I love cooking in the fall.
Root vegetables are my favorite, but I suspect this affinity goes back to the days of Brandon and I living in the trailer in Waldport, Oregon, with no jobs and zero money. We foraged the floors of the Suislaw National Forest for chanterelles; I roasted root vegetables we got on sale at market stalls for literal pocket change. I got very good at baking goodies that called for apples and we ate fried green tomatoes several times a week--because both were coming in out in the backyard. The food pantry supplied us with flour. I made dumplings, wontons and pizza from scratch. That was the fall I studied Harold Bloom and the Canon and Brandon was emulating Lew Welch. My only other regular read was Moosewood Cookbook, the original which came with the house we were renting for $200 a month. We hiked the forests, cooked from scratch food that was in season. In general life was a feast. An authentic, humbling, beautiful feast.
Today I made lunch for mom and I, surprised her. I-tunes going just right. Dancing and prepping veg's. Roasted butternut squash stuffed with mashed sweet potatoes, covered in caramelized red onions and Gorgonzola. It just came to me, sort of while mom was watching Rachel Ray. Cooking is such an art form, I have crazy respect for people who use it as their expression or palette.
Which is why you need to check this guy out over at Quips of a Rambling Chef, a new food blog by Paul Suplee (Paul's also got a website, found here.). I had the honor of working with Paul some this summer, and in addition to being a great writer (clever and conversational, a combo of both my faves) and a teacher working with more than your average troubled type teens, he's most important a stand-up guy of the kind that I actually hold up to as a standard for who and how other's can aspire to be. The best kind of teacher, he teaches by being. Also, once he gives hip-hop a chance his music taste will be pretty perfectly right on, too~
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