This lovely, light soup is full of summery flavors. The meatiness of the vegetables lends a velvety texture without the addition of cream: so delicious, so virtuous.
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I love the peacefulness of August. The springtime makes me restless, full of nervous energy and anticipation. With everything in nature expanding and pushing upward, it’s harder for me to find my own stillness. But about a month after the summer solstice, I can feel a shift. It’s that sweet, languorous moment of the year when the earth seems drowsy under the weight of its fruit, ready to offer it up and slip graciously back towards the darkness.

For some of my ancient predecessors (the Irish ones), August 1 was Lughnasadh, the first day of autumn and a celebration of the first grain harvest of the year. In Celtic mythology it was the funeral feast of the harvest goddess Tailtiu (see last year’s First Fruits). Though it’s a happy, hopeful time, the underlying theme is sacrifice, as the grain is cut down so that humans may be bountiful. For me it’s a quiet opportunity–free of the pomp and fanfare of Thanksgiving–to be grateful for my own plenty, to honor the changing season, and to prepare for the journey back towards darkness, where new things grow.

For Lughnasadh this year I’ll be making the beautiful, earthy Rosemary Diamante Bread I discovered at Waverly Fitzgerald’s site, School of the Seasons. The recipe is itself adapted from Carol Field’s The Italian Baker. Because I had so much rosemary, I pressed a sprig into the loaf you see above. As it’s the herb of remembrance, it seemed particularly appropriate.

A favorite book of mine, Alexandra Stoddard’s Gift of a Letter, points out that one should never begin a letter by apologizing for not having written sooner. Having said that, I’ll share a bit of what has filled the many days between right now and that last bowl of soup: Still Life Painting in Southern Europe, 1600–1800 and Botanical Imagery in European Painting, published on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Timeline of Art History.

Inspired by the startlingly unidealized still lifes of Caravaggio and his followers, I filled a bowl with this week’s haul of veggies from my local CSA (here including kale, fava beans, cucumbers, and a zucchini) and snapped away without primping, spritzing, or overly arranging. I realized what incredible pleasure there is in not choosing the most beautiful specimen or the most flattering angle, but simply depicting what is. This summer my kitchen is overflowing with greens, more than I’ve ever cooked with or eaten before, and the more time I spend with things that come out of the earth the more singularly beautiful I find them for their imperfections.

I’d like to send a virtual pot of soup to all the people I love who are currently unwell, sad, overworked, or otherwise stressed out. And to you, dear stranger, if you find yourself similarly afflicted. I sat awake one night recently, thinking about this; before long, I was in the kitchen, peeling carrots at midnight.
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Cooking is a creative activity–no matter how closely you’re following a recipe–and as such, it’s never an un-emotional experience. When I’m in the kitchen, I’m excited, relaxed, terrified, frustrated, meditative, often more than one of the above, and always because of what I’m cooking. I think it’s possible, too, to every once in a while have a truly spiritual experience in the kitchen: a brief but perfect communion with your food, a moment in which you realize that you and it are an intimate part of each other’s history.

I had this experience in my mother’s kitchen, two days before Christmas, as I made zeppole, the sweet and savory doughnuts my late grandmother once turned out by the hundred at this time of year. Zeppole are a specialty of southern Italy, where they’re traditionally made for the feast of Saint Joseph on March 19th. Nowadays, they occasionally turn up at carnivals and street fairs. They come in many shapes and sizes: some are simply balls of dough, sprinkled with powdered sugar or stuffed with jam, others are ring-shaped, like a conventional doughnut. My grandmother’s–and mine, I’m proud to say–are fabulously twisted, gnarly things, made from a leavened yeast dough and, of course, deep-fried.
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Within a few days of discovering Anya von Bremzen and John Welchmans’s Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, I found myself in the Russian Tea Room, a velvet-lined jewel box of a restaurant, putting some of my new knowledge to use over a flight of three vodkas. I didn’t exactly bandy the Russian phrases about, but that was probably for the best. These things take practice.

So let’s practice. Here is a paraphrased version of Bremzen and Welchman’s guide to drinking a shot of vodka the proper Russian way. Continue reading …

I’m off to Vienna, then back to Berlin. See you on the 20th of October–auf Wiedersehen!

Below is a third outstanding entry to our recipe contest (now closed–thanks to everyone who participated!), a beautiful and bittersweet tale in which magic occurs in the heart of the beholder.

Mike wrote:

I HATED the smell and taste of my father’s creation, Paul’s Maryland Stuffed Ham. The combination of cabbage, kale and onions, and the 4 hours cooking time saturated our house every Christmas with an odor that I found so very unappealing. But like the yin and yang in life, the Maryland Stuffed Ham represents childhood memories of magical holiday seasons.

My parents went their separate ways when I was six. Mom and I moved to Grandma’s dilapidated three story house in a railroad town in central Pennsylvania and Dad remained in our year round summer cottage in southern Maryland. He worked as a butcher and always cooked for anyone who would let him. Continue reading …

A couple of months ago, a certain free morning newspaper (and I say “a certain” but I actually don’t remember which one, as I took it with one jet-lagged eye open from the chirpy giver-outer at my metro stop, and read only one page) suggested rather unhelpfully but with all good intentions that instead of spending money on a costly summer vacation, one should simply go out and buy a cookbook. Thus, I suppose, cooking one’s imaginary way through an exotic land, steeped in the spices and flavorings of a culture hitherto unexplored (by you, or me, the cook/traveller).
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I’m off to California to partake in a fairy-tale wedding. So I’m extending the deadline for our Fanciful Foods and Kitchen Witchery Recipe Contest to 11:59 p.m. on September 30. Keep cooking: there are four spots left for excellent entries!