Self Respect: Shirred Eggs with Sun Dried Tomato Pesto

-Ladies, brace yourselves.-

So longest post ever followed by the shortest post ever. I was at the market today buying some eggs for a cake I wanted to make for a potluck.

All and all, this was an in and out trip. Go in. Grab eggs. Buy eggs. Leave. It was a mission of practical pinpoint accuracy that I fashioned after watching far too many military movies and dating a lot of military personnel.

So in I go and I get to the eggs without any incident. As I pick one up a lady and her little girl around twelve are going through carton after carton looking for perfect eggs and - I kid you not - assembling a new one. When she found an egg she liked, one that was obviously superior to one of the eggs in the carton she was holding, she would switch it with the worst egg in her dozen.

Lord know what the qualifications were. They all looked exactly the same, but maybe I'm just a layman when it comes to egg analysis.

-Insert any obvious joke about the sexes and eggs here.-

Speaking of eggs. Here's a snippet of the conversation they were in the middle of:

Child: "So, mom, if those people are making all those decisions shouldn't there be girls helping make them? All the people they showed on the news were men."

Mom: "Yes, well, sometimes women make very bad choices and men need to make them instead. Women can be very emotional and men are more rational."

Me in my Head: "Oh f***, no, she didn't."

The Cycle of Love for Produce

-Ready for a quick flurry of salt and pepper.-

Throughout the year there are certain staple dishes that I look forward to making based on their seasonality. These particular recipes are ones that are best made at the peak of their season for a few simple reasons.

Most obviously, fruits and vegetables taste their best at their peak and when they've just come off the vine. For example, July seems to be the time when all varieties of eggplant, from white to Hmong to Japanese, seem to be their most strong and spongy and ready to absorb every flavor you throw at them but still retain that distinctive soft-foam texture. In June they're too small and tough to eat and come August they're so bloated with water they turn to mush at the slightest singe.

-July is the season for cherry tomatoes of all kinds here in Sacramento.-

Second, they're cheap at that time of year. Apricots come into season at late May to early June here in Sacramento, however, you can find them for sale at the Farmer's Market in April. Ignore these false prophets of an early apricot season. They'll only feed you lies. For a whopping $4 per pound you'll be taking home sugar water filled pouches or too tart rocks in the shape of apricots. Fruit devoid of flavor that leaves you devoid of your hard earned cash. However, come back on June 1st, well, those apricots will be bursting with flavor and cost $1.50 per pound.

Still, it's good that some of these dishes only have such short seasons. I know I sound crazy but stay and listen before clicking over to check your Facebook. The reason I say this is because I overindulge in seasonal produce and the recipes I've attached to them. When butternut squash is plentiful in October I puree it and turn it into gnocchi or roast them with maple syrup, cinnamon, and brown sugar. When spinach and kale are bountiful in January it gets wilted in a pot with garlic and oyster sauce. In summer, eggplant gets marinated in fish sauce, curry power, and lemongrass then tossed in a skillet with coconut milk and onions. I will eat these dishes three or four times a week because at their freshest they're tear jerkingly good and so easy to prepare.

-This set-up is a common sight in my kitchen.-

However, eating these a few times a week for three or four weeks makes you grow tired of them. It's how we as humans are; constant exposure to something makes it less special. It's the same way that after a long vacation you get tired and ready to go home as you've been overexposed to the newness of your locale. As a kid my friends had season passes to Disneyland and guest passes that were at my disposal. After one summer where I rode Space Mountain at least 50 times it no longer held any real excitement. I had the timing of every hairpin curve down pat and knew exactly what to expect. Ho-hum, I would say, spinning upside down at 80 miles per hour.

Similarly, the produce I once pined for for eleven months are no longer new and unique. In fact, I get sick of them and begin to look forward to the next seasonal favorite like squash blossoms or pea shoots. It seems that all things in moderation applies to produce as well.

Right now I'm at the beginning of that alimentary cycle with small cherry tomatoes of all kinds. I am not simply eating a lot of them, but rather I'm buying enough to put the farmer's daughter through college. Probably a nice one at that. (It certainly would explain the new Trojans t-shirt he had on this morning.)

-While great on its own this is a perfect side for any barbeque and is wonderful over grilled skirt steak.-

I enjoy them with little pearls of mozzarella and a good spoonful of pesto but I so rarely have the ingredients on hand for that. Usually I use a basic preparation that's sunny, bright, and makes for an excellent side dish to steak or pork, or works as a simple meal on its own. I simply cut the tomatoes in half and lightly salt and pepper them. Next, I mince a large clove of garlic. After heating a few tablespoons of olive oil in a fry pan I toss in the tomatoes and garlic and shake them a bit over high heat. After a minute or two I add a bit of red wine vinegar and continue to toss until the liquids thicken up a bit, about 30 seconds. After that it's done and ready to serve. (If you do happen to have pearl mozzarella on hand use it, the creamy flavor and melty texture adds depth.)

