More Cooking… catching up

In the week way back in late February before I started chemotherapy, I planned great meals. My last meals before taste would be taken away– and at that point I was expecting nausea, too.  I prepared by purchasing Cream of Wheat and a case of ginger ale. They’re still in my kitchen, unopened.

In the weeks that followed, I got gifts. So many gifts. And lately, after chemo finished, another round. Early, I received sharp knives from my Aunt Doris. I also received rosemary olive oil from my friend and fellow cancer survivor Jean.

More recently, I received a gorgeous Le Crueset pan from my friend Lina. When I protested it was too generous, she reminded me that I had bought her first Le Crueset pan back when she bought her first apartment, 12 or 13 years ago.

My friend Anne bought me this gorgeous cookbook, Tender, by British food writer Nigel Slater. It is a serious tome, organized by vegetable. He turned his small backyard into an elaborate fruit and vegetable garden, and shares that tale as well as recipes. Kind of hilariously, he made his raised beds out of hedges, like a proper British garden. The hedges are home to an army of slugs! but do look nice in winter under the snow.

So in this, my window between chemo and surgery, also the highpoint of summer produce, I’m bringing the whole arsenal to bear on a few dinners. I’ve got a little of everything. Which is excellent for fancy food. I have a lot of garlic, including this beautiful purple kind.

Tonight I made two things, both inspired by recipes in Tender. One was a lentil and tomato salad. I used the rosemary oil and white wine vinegar for the dressing, with a little smashed garlic. I steamed today’s small harvest of green beans (the rabbits are still wreaking havoc there, but also the bean plants are somewhat sick and putting out little curved pods with a large bean at the bottom, clearly a desperate reproduction strategy in a bad season). And then I added an ingredient that does not appear in Slater’s book: corn. Corn is clearly not a British vegetable. It certainly is not an urban gardener’s vegetable! I cut the corn off the cob with the great knife from Aunt Doris.

The hot dish was zucchini and tomatoes. I used regular oil and added fresh thyme, mostly because I didn’t feel like going out to the mosquito-infested garden for basil. I also used cherry tomatoes, which are bursts of flavor and break down great in a pan. I added onion and garlic and I made zoodles out of the zucchini with my spiralizer. All cooked up in the sunny yellow cast iron pan.

And tomorrow, I’ll practice my scallop searing, with a tomatillo sauce. On the side,  more corn with cilantro butter and potatoes. Or cilantro slaw… or, or, or whatever I come up with. It’s so great to be back in the kitchen.