You can freestyle and cook without recipes, too. We should do so more often, because recipe lessons are rewards that turn our attention into confidence. Like a kale salad with egg yolks whisked with olive oil and a little mustard, lemon juice for sunshine, salt and pepper, chunks of soft cheese, croutons, dried cherries, roasted cashews, and apricot chunks. The dressing is emulsified to give it a thick, rich flavor that balances all the other ingredients. You get it. It’s delicious with steak, fried chicken cutlets, or on its own.
Shrimp tacos? (With guacamole? Of course!) Jerk chicken with pickled bananas? Grilled tofu salad? Buttermilk pancakes for breakfast one day and mortadella sandwiches with ricotta and pistachio pesto a few hours later. Over a long weekend that marks the start of a new season, it’s important to cook with the intention of delivering joy as well as nourishment, and to celebrate good food while honoring the people who make it possible.
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Well, although it has nothing to do with fresh peas or roast pork, I came across Australian novelist Peter Temple’s 1996 novel Bad Debts. It’s the first in a four-part mystery series starring a lawyer called Jack Irish, and I’m glad I read it. The novel begins: “I discovered that 47-year-old Edward Dollery, a disqualified accountant, a big spender and a dishonest man, was living in a house rented by someone called Carol Pick. The house was a new brick suburb built on cow pastures east of the city, one of those strangely quiet developments where the average age is 12 and the pressure of mortgages is very much felt.” Well, on with that!
