Sometimes you come across something that you know you are going to need for the rest of your life.  Happened when I met my husband and it happened again when I made this parsley sauce.  In French, better known as Champ Verd, or Green Field.  It is a class A, number one winner for any summer seafood you may want to serve, and by nature it encourages you to do as little with that seafood as possible, aside from making sure it is ridiculously fresh.  Start with 2 big bunches of flat leaf, good looking parsley.  Pull the leaves off, leaving as little stem as possible.  This is the perfect job for party guests or girls who are under the age of 10 and are perfectionists.  Get a pot of boiling water going with a splash of olive oil, a half a garlic clove, and a little salt.  On the side, have a bowl of ice water at the ready.  Plunge the parsley leaves into the boiling water for about 2 minutes, then lift them up with a sieve and drop them into the ice water. Remove the garlic cloves.  Leave the leaves in the ice bath for about 30 seconds. Drain really well, squeezing them in a clean tea towel.  Chop them up for a few minutes with your knife.  Once they are roughly chopped throw them in the blender, and with the blender going, gradually add about 2 tablespoons of the best olive oil you can get your hands on.  Give it a pinch of salt, a tiny grind of pepper, and now add up to, but maybe not as much as 1/4 cup of organic cream (trust me–the organic cream is worth it.)  You are looking for a bright green color, and a smooth puree, very much like the consistency of basil.  As a matter of fact, the second time you make it, if you felt like it, you could throw in a single basil leaf if you felt like it.  Start with the pure parsley just to see what it’s like in its pure form.

Now, taste for salt, pepper and lemon zest.  You don’t want to end up actually tasting any of these, or noticing them–you are using all them as a boost for the parsley.  It should knock your socks off it’s so simple and good.  Put a tiny puddle of it on a plate with a scallop, a shrimp and bit of fish, or serve alongside your melted butter for lobster, or forget the fish all together, and toss it with pasta.

Start:  amuse bouche of four little handmade gnocchi in a lemon cream reduction

First:  Seared scallop on a nest of poached parsley sauce with garnish of garlicky crouton

Main:  Filet mignon w/ wild mushroom saute, oven roasted cherry tomatoes, sauted baby spinach and potato gratin

Salad:  Wild herbs and greens with dijon vinaigrette

Cheese:  St. Agur, Langres, Le Chevrot

Dessert:  Peach Tart w/ garnish of cream and rhubarb compote

What I learned:  Use the searing pan to make the sauce for filet ahead of time.  Otherwise the reduction stock, shallot, wine, thyme, takes too long, even after searing the meat ahead of time.  It takes 14 minutes for medium rare on a 2 1/2 inch piece of meat that weighs 6 ounces, basting constantly w/ butter from the pan.  Don’t ever do this menu for 10 by yourself.  I don’t know when I am ever going to learn this.

Today’s Lunch:  last night’s broccoli rabe with garlic and red pepper flakes piled up on a tortilla, a couple of parmesan shavings over that (or bits of sausage) and another tortilla on top.  Press to flatten and heat the whole thing up in a heavy saute pan with a little spill of olive oil.  And on the side a chopped salad of chopped fresh peaches, tomatoes, toasted walnuts, fresh thyme and dried currants.

This month I got hit like a mac truck. Where there was once Faye there is now Old Yeller. Need some milk? I’m gonna yell at ya. Ask me what movie I want to see? I’m gonna yell. Suggest maybe I should go to bed a little early? I’m gonna cry, and then I’m gonna yell at ya.
I’m hoping that I still have a son and husband who consider me family at the end of the week.
I have eaten all the popcorn, all the ice cream, the rest of the birthday cake in frozen form and a bar of Willy Wonka chocolate with no golden ticket. It’s exhausting.

My mom sent Ferdinand a beautifully wrapped gift, all colored paper, squiggly colored raffia and yellow ribbon. He was incredibly impressed. This morning when he got to the breakfast table, I had my own stack of gifts waiting for him by his orange juice. “Reduce, reuse and recycle” he said. A table full of gifts and the first thing he sees is borrowed paper. It’s 007 in the mini me boy version.

For his birthday dinner he wants pizza and for drinks, fresh lemonade. My arms don’t have the squeezing strength; it was sucked out by the heat wave, so I’m buying Paul Newman pink which is nothing more than lemon juice, a little sugar, water and some grape skins for color.
Ferd designed his cake and molded a dog’s head out of plasticine and a dog bowl to go along with it for the top. It is chocolate, has 3 tiers, a whole lot of sparkles on the outside and cream on the inside.

