Summer Vacation Day 1: A porch with a view

Well, Summer Vacation, the 2017 Edition, is officially underway. There is the minor detail of about 20 student comments that still have to be written, but I have until Monday at 5:00 pm. Hours and hours. At the last minute, I decided to book myself into a writer’s retreat. Remember, in the last post I said I have a new writing project. I also just needed to get away for a few days all by myself. I spend my days during the school year doing for others from 7:30 am until 5:15 pm Monday through Friday. And I am pretty worn out right now. I need some peace and quiet. And I have found it. Just a short distance off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Where I hear birds calling, hummingbird wings beating, and an occasional fish splashing around in the small pond just beyond the porch where I am rocking. The sun is starting to set. The clouds are taking on a pink hue.

I imagine I will see a few lightening bugs soon. I will remember chasing after them as a little girl and trapping them in a mason jar with holes poked in the lid so that they could get some air. I am back in my hills.

This is where I spent the first 22 years of my life, with the exception of a few months spent in France between my sophomore and junior years of college.

Friends/colleagues I’ve taught with here in Durham for many years are beginning to retire. Every year now someone significant will leave.  It began a couple of years ago. It won’t be easy for me. C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?  JC this year. She will still coach and I will see her as often (or maybe more often) than I do now, but somehow the thought of opening meetings next fall without her make me sad.  Not for her, needless to say. She will find plenty to occupy her free time– sewing, exercising and traveling have been mentioned. All fine ideas. She and hubby are headed to France for two weeks in July. Bravo! They will have a blast. I am so proud and happy for them. Enough of that or I will make myself cry.

I roamed around for a short while this afternoon admiring the flowers in the small town I am near.

I found a little girl to sit next to.  I didn’t strike up a conversation because she was totally engrossed in her book. I thought of this same scene happening in a few years but with Miss K by my side. Joy. I hope she will love to read as much as her Gramma does.

Night has fallen.  It’s getting chilly.  The birds are now silent.  And I am getting sleepy. Day 1 has been a good one.  Tomorrow the writing begins in earnest.  Wish me sweet dreams and luck.

I am thinking of cherry scones.  It’s about time to find ripe juicy cherries in the local grocery stores.  I’ve missed them since last summer! I will go back to a past post for my favorite recipe to share. I recently found another recipe I want to try.  Crumpets. Reminded me of scones. But I digress…

From July 13 2011:

My new friend Teresa Lust (she isn’t in on the friendship yet) devoted a chapter of her book Pass The Polenta to the currant scones that a very good friend makes.  She can’t divulge the real recipe, only her approximation of it.  And, according to Teresa’s research, the scone is a Scottish invention.  Maybe that’s why I love them so much.  As good a reason as any, n’est-ce pas?  But it is difficult to go wrong with butter and cream.  And red juicy cherries.  I’ll try currants another day.

Currant Scones
(from Pass The Polenta and other writings from the kitchen by Teresa Lust, Random House, 1998)
makes 8 scones

2 c. all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. sugar
6 Tbsp. butter, chilled, cut in pieces
1 c. heavy cream, chilled
1 c. currants (I used fresh cherries, pitted and chopped in quarters)
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400˚F.  Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Add butter, then toss with your fingers to coat each piece with flour.  Work the mixture with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse meal, with a few pea-sized lumps of butter still remaining.  Drizzle in the cream, stirring the mixture with a fork, until it just comes together.  Alternatively, combine the dry ingredients in the work bowl of a food processor, add the butter, and process with quick pulses until it is just incorporated.  Add the cream in a thin stream, and pulse only until the mixture starts coming together.  Do not over-process.  Turn dough out onto a cutting board, sprinkle in the currants, and knead lightly half a dozen times or so, until the dough forms a ball.  (I had to add about 1/4 c. more flour because the dough was very sticky.  Sprinkle the cutting board with flour, as well as your hands, before diving into the dough.)  Pat the dough into a circle 3/4-inch high.  Dip a pastry brush into the lightly beaten egg and baste the dough-circle.  Cut into 8 wedges.  Transfer to a baking sheet and bake 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Bon appétit and happy summer vacation to all!  Bonnes vacances!  May you find a quiet spot to rest and regroup.

