Naomi: Cooking for one and for friends



For years now, even before I wrote the recipes in what I think of as my "static blog," Fiftytworecipesfrommymother, at the request of my children, Sarah and Sam, Sarah had been urging me to keep a daily (more or less) record of my cookings--the meals I make for myself in my (surprisingly) solitary life as well as those I make for friends. For whatever reasons, I've never done it.


But, after months of wandering, I've finally begun. As I haven't quite mastered the art of cooking for one, and love throwing together grand meals at the last minute, I have been encouraging friends to call to check on what I might have on hand any evening for a quick meal. Instructions can be found in my entry for March 20th--What's in Naomi's Refrigerator.

This is primarily a record of the meals I prepare for myself and others, accompanied by "mug shots" of the food (when I remember to photograph before eating). Shot by my phone, with no styling, they may not capture their subjects at their best, but so be it.



Tuesday, September 18, 2012

September 18th. Roasted Tomatoes. Roast Cauliflower.

Roasted a pan of aging garden tomatoes with ordinary Roma tomatoes from Farmer's market.

Salad for lunch -- garden tomatoes, lettuce and a spare rib or two.

Rare outing in car to Lamps Plus where I was hoping to look at many fans, but the fans I wanted to see do not make appearances there.  So, as is often the case in my random shopping life, alarmed by the news that it could take two weeks for the fan to ship (this is always the case they said with Modern Fans--is this true?  false?  I didn't seem to have the energy to find out, so to move the process along, I ordered the fan then and there).

Inspired by the ease of that purchase, I stepped into OSH which shares the parking lot.  I was looking for an over-sized dustpan for aid in sweeping the side-walk, but didn't see the appropriate item.  Instead, bought a squeegee with a long-ish handle to help move my window-washing program forward.

Elena's plane was late--and it wasn't clear what dinner plans were but just the possibility of a visiting eater is all I need to do a little cooking.  A cauliflower had been sitting in the vegetable bin for weeks--the time had come to roast it--and as the oven was going to be on--why not roast the golden beets I'd bought just the other day?

The cauliflower and roasted tomatoes could easily be called into action.   If Elena had no other plans, I'd make pasta with garlic and parsley--the vegetables could be added or not--and there was lots of salad stuff as well.

In fact, that meal would have to wait.  Elena arrived exhausted--it was already close to 8pm.  She had tentative plans to meet friends, Andrew and Chrissy.  They wanted to go to Woodfire Pizza on Washington.   Lots of discussion about how Elena would meet them.   The easiest solution seemed to be that I would just take her and join them.  I'd been there once before with Carol and thought it was o.k.--but although it was a comfortable place to sit and quiet enough for us to carry on two simultaneous conversations, the two pizzas and two salads we got were not very good at all.  So the food was disappointing, but the conversation was fine.  No small thing.




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