The best part of winter in California is the citrus. Every year my family and I celebrate the season by ordering a box of tarocco blood oranges from Frog Hollow Farm for sorbet. Their juice makes a delicious dessert: sweet, tart, refreshing and cold as the snow we never have here in San Francisco.
An incredibly satisfying yet deceptively simple soup that is perfect for a cold, wet, fall day, it gets even better with a side of old school garlic bread like my mom used to make. Warms you right up!
Tuesday morning we had a counter top full of tomatoes, so I hustled during breakfast and dinner to make the least complicated sauce I could find: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, salt. Plus some oregano since it was right there sitting on the counter.
Handpicked from Omnivore Books by my husband, I received this book for my forty-first birthday. It is a 1984 first edition, published long before I had heard of Chez Panisse or ever eaten there. On the back cover are the usual sort of "praise for" quotes, one from M.F.K. Fisher and one from Richard Olney. Both writers now long dead, it gives me a thrill to own something that I know they read.
This July, as usual, we finished eating up the arugula growing in our garden. It is always gone by mid-summer. Arugula is a remarkably easy crop to grow - as long as it doesn't get too hot or too dry. I try to start it at the beginning of each new year, out in the garden under a cold frame, which is essentially a miniature greenhouse.
My kids love blood oranges because they are a little bit disgusting. “Mommy! Get some really bloody ones!” By this late date in winter they are no longer interested in eating plain old oranges: only the red variety or fresh squeezed juice of the orange one will do.
Toast isn't something I usually associate with gardens, but at the Wild Flour Bakery in Sonoma, the two go hand in hand. For my husband, this bakery is a regular refueling stop along one of his lengthier bicycling routes. For me, it is a beautiful place to visit for a meal, some time in the sun and botanical inspiration.
Homemade polenta can be an intensive affair, it requires half an hour of near continuous stirring. Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone has a walk-away version, but it needs to simmer for an hour and a half, after two separate pots of water are brought to a boil, one at a time, on top of each other. That takes more pre-planning than I can handle.