies and travel plans, upcoming exhibitions and our children. And we drank wine and laughed.

We each made part of the meal ─ a sort of potluck but with a plan.  I prepared the main dish, smoked salmon, and the others brought veggies, salad, wine, and dessert.  The photos are of the leftovers. I was too engrossed in the meal and the conversation to remember to take pictures.

With Bud’s  instruction, I smoked 3 ½ pounds of salmon on the Weber.  After preparing the fire and wood chips, it took about 50 minutes to slowly cook the fish.  I did this before everyone arrived so I wouldn’t freak out over the simple but unfamiliar preparation.  I garnished the fillets with chopped parsley and dill and wedges of lime and lemon and served the fish at room temperature, my usual preference.

Sherry brought delicious braised purple carrots she had made with Jamie.  Here’s the recipe in Sherry’s words:

Jane brought a cauliflower and chickpea dish that I remade a few days after our dinner. The recipe is from a book by Gwyneth Paltrow.  A similar cauliflower salad is here ─ Busy day dinner

Toss cauliflower florets from a medium head and 2 cups drained, dried off chickpeas in a little olive oil, salt and pepper.  I used cooked Rancho Gordo beans but canned would do. Roast in a hot oven, 400°, until tender and browned, about 35 – 45 minutes.

Have ready a vinaigrette made with 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon rough mustard, the kind with seeds,  2 tablespoons sherry vinegar and 1/4 cup olive oil.

Mix the hot cauliflower and chickpeas with the vinaigrette.  When ready to  serve garnish with a good handful of chopped parsley.

Ana Maria made the salad, a delicious mixture of baby spinach, roasted butternut squash, pomegranate seeds and toasted pepitas.  This is similar to the salad in Soup for a snowy autumn night

And for the finale to a glorious meal with glorious friends, Teresa and Karla brought dessert ─ Teresa’s apple tart served with ice cream.  (Photo by Karla)

Stories 2007, oil on canvas, 18 x 15 inches (Corey and Miya)

As some of you may know, I read a lot. A lot.  As a child I escaped into books, sometimes perching in our crabapple tree until my Mom’s call or a cramp in my leg sent me down to real life.

When we first toured our prospective home on Blue Mountain Road,  where the living room was lined with book shelves, empty bookshelves, I knew this was the place.  The property  had a guest suite for artists, a stable and garage to convert into our studios, and a magnificent view to the west. But those book shelves!

We’ve been here twenty years and the shelves are full even though I cull them every now and then.  The presence of my books comforts me.  I peruse their spines tightly packed on my shelves and remember the pleasure of reading them.  I may even pull a book out to reread.

Thank goodness, writers continue to write wonderful stories. I wait each year for new volumes in mystery series like those of Louise Penny, Daniel Silva, Laurie King, and William Krueger amongst many others.  I can’t wait to read new books by Paulette Jiles or Lief Enger.  These days I often buy books to read on my Kindle.  The shelves are just too full.

One book I will buy in order to have it in hand, is Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood. I stumbled across this wonderful read and have eaten up the story and the recipes that follow each chapter. This book is similar to mine and I hope my writing has a similar effect on readers.  Hood’s words send me to my kitchen to make the dishes she so vividly describes.  So far, I have made a simple roasted chicken and pasta Amatriciana.

Roasted chicken isn’t a new recipe for me, merely an invitation from Hood I cannot refuse.

Heat the oven to 425°.  Peel, chop or otherwise prepare vegetables of your choice.  I had fennel, potatoes, carrots and onions.  Toss them in a roasting pan and top with a chicken into which you have inserted a lemon, halved, salt and pepper.  Brush with melted butter and roast for an hour and a half or until  cooked and deeply browned.

Another book that  recently lead me to cook a dish is Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel, Unsheltered.   Late in this sad, funny, inspiring book about place and home and family, there is a scene where a neighbor concocts a simple dinner with what he finds in the nearly barren fridge and meager pantry, using a camp stove.  He makes corn fritters with cornmeal, sugar and cheese, and tostones with a bunch of forgotten plantains. Read this scene in Kingsolver’s  beautiful prose and you will be off to buy plantains, too.

I immediately had to find recipes for these Puerto Rican dishes. I haven’t yet made the corn fritters.  The plantains I used for the tostones were a bit ripe, so were perhaps not truly authentic, but they were very tasty.  First, I fried 1-inch pieces of peeled plantain in vegetable oil until softened, about 3 minutes a side.

I drained them on paper towels, then flattened each piece with the bottom of a glass, so that the edges broke a little, then refried them until crisp and brown.  Salted them lightly and served.

In all the excitement of frying, I forgot to take pictures.

So I read on.  There are many worlds, and recipes, that I am lead to explore when I open a book.