The result are sweet and sour cherry tomatoes that are packed with flavor from the salt, pepper, and garlic. The whole thing only takes a few minutes and is an immensely satisfying, no-fuss way to enjoy these little fruits in the height of summer. Indeed, I've been making them for my lunch four days out of the week for a few weeks now.

I suppose in another I'll start to get tired of them, but that's fine. Soon the big heirloom tomatoes will be ready and those are great marinated in balsamic and tossed under the broiler or on the grill. The cycle will begin again.

-And come next July I'll be making this dish over and over again once more.-

Book Club Brunch

-A simple tart always impresses your guests.-

For the first time in what seems like forever I finally have enough free time to sit down and actually read a book on my own. The past many, many years have been plagued with assigned readings where a 400 page novel had to be completed, processed, analyzed, and written about within a seven day time span. Epic rhetorical essays had to be understood with the expectation that their key points could be regurgitated - eloquently, I might add - on request. Theories about teaching, composition, and how to instruct English-as-a-second-language students were to be compressed in whatever corner of my crammed little mind.

It's no wonder I wasn't doing any pleasure reading. For the longest time my brain simply rejected any written words that didn't have an immediate practical applicability that was somehow related to my GPA. Even reading the most pleasant and beautiful food blogs resulted in mental projectile vomit, my head crying in the spaces between words, "No more!"

Only now do I finally have a moment to breath and read. I can graze over the words and ponder them. I don't have to question what Derrida would think (I'll give those of you who don't know that name a moment to look him up, and those that do a moment to recover from the trauma) or the postcolonial interpretations of what the text is saying and what its greater implications upon society as a whole are; or, you know, whatever stuff like that.

-A phenomenal read to chat about over a meal with friends.-

Still, I do crave thoughtful literary discussion. It exercises my brain and gives me a chance to socialize with like-minded people, so it only made sense that I start up a book club. I called a few close friends: a fellow grad student who had graduated before me, a friendly food blogger with Mexico ties, a techie and a few others who jumped at the idea. I proposed meeting in thirty days to discuss our first selection, Amy Tan's, The Kitchen God's Wife.

The book is a wonderful read; thoughtful and dramatic, funny in all the right places and usually leaving me wanting dim sum. However, it was how I read the book that was so staggering to me. I read for fun! I was so proud of myself! I read my book without pen and highlighter in arm's reach. I only noted a few passages I found funny or especially poignant so I could bring them up to fellow book club members and pick their brains. In previous years my books have always ended up marred in annotations and underlinings, or flagged with so many little post-its it looked like the binding was spouting more ribbon than a Mardi Gras float. My copy of Tan's novel only has a few penned in stars and two dog eared pages.

The book club is something I need and enjoy; moments of friendly debate, co-misery, and gushing. The members fill me up and energize me not just for literature but other intellectual activities, like cooking. The club meeting was an opportunity to gather friends together and cook them a perfect little meal.

-Talking about a book is difficult when your face is full of cake.-

I was torn between cooking Chinese food, a cuisine I'm competent at and which would have matched the book, or what I considered to be stereotypical book club fare like salads and teeny sandwiches. Taking into account it was dry and 102 degrees outside I went with the latter and developed a menu that, by pure happenstance, was totally designed by my friend David (even if he wasn't aware of it).

David's almond cake is one of those practical recipes that I added to my repertoire a few years ago. It's easy to throw together at the last second and always produces the same amazing result: a cake heady with almond flavor and an incredibly moist crumb. Served with a bit of fruit macerated in sugar and spices it's a simple crowd pleaser that's appropriate for any occasion at any time of year. The fact that it was all almond seemed to also synch up well with the book where almond desserts abound.

-The drama shot. Blueberries are always dramatic.-

Before the cake I served a simple tomato tart that David wrote up a few weeks ago. It was one of those recipes that just hooked me and sat in my brain niggling at the front of my skull knocking around asking, "Ya' gonna' make me yet?" The book club meeting proved to be the perfect chance to serve this. An easy recipe with a big wow factor. It tastes like sun and cool, grassy breezes. Served with chilled Rose wine it was a wonderful way to usher in our first meeting.

Overall, the meeting went well as people felt each other out and learned to express their opinions in the forum. I found how enjoyable a novel really can be and how light exploration can force you to turn over a good book and look at it in a new light. Similarly, it gives you an excuse to exercise your creative juices in the kitchen and fuel your friends for riveting discussion.

-One of the easiest tarts I've ever made. If you use a pre-made frozen tart crust this is even easier, though making your own is simple and tastes better.-