We were in Vermont for the long weekend, and I’ll get that post together soon. In the meantime, a dinner Milo and I had last week that was remarkable only for the incredible tomatoes we used throughout. To start, two kinds of heirlooms dressed only with Maldon salt and good olive oil. Perfection.
Then, penne tossed with sautéed guanciale (just because it’s not dry yet doesn’t mean I can’t start using it) plus a highlight reel of the late-summer garden: plum tomatoes, chard, fennel, onion, garlic, and five different herbs. It takes the very simplest of starchitecture to let these gorgeous ingredients show off their surpassing sweetness and complex depth of flavor. Lacking rosé, I popped a 1998 Gros Noré Bandol, which at ten years is just terrific- if a little heavy for this kind of food- and made all the better for the fact that I paid around 16 bucks for these when I bought them back in 2002.
We are wallowing in and loving fresh, ripe tomatoes, too – nothing could be nicer.
Looks like perfect, late summer food.
We had an heirloom tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella scramble for lunch today, and grilled summer squash at dinner tonight.
you’re right… perfect. and simple.
Zoomie: Nothing could be nicer for about six weeks if we’re lucky.
Jen: Sounds excellent. You may fedex me your leftovers.
Amy: Yeah- it’s pretty obnoxious to try to even claim any credit for this.
Love the Stevens joke. Oh, I can’t wait to see the ensuing shitstorm! I’m giddy as a schoolgirl. The knocked-up teenaged daughter is delicious.
Also, the penne is good. It is a different series of tubes. Tastier ones, I’d hazard.
Heather: Penne are tastier tubes for sure.
For me, it’s more than the daughter; it’s having to lawyer up over the trooper firing, and being a former member of a secessionist group, and having been in favor of the bridge to nowhere before she was against it, and saying that the Iraq war is about oil. Even more of a highlight reel than the bowl of pasta. It will be a miracle if she survives the week. It’s awesome.
You forgot to mention the HEE-larious Youtube clips of her as a sportscaster on the local news in the 80s. Or the Miss Congeniality title (not pretty enough to win the pageant, I guess?).
She was voted Miss Congeniality AND Most Likely To Secede.