Today it’s raining and all I want to do is go home and cook and cook. Alas I cannot (post-work plans, you know), but this afternoon I can still dream of it (for perhaps at the weekend) — I can dream of cauliflower and chickpeas roasted in garlic olive oil until the pan is a caramelized, slightly-crispy mess of a thing that’s then swirled with slow-cooked red onion and feta added just at the end so it gets the tiniest bit melty but not too. I can dream about tomorrow’s cup of coffee, when I’ll finally crack open the can of Taylor Maid that’s patiently been waiting for me to return from travels and weekends out of town; that delicious coffee-bean-smell will smack me straight in the face and I might even warm up the milk before slipping it in — and I can hardly wait.

The little things.

Rainy Friday afternoons are ripe for dreaming, I think. The week is chewing over its days and pondering a few hours off — the weekend, so sought after and sighed-over always passes in a flash — to fill with cooking or baking or reading old books or absolutely nothing at all. Last night I baked a batch of red velvet cupcakes that made twenty-six cupcakes, about half of which I packed up and brought in to the delight of my coworkers, so I think my daydreams today are more of the savory sort rather than the sweet. Although I do have a hankering for cake I haven’t made in ages, a jam-filled butter cake that I might instead fill with apple or pear sauce made from fruit from the market …

A little bit I’m still dreaming of Cambridge and a perfectly perfect sandwich I ate there: just a baguette smeared liberally with butter, brie and cranberry (healthy it may not have been but, oh, was it good). Later on, after drifting down the river in that wooden ‘punt’ but before evening services and that glorious sunset, there was also a tart-sweet slice of cheesecake and a cup of tea served out of a big white teapot. So a little bit I am dreaming of being there right now to do it all over again.

But I’m also dreaming of Greece (and cooking in general) on this quietly grey day, most likely prompted by reading a piece about Michael Psilakis via the Washington Post, and whose new cookbook “How to Cook a Lamb” I’m dying to read:

“There’s a beauty in rustic food that you can never capture in haute cuisine. It takes you on a journey,” Psilakis said. “I know you’ve had a meal, probably in Italy, that takes you somewhere.”

That I indeed had that meal in Italy seems to frustrate Psilakis. It’s not only that people think first of Italy. It’s that Psilakis doesn’t believe food should be treasured only when it is exotic. His dearest food memories are these: making his parents poached eggs and blueberry muffins and serving them in bed, pitting cherries for preserves with his mother, growing tomatoes and hunting rabbits with his father. Food marks special occasions, Psilakis said. “But the point is, you don’t have to go on a vacation to have a moment like that. You can have it at home.”

Yes, and yes. That’s truly the stuff dreams are made of.

This weekend, in between all the little moments and the day-dreamy hours, do this:

- roast one head cauliflower (on 400 F, with about 4 Tb. or so of olive oil and 1/2 tsp. or less of salt) until caramelized and slightly crisping and incredibly delicious

- meanwhile, toast about 1/4 cup or so of pine nuts for a few minutes in a frying pan over high heat. Remove and set aside.

- then sautee as many green beans (trimmed) as you like in a bit of olive oil — garlic optional, but would probably be very nice — until tender but not too soft.

- mix cauliflower, pine nuts, and green beans in a bowl, tossing well to combine. Add a bit more olive oil and salt if you like.

- devour

* Thanks to Ellen Gilchrist for the title

The sky is October-blue and the lovely sun shines, cutting a shadow left-wise across the building behind my office. Downtown San Francisco is very still and quiet this afternoon, Friday, perhaps because of the ongoing Bay Bridge closure and people staying home. It feels like the end of summer and in a way it is so: the clocks change this weekend and the dark will come down early again.

So far I have had: two cups of delicious coffee; 1/2 donut-type thing filled not-quite-enough-to-satisfy with nutella, 1/2 raspberry jam croissant pastry (note: I rarely eat like this and later paid the price; my body does not like all that sugar and oil); 1/4-head roasted cauliflower with roasted white beans and spinach, and a cup of tomato soup; a few squares of milk chocolate; lots of water.

I felt OK eating those sweet things because I also ate a mountain of vegetables this week — the cauliflower, lots of beet and grated carrot salad, quinoa-spinach stew, roasted fingerling potatoes and green beans. And here I would also like to pat myself virtuously on the back to mention I’ve also eaten at least one piece of fruit a day — at least one! — including, but not limited to a pear, several perfect apples, and a grapefruit because the thought of eating a juicy, tart-sweet grapefruit whilst drinking a cup of green tea and listening to the radio in the quiet early dark of pre-7a just sounded absolutely right (it was).

