melons before their time

I agree with Julia Childs. "People who are not interested in food always seem rather dry and unloving and don't have a real gusto for life."

When I wake up, the first question on my mind is: What are we having for dinner? Why ponder dinner first and not breakfast? Because, dinner is the theater of our meals. More planning and thought must go into creating something worthy of our time. It's the meal that Sharon and I use to honor the day. My favorite meals are made from the simplest ingredients. I've found with a grateful heart and stomach, even simple meals become great sustaining feasts.




I find that food even invades my romantic thoughts. I sometimes refer to Sharon as my little burrito-schnitzel. Sharon is of Mexican-German descent.

I come from a family of cooks. Dad and Mom always cooked. Grandma Hoag, Mom's mom, was renowned for her proper hospitality and prolific cooking. My brother, Eric, who has been cooking since he could hold a knife, was recently honored as Chef of the Week at the restaurant that he works at. I have two other brothers and two sisters, they all cook. Over the last several years, I've seen a common credo growing in our familial view of food: quality over quantity.

I didn't grow up with food that could be credited to a specific ethnic or cultural identity. We ate American food, i.e. food from the grocery store, some of it fresh, most of it canned or packaged. My favorite meal was what we simply called, linguine. Today I recognize that meal as Pasta Carbonara. My first chores in the kitchen were peeling potatoes. Mom had allergies from the dust on the potatoes, so the duty of peeling spuds fell to the hardy sinused kids. My infatuation with food really began in college. I couldn't stand frozen dinners and most of the foods I cut out of a can were stupid and ugly. Tomatoes are my exception to the rule of disliking canned food. I usually have several cans of tomatoes on the pantry shelf, pinto beans too, though both are over salted.

Sometime in my second or third semester of university, I bought my first cook book, Italian Cooking, Betty Crocker; I never looked back. Searching for the best ingredients became a serious pastime and combining and eating them, a mild obsession. Most days don't pass that I don't flip through a cookbook or food magazine.

Without being to pointed, I feel that fast food is comparable to pornography, nutritionally speaking. I'd be remiss to deny my participation in fast food dinning during the early nineties. With lots of beer drinking comes lots of late-night Taco Bell. Being drunk, like smoking cigarettes, dulls the senses. So during my early days of oat-sowing, my taste in food was less than respectable. Never the less, some mysterious force continued to urge me to seek food that inspired, and to disregard the common.

I don't recall going to farmers markets as a kid. Farmers markets teach you about eating seasonally. Melons for instance, are not fit to eat until very late summer or autumn.

I cut up a cantaloupe yesterday for lunch. It was perfect, sweet, juicy, a bit of earth and herb. Upon my wife's return from work, I declared that from this day forward: "Under penalty of ridicule, No member of my family would ever be allowed to eat a cantaloupe before September 1st!" Sharon is very understanding of my outbursts and usually supports them as they pertain to food.

In 2003, the agency, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as Unesco, which is based in Paris, adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to preserve “oral traditions and expressions” and “performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; traditional craftsmanship.”

In the spirit of this idea, this week a group of acclaimed Epicureans from France gathered to persuade the United Nations to declare French gastronomy a world treasure. God-bless their froggy hearts. Whether this declaration is granted or not, I will be first in line to wave my beret in honor of rabbit terrine and moules a la Normandie. "Hallelujah!" - de Babbet's Feast

The 19th-century food writer Brillat-Savarin wrote, “The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.”

Here's a new dish to inspire.


Moules a la Mariniere
mussles with wine and herbs
Serves 2

An 8-10 quart pot with lid
1 cups of light, dry white wine or dry vermouth
1/4 cup minced shallots
4 parsley sprigs
1/2 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme
pinch fresh ground pepper
3 Tblsp butter
2 lbs scrubbed, soaked mussles

Bring the wine to a boil in the pot along with all of the rest of the ingredients, except the mussels. Boil for 2 or so minutes to evaporate the alcohol and to reduce its volume slightly.

Add the mussels to the pot. cover tightly and boil quickly over high heat. Frequently grasp the kettle with both hands, your thumbs clamped to the cover, and toss the mussels in the pot with an up and down slightly jerky motion so the mussels will change levels and cook evenly. In about 5 minutes the shells will swing open and the mussels are done.

With a big skimmer, dip the mussels into wide soup bowls. Allow the cooking liquid to settle for a moment so any sand from the mussels will sink to the bottom. Then ladle the liquid over the mussels, drizzle a bit of good olive oil over and sprinkle with the parsley, serve immediately.

Have an extra bowl at the table to discard your shells. Serve this light meal with hot crusty bread and maybe sliced ripe cantaloupe on the side. I suggest drinking a crisp, dry Alsatian white or an herby sauvignon blanc.



Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave