Recipes for Trouble

It’s the last day of August.

We are in that uneasy border zone again, between summer and fall. The heat, when it happens, is delightful and unsettling, like a kid in a party dress at the wrong time of day.

It’s the absolute best time of year to cook. The variety is unbelievable, dazzling; fruits and vegetables sing with operatic flavour. A bounty of fresh herbs grows outside my kitchen door.

My tomatoes, are, as usual, reluctant to ripen. The Tennis Player, joining me for a drink on my patio, eyes them skeptically. The next day there is a manila envelope full of her own red, candy-like cherry tomatoes outside my front door.

I drift to Toronto Island, on one of the last hot days of summer. The beach is full of feral children, moms on cellphones, people alone reading novels, people in couples drinking beer, groups of youth playing ball. I have brought my new memoir manuscript with me, all 194 pages. This does not make for the most relaxing of afternoons. The lake is full of wind and waves.

I have friends over for dinner, they are apologetic about their respective wheat and yeast intolerances. I am up for the challenge. I eschew aged cheeses, wheat flours, anything fermented. No olives, capers, or balsamic. I manage to create a meal that surprises me with its sweet, spicy flavours. My favourite new recipe discovery is Piedmontese peppers (recipe below), which I allows me to show off the Tennis Player’s sweet, juicy tomatoes.

What are you cooking or baking these last waning summer days?

Piedmontese peppers

This recipe is adapted from the blog Rachel Eats, who in turn got it from Elizabeth David via Simon Hopkinson’s ‘Roast chicken and other stories’

* 4 fine sweet red or yellow peppers
* 4 plump cloves of garlic peeled and finely sliced
* about 30 cherry tomatoes
* olive oil
* salt and freshly ground black pepper.
* Anchovies to decorate OR goat cheese to sprinkle over top

Heat the oven to 220°c

Halve each pepper and carefully cut away the white pith and shake out the seeds but try and leave the green stem intact – a totally aesthetic exercise.

Season the insides of the peppers with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Put a few slices of garlic in each halve and then cut the cherry tomatoes in halves and tuck 4 or 5 in each one, of course, the number of halves will depend on the size of your pepper

Season each pepper halve with a little more salt and pepper and transfer to a baking tray.

Dribble olive oil quite generously over each pepper halve and then roast in the oven at 220°c for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, turn the oven down to 180°c and roast the peppers for another hour or so or until the peppers are tender, collapsing and gently charring at the edges.

Allow the peppers to cool in the tin for a good long while while before carefully transferring to a serving plate, being careful to catch and precious juices and spoon them over the peppers

If you are going to add the anchovies, drape them over about 30mins before serving.

if you are going to add goat cheese, sprinkle the crumbled cheese over top after you pull the peppers out of the oven.

The last five weeks, I was unplugged: no email, no Facebook, no Youtube, except when I went into town once a week, for an hour.

So it was highly amusing, when I invited my friend The Camera Dude for dim sum, and he created a Facebook group called “Yum Chah” complete with its own theme song.

People say digital social networking separates and isolates us all. But this is a guy who creates instant community via computer and cellphone. In no time at all there were six people happily slurping up dumplings and all manner of deep fried things around our big round table in a cavernous dim sum palace on Dundas West, the Forestview This. Is. One. Of. The. Last. Old. School. Places. Left. For Dim. Sum. said Camera Dude. My. Ma. Comes. Here. Every. Day.

I looked around. Faded carpets, yellowing walls. But the dim sum trolleys glittered with their wealth of deliciousness: I had a garlicky shrimp and spinach dumpling that had me groaning with delight. Camera Dude pointed out all the Chinese grannies ruling various tables, surrounded by generations of descendants. The tough-faced women running the trollies flirted with Camera Dude; someone brought him his special chrysanthemum tea on the house.

Dim. Sum. Doesn’t. Work. With. Less. Than. Three. People. said Camera Dude, firmly. He’s right; you need to have critical mass so you can order a dazzling variety of stuff.

I had been floating in this city since coming back from The Remote Island, unmoored. A round table, good food, and a gathering of artists and dumpling lovers grounded me, reminded me I was home.

Back in the city.

After being in the country, your senses are limber, more attuned to smells and sounds. Some of it is beautiful.

The streetcar, late at night, empty, its windows transparent, framing the city. Outdoor cafes, full of people at 10 p.m, awash in the light of streetlamps, headlights, candles (by then, on that island, you were usually fast asleep, and so was everyone else).

The air is dirty, viscous, you feel it clogging your pores.

You smile at people, out of habit. Sometimes, they smile back, surprised.

The city is full of your worries.The city is full of abundance, you can get organic peaches, vinho verde, lattes, Vietnamese food, croissant, dumplings, churassco chicken, newspapers, any time.

The city is full of art. The city is green, it is concrete, it is brick; it is excessive, tumultuous.

You had a reprieve, you are grateful.

It all began with blackberries.

They were everywhere on Gambier Island, and as visitors graced me with their presence my last week on the island, I sent them out a-pickin’. They risked all manner of injury and sudden death, and supplied me with bags and containers of juicy deliciousness.

And that somehow led to a blackberry-themed dinner, my last weekend on the island. Blue-eyed Stranger did extreme research and devised a delectable cold blackberry soup of East European origin. With The Librarian’s (visiting from Toronto) help, I made pan-seared blackberry glazed salmon, risotto dotted with blackberries and salad with b-berry dressing. The Librarian magically created blackberry crepes….the neighbours joined us for dessert and we finished off the last of the Hornby Island honey wine.

Our last night on Gambier, I announced officiously to the Blue-Eyed Stranger: That’s. It. I. Absolutely. Cannot. Cook. Anymore. She was taken aback but only for a moment. She knew I’d managed valiantly without lattes, cafes, and takeout for over a month. She good-naturedly fired up the all-terrain vehicle and off we went, bumping over the hills in the purple dusk, to the General Store.

The Sad-Eyed Dude was ready for us. He serves up lovely light lunches all week, but on weekends he goes all out. The place was empty but it was full of food love. We devoured lamb curry and vegetarian lasagna. Sad-Eyed Dude cooks from his heart: the curry had a tinge of citrus, the lasagna a surprising spicy kick.

But it didn’t end there. Two days later, and I’m in Sidney, on Vancouver Island, visiting my younger brother, The Aid Worker.

We drive along cool shady country roads and grab corn, tomatoes, beans and chard from roadside stands. We drink fruit wine from Marley Wines, cook up local spot prawns for dinner. How. Did. We. Get. To. Be. Such. Foodies. I ask my bro’. We surmise it’s all of our travels, and also, it’s our dad, who was quite the old world epicure. In any case, we cook up some lovely meals, and the preparing and eating of food becomes, as usual, a way to bridge old silences and create new memories.