Another Teresa

 

I have found another food-loving Teresa. Look, she even spells her name right.  We are almost exactly the same age, too.  I found her at Pennies for Change, a thrift shop run by the Durham Crisis Response Center, an organization whose mission is to stop domestic violence.  I love this shop.  Treasures for a worthy cause.  On my last visit there, I found Teresa, some other beach books (that's what this book was supposed to be, but I just couldn't wait to read it) and a cute orange skirt.  (I didn't think about the UT-Knoxville connection until the Ex-Ex pointed it out.  Maybe orange is growing on me after all.  (See last blog post.)
Back to Teresa.  She says that she set out to write a traditional cookbook, but instead, it turned into delicious stories about the foods and people she loves.  In her words-  "... a collection of recipes turned into a celebration of those who have given meaning and dimension to my cooking.  My mentors are ordinary folk, all of them, going about their daily business of baking bread and pouring hearty wine.   The ingredients they use are not exotic, their techniques are not complex."  That's my kind of inspiration.  Since I am relatively new to this quest for learning technique and experimenting in the kitchen, a book such as this one is truly a treasure, even though most of the dishes she references are not new to me.
Teresa begins her gourmand storytelling with polenta, a dish that certainly sounded exotic to me, until I realized that it is cornmeal mush.  A common dish from Italy to Georgia.  Her Italian grandmother Teresa (I bet my name sounds exotic when pronounced by un vrai Italien...) is the star of this story.  She was serving polenta for dinner to her husband one night when Teresa's mom decided to take her new husband, Teresa's future dad, to her parents' house for dinner-- unannounced.  It seems that polenta, to this vraie Italienne, was an embarrassment because she didn't know her new son-in-law very well, not well enough to serve him polenta, for heaven's sake, a dish that is family food, cheap, a staple for people when times are tight and there's not much in the cupboard.  It's Italian comfort food.  But Grandma Teresa had to serve it-- it was all that she had prepared, although I got the feeling that if she could have gotten away with it, she would have headed right back in the kitchen and whipped up something fancier.  New son-in-law made it a grand success (and himself in the process, I bet) by not only asking for seconds, but for thirds.  He couldn't get enough of this dish, he of German descent, on this night in 1959.  But imagine... hot, creamy polenta, slices of provolone, mozzarella and Gorgonzola cheeses topped with beef stew that has been simmering on the stove all afternoon, with a final generous sprinkling of Parmigiano-Reggiano.  I will try this recipe very soon.  (I would make it right this minute for breakfast, if at all possible.)
Teresa devotes chapters to making scones, bread, risotto, strawberry shortcake, and pie crusts, just to name a few.  I imagine I will work my way through most of these recipes.  What a task!
I decided to put one of the recipes to the test last night.  Both boys were home for dinner, a very rare occurrence these days.  They love to eat good food and when trying a new recipe, I always charge them with letting me know if a recipe is a keeper and if I need to tweak it a bit.  (They really need to learn to cook and I hope they will-- they would both be good at it.)  This one was deemed a keeper, but I needed to fry the bacon until it was crisper.
The story behind this is simple enough.  A simple recipe, called white spaghetti by Teresa and her sisters, quickly prepared by mom on her bowling nights.  She didn't even know it's real name, pasta alla carbonara, until years later.  Evidently, it is a staple on trattoria menus in Rome.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any while there in 2008.  It is very close to what Mme P, my new French amie, served us while she was here in April.  She added cream to her sauce.  I knew this recipe would go over well.  Bacon, Parmesan cheese, and pasta.  How can you go wrong with that combination?

Spaghetti alla Carbonara
serves 4-6
From Pass The Polenta and other writings from the kitchen by Teresa Lust, Ballantine Books, New York, 1998

1 pound spaghetti (I used linguine because that is what was in the cupboard)
1/2 pound good-quality bacon, diced
3 eggs
A couple handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, about 1/2 cup, plus more for garnishing
Fresh, coarsely ground black pepper

Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling, salted water until al dente.  Meanwhile, render the diced bacon in a large frying pan, stirring occasionally.  After the bacon turns golden and starts to crisp, pour off most of the fat and remove the pan from the heat.  In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and cheese until thoroughly combined.  When the spaghetti is done cooking, drain it quickly in a colander, then add it immediately to the bacon in the skillet.  Drizzle in the eggs, add a liberal grinding of pepper, and stir continuously with a wooden fork until the pasta is well-coated and the eggs and cheese have cooked gently into a slightly thickened sauce.  Pour into a serving bowl and garnish with additional grated cheese.

Bon appétit, Teresa!