Summer Cooking
Our cooking habits this summer have followed a peculiar pattern. First we go the farmer’s market when ravenous (always a bad idea), then we impulse-buy produce, and finally at home we wonder: what sort of a meal could we possibly fashion out the eclectic collection of ingredients now sprawled out all over our kitchen?
The resulting meals are multi-course oddities in which we pit our desire to eat well-prepared food against blinding hunger. We start with something that can prepared in seconds, an amuse if you will; think cherries and peaches chopped up with fresh mint and a sprinkle of sugar. Next come several small plates that have no cohesiveness or relationship to each other. Think scallions and corn sautéed with butter and dash of cayenne, or a one-egg omelette with chanterelles, shallots and gruyère.
For all intents and purposes, our studio kitchen has been home to a spastic summertime tapas bar for one. Here, we eat by ourselves while standing up and still cooking and the meals we make are a celebration of the freeform nature of summer, the unrestrained possibilities of solitary dining, and food that is simple, straightforward, good.
Soon, it will be fall, a time for orderly, balanced meals with organizing principles like roast chicken, but we’ll indulge in randomness for a little bit longer. At least long enough to remake one of the tapas bar’s particularly inspired delights: a warm salad of fresh tomato, corn and fried eggplant. Maybe we’ll even invite a friend.
To make this salad, get yourself a nice juicy tomato (heirloom if you're feeling spendy), a sweet ear of corn and a dainty eggplant. Slice up the tomato, cut the corn off the cob* and let it all come to room temperature. Slice the eggplant into 1/2” thick rounds and fry them in olive oil over medium-high heat until they are crisp on the outside and soft and mushy in the middle. Arrange the salad, drizzling with olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper as you go, and if you have any cheese lying around (shaved parmesan or manchego, or even crumbled goat cheese), toss that on top. Enjoy.
*The chaos of cutting corn off the cob can be somewhat resolved by snapping the cob in two before you cut off the kernels. Much of the kernels-flying-everywhere business has to do with them being sort of round and then falling from such great heights.*
*That wasn’t intentional.
Photo by Rachael Coyle