You know, oh my gosh.  That was a crazy fun hot making food from uno morning til the next scorpion decorated week.  It was my own family of ten.  And just so I don’t forget, because there was a lot of cooking on the fly–in addition to the classic How to Want to Cook with Faye in Italy menus–we ate one farro (ancient Roman wheat) salad with raw ripe red tomatoes, garlic, torn basil and beautiful olive oil, and one farro salad with lightly braised carrots and fennel in a hot diggity dog good pan liquor (onion, garlic, celery, thyme, parsley, olive oil in the water for 15 minutes before veg for salad went in,) then roasted in top temperature oven for just a few minutes to caramelize, then sauted onions, fried basil, and parsley.  Borlotti beans with raw tomato, garlic, fried flat leaf uncut parsley and oregano.  Poached chicken (use the same kick butt pan liquor) with crisp arugula, pignoli,gorgonzola dolce, lightly toasted walnuts, parsley leaves, a squeeze of lemon and a spill of olive oil.  Frittata with roasted yellow peppers and onions and marjoram.  Pan sauteed asparagus with wild mint leaves, big ol’ croutons crisped up in the oven and then little salt and a spill of gorgeousness when they popped out, arugula leaves and those Italian tiny multi colored olives that are the size of Nicoise, called Taggiasche.  (just ask your grocer in a polite but determined way to find them.)

We laughed and we talked and talked and talked and talked and then talked and laughed and walked, shopped, ate, drank, drank and ate and cooked til we dropped.  Listened to the teacher.  Er not.

It was a truly wonderful week. And I miss every single one of you already.

It was too hot to eat anything hot last night.  Farro (get it you’ll love it) with fresh basil, raw garlic, raw red tomatoes and a good solid pour of olive oil.  Salt and pepper, and that’s it.  Made a braising liquid with onion, celery, garlic clove, thyme and parsley, touch of white wine. Let that go 15 minutes, before adding carrot spears til tender\crisp, then after carrots were done, zucchini spears in the same liquid.  Served them with caper mayo.  Start with an egg yolk, whisk in lemon juice, s&p, fresh parsely, tiny bit of mint, then oil drop by drop until emulsified.  Another salad of bibb lettuce, toasted walnuts and pecorino stagianto with a little shallot, olive oil, lemon and salt.  Just in case hunger was deep, a frittata with roasted yellow peppers and new onions, dash of fresh parsley, salt and pepper.  Chocolate cake for dessert with cream and dallop of orange marmalade with a little vin santo stirred in. 

Mr. Jairo will be leading the tour of Cortona. Born in Cortona, knows Cortona.

I have just eaten most of the pint of Ben and Jerry’s cheesecake brownie in the freezer; I can’t recommend it. Tastes like styrofoam trays. When I get to the point of not being able to remember if I forgot anything I always feel cold hard sugar is the only way forward. I have my whisk packed, menus, my passport and clean clothes. I am pretty sure all I have to do is remember to go to bed tonight and take 50 cupcakes to the school tomorrow.

It’s not every girl that’s going to lose it for a leaf. At my last job I was shopping for root vegetables to roast–yellow beets, red beets, shallots and fingerling potatoes–when I fell in love like the floor was made of quicksand, with the full, fresh, dark green leaves all striped up with jewel red stems springing from their dusty globes.  When I got to work I sliced them right above the root and then dropped them into bags to take home with me later.  Some people could see this as a problem–like my  husband for instance.  “Why do you have to pack up the trash and bring it home in a taxi?”  Fair enough.

I try to think on the bright side about my feelings for vegetable cuttings. Lunch the next day:  Half an onion cut up into a tiny dice, a handful of flat leaf parsley, two basil leaves, one garlic clove, sauteed until completely tender and ready for more with salt and a grind of freshly ground black pepper.  One bunch of beet green leaves, stripped of their stems and roughly chopped, added to the onions along with homemade stock and one tiny, peeled potato for body.  When the leaves are satin and smooth, (about 7 minutes) throw in a box of baby peas, a good pinch of salt, a grind of pepper, and cover.  Let it all go until the potatoes are soft.  Off the heat, blend with a boat motor blender right in the pan, then taste for lemon juice and salt.  Give it a tiny drizzle of your best olive oil, and right in the center, a spoon of fresh pesto.  Serve with parmesan shavings on the side.