Yesterday I could just feel it rising up in me like a slow and simmering volcano right before dinner. Even before I got the door to the fridge open. I’m sick and tired of cooking. I don’t feel like thinking of one more thing to make that is going to please a man, a five year old and a mean tempered, hot under the collar, hard to please on any front, mama.
I opened the door of the fridge, looked in there without caring if there was a turkey or an egg or a television show on the shelf, and closed it shut. I opened up the dry goods drawer–a big bunch of nothing. I was about to mention my feelings to those in the area, and instead I got out an onion and chopped it up. If you can just get the onion cut up and in the pan, it will be all right. Once the onion is going, there is nothing to do but help it out with a little olive oil, salt and if nothing else, a bay leaf. I gave it a few leaves of parsley–not cut up–just rinsed of their sand and patted dry and four whole cloves of uncut garlic.
Soup.
I chopped up three carrots into a tiny dice and gave it to the saute pan to soften. A little more salt and just a tiny other drizzle of olive oil. Three big yukon potatoes peeled and chopped and thrown in there with the rest. Let them go until they start to stick to the pan. I had a few chicken bones in the freezer that I was making into my weekly stock. I added the liquid to the top of the potatoes with a good pour of the last bit of olive oil from Mr. Carlotti’s olive groves between Florence and Siena, and let them simmer under cover. When the whole lot was tender, I added four handfuls of Spring’s first baby arugula leaves and let them wilt. I like mine just like that with another drizzle of olive oil over the top and a few shavings of parmesan. For Jonathan I pureed it and gave it a double shower of cheese. I set Ferd’s bowl, smoothed out and unadorned on the table. He ATE it. That’s all I need.
I am back on the cooking train.