I did like the roasted yellow beets yesterday, peeled and sliced and tossed with olive and salt. When they came out of the oven I squeezed a little fresh lemon juice over them and then tossed them again with fresh mint and cut fresh chive. And you know if you get a little saute pan of your best olive oil going with three of four cloves of whole garlic, a shallot sliced in half and set in the pan cut side down, a few sprigs of fresh thyme and a few sprigs of parsley until they are looking good enough to love, you can make a cannellini puree you will be double dipping into. Spin 2 small drained and rinsed cans of beans in the food processor until nearly smooth and add your oil from the pan along with everything but the shallot. Taste for salt and pepper and lemon. A little tomato salad (olive oil and salt) and some lambs’ ear lettuce (olive oil and salt) on the side, and tiny little tureens of goat cheese is all you need for dinner. A skirt steak cooked on a six dollar habachi until it was crusty on the outside and pink on the inside (olive oil and salt, maybe lemon) would make the meal enough for a party without getting into the fifty six other things I ended up putting on the table last night. I just couldn’t make it right and it wasn’t the food at all that was missing, it’s just that my heart is in a sling. I miss Italy. As much as I love New York and everyone in it and feel I could never live without it, one could never be the other.
I miss the fog and making six pots of coffee and a massive pot of hot milk and kissing everyone before they leave for the day and I miss talking about connecting with your onions and using olive oil that you love like a person.
3 thoughts on “I love you”
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As much as you make me laugh you make me cry and I feel alive. From now on olive oil in my kitchen is called Faye!
I felt the same way when I went to Paris. Even though it has been many years ago, I still think about it all the time and dream of going back one day. Some of it is, as you say, just the European way of life. The simplicity of it all. Its just hard to explain unless you have experienced it. I was forever changed by that one visit.
I have said to so many people when they ask “How was Tuscany” – It was intoxicating. The food, the vistas, the villa, but most of all it was about the girlfriends – of which Faye has now been added to the list. I can so see how you miss the six pots of coffee and kissing everyone as we are off on our adventures. it must have been like sending your husband and children off to work and school.
I made the Seared Chicken and Lemon Cream Pasta again for a dinner party. Okay Faye – I give – you are right – the chicken really was better having the bone and skin on and marinating in the Poupon and Olive Oil for 2 hours versus my earlier version of just chicken breast meat which had only marinated for 10 mins and with no bones and no skin. It was fabulous. And the Lemon Cream Sauce – I scalded the cream the first go round and, bitter though it was, I wouldn’t give up the ghost until 45 mins of cooking, and finally had to admit that it was, in fact burned. So I made a whole new batch of Lemon Cream Sauce and came to realize, there is no hurrying the reduction process for cream – it took the full hour you wrote in the directions – which threw my whole timeline off, and the chicken ended up being a bit dried out – but alas – my meal was no less for it – there wasn’t a scrap left on the plates.
We had the Ricotta Cheese Cake for dessert with Fresh strawberries. Yummy. All were satisfied – and I served it on my beautiful Deruta dinnerware. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold.