Sunday, July 10, 2011

Simple Food

sweet potato, 2010

Basic unadorned simplicity, it is a beautiful thing.

The mulberries picked from our neighbors tree when I was a girl. Anchovies with lemon in Liguria. A tomato sandwich. Green peas popped from the pod while standing in the garden. A perfect plum. A slab of cold watermelon in the shade of the back porch. A basic salami sandwich. The jambon et fromage baguette I ate beside the Sienne. The pots of flageolets and tomatoes I made in my tiny Paris apartment (thank you Luisa). Avocado toast. Sardines on rye. Fat blueberries stirred into yogurt and drizzled with wildflower honey. Any green sauteed in olive oil, topped with a fried egg, fleur de sel, and fresh coarse ground pepper. Roasted garlic cloves smeared onto slices of crusty bread. Angel hair pasta with chopped home grown tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper (Chris made (and grew) the best). A bowl of boiled new potatoes with butter, salt, pepper, and fresh dill. Cool radishes dipped in good salt. The warm olives Pizzeria Delfina serves as an antipasti. A hard cooked egg, each bite tapped into salt and pepper. Roasted sweet potato slices.

One night when we were in a French-fried potato sort of snack mood my dad suggested sweet potatoes. He cut some thick slices, slathered them with olive oil, sprinkled them with salt and pepper (he might have used a little cayenne too), and roasted them in a hot oven until soft on the inside and just beginning to crisp on the outside. They were so good.

What is your favorite simple food?

28 comments:

  1. A bowl of very ripe sweet cherries or cold juicy melon in chunks so i can eat one after the other.

    I'm heading for the refrigerator right now.

    xo jane

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  2. jane, Excellent. I'm buying one or the other, possibly both, tomorrow.

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  3. Lovely post, Denise. I had my most-loved simple food just this afternoon -- the year's first wild blackberries, plucked warm and eaten out of hand.

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  4. Lately, I'm obsessed with crackers, cheddar and pickles. Also, any fruit or vegetable picked right off the tree or vine, the joys of summer!

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  5. yes, I'll go with the picked-straight-from-the-tree/vine/plant view too. I also love fresh, slightly warm bread drizzled with good olive oil. A ripe brie to accompany it and I'm in heaven!

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  6. that sounds yammy.
    my favorite simple food is to dry vege and cook in a olive oil, sprinkle just little bit of salt.

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  7. pastina with butter and salt.

    sliced fennel dipped in olive oil with freshly ground pepper.

    nutella on crusty bread.

    vanilla pudding.

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  8. One of my most pleasant memories from childhood is walking into my father's garden to pick a perfectly ripe tomato--then eating that warm-from-the-sun beauty right there in the garden with juices dripping down my arm. For me, that is simple food at its best.

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  9. Any fruit eaten straight from the bush/tree. Peas eaten raw from the pod. The first Spring new potatoes, freshly dug, drenched in butter, chives and mint. A perfectly poached egg, sprinkled with sea-salt and sharp white pepper.

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  10. What a way to wake up. I am loving all of your comments and wishing I was on an orchard or farm with a box of pastina in the cabinet.

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  11. i wasn't looking straight.
    i saw a high heeled mashed potato to your right...

    about the favourite food..?
    how about your whole long appetizing post?
    n♥

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  12. Oatmeal sprinkled with blueberries, nuts and a drizzle of maple syrup. Or hot chocolate with a stack of buttered sourdough toast. Yum!

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  13. You are my kinda girl. The way you describe food...so thoughtfully. My stomach made a little errp as I read this post - I'm reading this pre-oatmeal.

    Pasta - prepared almost anyway, but my favorite is with my red sauce :^) with a mountain of parm.

    I am preparing your sachet for delivery today! I like the idea that something I've made will belong to you... xo

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  14. Almost anything fresh from the garden, especially raspberries and bush beans.

    Tzatziki and pita. Poached egg on a toasted english muffin. Olives and pickles.

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  15. Thank you for this! I've been feeling like I'm not a real cook anymore because we've been eating everything "unadorned" as you say. (I was saying plain!) We're in limbo without my kitchen stuff until it arrives back from Italia. I haven't bought new spices but honestly we're enjoying the taste of everything so fresh, seems there is no need to hide it.
    Only the strawberries get doused in some fresh cream.

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  16. It depends on the season. Sliced, salted tomatoes; a hard boiled egg; a bag of cherries; melon, wrapped in proscuitto...

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  17. These are some good words.
    I can't quite put my finger on why your writing is so evocative? But, I am loving it.

    avocado smashed on rye toast.
    so very good.

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  18. I love this collection of food memories. Thank you for sharing! I'd also add:

    A piece of warm bread, ripped from the loaf and smeared with salted butter; a BLT made with the first of summer's garden-grown tomatoes; and sliced avocado with a generous sprinkling of lemon juice and salt.

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  19. Love lemon pasta. So much, my sort of comfort food. But sweet potatoes always make the thing too !!!!

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  20. beautiful post. makes me want to eat breakfast again, even though i've just finished it.
    like you, i love a plain boiled egg with salt and pepper. also bread and butter.

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  21. (good) fruits and cheese. together or separately ! a popular snack in our family are raw carrots sprinkled with lemon juice & fleur de sel...

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  22. wonderful list of food. right now, it's sungold cherry tomatoes, growing in my front yard--so sweet. grab 'em and pop 'em in your mouth like candy.

    anything toast makes me happy: with butter and radishes, or slather of pepper-flecked goat cheese, or apricot jam, or honey and thyme. or just butter and chippy salt.

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  23. Greens (any kind), sauteed with garlic, olive oil and garlic - maybe some chili pepper too. Tomatoes and sea salt. Sardines on toast. Spinach and mozzarella toast. A piece of Parmigiano. Pinzimonio (raw veggie strips with olive oil and lemon juice). Walnuts and honey. Figs (better if with something salty: blue cheese? prosciutto?). And the list goes on...

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  24. Thank you! I will return to this post again and again because I would happily eat every item noted.

    Nicole, Sometimes I think not being a real cook is the way to go.

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  25. Tomato straight from the garden with just a sprinkling of salt.

    Beautiful writing!

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  26. in summer: tomato still warm from the sun, bread, olive oil, a small piece of parmesan cheese, some olives, a handful of basil. hi denise!

    in estate: pomodori ancora caldi di sole, pane, olio evo, un piccolo pezzo di parmigiano reggiano, qualche oliva, una manciata di basilico. ciao denise!

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  27. oh this has made my stomach grumble with hunger - avocado on Vogel's toast with salt and pepper, and perhaps a slice of sweet tomato would have to be my all time favourite. Memory wise it would be the home-made chewy bread with cardamom we had for breakfast every morning when in Nungwi, Zanzibar - that was over ten years ago and I still dream about it.

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  28. Annie, Now I'll be dreaming of home-made chewy bread with cardamom.

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