Late last night I was putting off going to bed and watching one of those celebrity update shows. Awww… as it turns out, even rich people are losing money. Folks like Martha Stewart have lost millions – millions! – of dollars in the historic events of the past week. Poor things. They will now be poor, right? Not likely. With a few scant leftover millions, I’m sure they’ll still have a lot more choices in life than we average folks have. Why, it’s got to feel good, in a perverse way, to know that you’ve got a few hundred million to actually lose.
Yesterday I sat in the sunshine on our open front porch, looking out over my domain (the street where I live) and down upon my subjects (at that hour, the two cats across the street). In my hand was a bowl of the earth’s goodness. A bag of my local CSA‘s produce had been delivered to my doorstep the day before by the lovely woman with whom I’m sharing a share. It had been up to me to figure out what to do with it!
I’d pondered the bag of mostly unrecognizable greens. I’m not accustomed to doing things with those deep green, strong-flavored greens that come out in the fall. But I did know how to saute a batch of the farmer’s onions and garlic, long and slow, so that they turn a dark golden color and all their sweet secrets come out. I added to the pan some locally-produced Gianelli sweet Italian sausage, a wee tiny bit of a very hot CSA pepper and some tomatoes from my garden that had finally ripened on my windowsill. Oh… and a dash of Marsala wine.
While it gently cooked, I washed a huge pile of greens. What was in there? Um… I’m just guessing here, but I think it included Swiss chard, beet greens, collards, mustard greens and arugula. I can’t believe it – our garden produced so much arugula all season, I’m actually tired of it! So the arugula went into the pressure cooker along with the other greens and a couple of inches of water. I poured in the sausage-onion saute mix, some sea salt and fresh-ground pepper, brought it up to pressure and let it cook for seven minutes. I did a quick release (the under-water method) and it was done perfectly! I threw in a can of canellini beans, let them heat up and voila! We had an excellent and nutritious greens-n-beans soup that has only improved over the past 24 hours.
So while I sat in the sunshine eating this bowl of deliciousness, I thought about how I’d had no choice about what vegetables I was going to have to use this week. Initially it was daunting. I confess, I’ve let unfamiliar vegetables actually rot in the refrigerator before, and I didn’t want it to happen again. The choice of vegetables had been up to the farmer, the weather, and the climate. I was handed something that some would consider lemons (what’s this? a bag of greens??), and after some initial consternation (what the ___ am I supposed to do with these?) I decided to exercise the old gray matter and give it a go.
But I thought about how vexing it is to have real, serious limitations to choice in life. There are people who only get one or two vegetables for weeks on end, possibly no meat, no fruit, bad bread, old cereals. Or maybe they don’t have access to fresh food at all, such as those who live in cities, can’t afford a car, and have no grocery stores within walking distance. They have to make do with the expensive canned-goods aisle of a convenience store that’s more interested in selling cigarettes and lottery tickets than food fit for human consumption. There is something dreadfully wrong when people in the world’s richest country cannot even get to a fresh apple, stalk of broccoli, or bunch of collard greens.
So my CSA can bring it on. Give me fewer choices, but keep the bounty coming. I’d like to emulate chef Jacques Pepin‘s mother, who during WWII shortages was nevertheless able to devise incredibly delicious meals to serve in her restaurant utilizing the few available foodstuffs. What a great school, her kitchen was, for the young man who would go on to influence a generation of home cooks. Let us hope that, during times when our choices might become restricted, we can also use the power of our own creativity to make lemon merengue pie out of lemons!
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