"Cooking is an art,
but you eat it too."
-- Marcella Hazan
 |
| Portrait (tomato paste on paper) 11-25-14 |
"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces --
just good food from fresh ingredients."
-- Julia Child
"The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art,
one of the joys of civilized living."
-- Dione Lucas
A new specialty foods store opened here recently.
They specialize in Mediterranean ingredients imported directly from Greece, Spain and Italy.
My little Italian nephew Marco loves olives, so I buy him several jars a year for Christmas and for his birthday.
So yesterday, Mackenna and I braved the extreme winds to do a little Christmas shopping and to check out the new store and to to explore some new tastes and possibilities.
We came home with two large grocery bags stuffed to bursting with not only several varieties of delicious olives, but also sardines, and pastas, and rice, and pastries, and wine, and coffee, and pickles, and cheeses, and meats.
I was especially excited to find tomato paste in a tube. I fucking love tomato paste in a tube. It's genius. None of it goes to waste. You just dispense it like toothpaste, or oil paint, just a dab at a time. I bought some with basil in it.
When we got home I used much of our tasty bounty to prepare supper.
I made thick, crusty sandwiches with salami, melted smoked provolone, and roasted wild goose (Yes, goose. Canada goose. Leo shot it on Saturday.)
I made Orecchiette pasta -- small round pasta that looks like little ears. Mackenna picked it out. I tossed it in a sauce made of butter and olive oil infused with herbes de provence, along with some wine, lemon, fresh parmigiano reggiano and a few squirts of that basil-y tomato paste.
I popped a bottle of a wine I've never tried, a Pinot Nero, from northern Italy.
For dessert we bought a bakery box filled with a sampling of decadent cakes and cookies.
I live in an area driven primarily by amusement parks, water slides and tourism that caters to families with children and other people who like chain restaurants and familiarity, whose tastes are mainstream and boring and predictable.
Around here, anything new or different or a little bit exotic -- anyplace that doesn't serve chicken nuggets or have a kids menu -- eventually atrophies and dies because people just want the same old shit.
Not me. This store is like a culinary wonderland. It's like an art supplies store for people who like to cook and eat and experiment and expand their palettes, er, palates.
Palates?
Palettes?
I happen to believe that food is art, so let's just go with both.