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that in between all the vegetable-eating I’ve also been eating quesadillas made from homemade corn tortillas that are probably the best tortillas I’ve ever eaten (I heard the secret ingredient is applesauce?) which hold melted cheddar cheese and are, of course, topped generously with sliced avocado.

Quesadillas, to me, are one of the most perfect comfort foods I can think of — on the nights when a plain old grilled cheese sandwich (equally delicious, when you’re in the mood) just doesn’t appeal, mixing it up a little bit with tortillas usually jolts me out of my dinner doldrums. If I’m feeling fancy I might sautee a sliced portabello mushroom cap or a summer squash — or both — before throwing in the cheese, but most of the time I’m quite happy with the basics of: cheese (jack or cheddar), two tortillas, sour cream, avocado. Along with a mug of that quinoa soup you might hardly notice the lingering effects of of jetlag.

So anyway: today in San Francisco the sun shines but I feel Thanksgiving creeping around the bend and have already discussed various pumpkin-related items with my coworker (pies-from-scratch, cookies with chocolate chips, pancakes, cupcakes with chocolate ganache) though truth be told I’m still dreaming about those apples I had earlier this week from the farmers market (maybe folded into a cake, or cooked into sauce, or even baked and stuffed with savory polenta or bulgur lightly spiced with herbs du Provence). I’m starting to think about edible holiday gifts and how this year I really should delve into some new recipes. I’m wondering what I’ll do for New Year’s Eve (well, I’m not quite there yet, although it’s fun to think about if I had a dinner party what I might cook — black eyed peas for luck, perhaps a sweet potato souffle, potatoes roasted crispy and snapping with garlic …)

Clearly today is a day for the mind to be set adrift on a sea of blue skies and bright sun, with no real mooring to be found anywhere other than in fleeting thoughts of food already cooked and food yet to be (and no recipe to offer, either. Quelle dommage!).

But sometimes I think I rather like days like today: the quiet ones that simmer down to just this moment, this afternoon, this perfect quesadilla, this last cup of tea.

Happy weekend.

It’s not exactly proper soup season yet here in San Francisco but it sure is starting to feel like it — this coming weekend the time changes and though it will be nice to see the moon rise up early I’m not at all looking forward to running in the dark. I got a taste of the winter to come when I was in England — the night before I left, in fact, the temperature hovered around the 40 F mark and even all the delicious Indian food we’d eaten at dinner wasn’t quite enough to ease the bite — and while the Bay Area is doing its usual fog then sun then breeze then sun again song-and-dance, more often than not right now a bowl of soup is really the only thing to have for dinner (and lunch, as leftovers).

But it’s more than that, if I’m being perfectly honest. It’s also that when I’m jetlagged and peering round the fatigue my creativity is usually pretty lacking. I am more wont to cook down and puree lots of vegetables into a silky, swirly soup than give much thought to how to artfully arrange said vegetables on a plate and then dress them with something delicious and fresh. No: much, much easier to pour myself a glass of cranberry juice and tuck a bowl of lightly spiced lentil-rice-spinach soup under my chin, which is of course propped carefully on my palm so as to prevent it from slipping away entirely into dreamland (I think the latest I was able to stay awake was 9.30, and even that was a stretch), and much more appealing, too.

So in in the early days of last week, though the hazy daze of jetlag had me initially unable to form coherent sentences (or return any phone calls; sorry), I made a pot of couscous and many-vegetabled soup and then a batch of red lentil, brown rice and spinach soup drawn mainly from a recipe posted by the ever-inspiring Heidi at 101cookbooks.com. I think as soon as I saw her post I started mentally scouring the contents of my pantry and hoping against hope I had some red lentils kicking around (something about the idea of lentils and rice cooked together to make a complete, one pot meal caught my eye).

Luckily I did have enough of the lentils as well as some short grain brown rice and an onion still worth using — and so, though I’d meant to defrost a bit of soup leftover from a meal a few weeks ago and was already starting to feel my eyelids droop, I planted myself firmly in front of the stove and made quick work of it. (Besides being absolutely nourishing and soothing, this is one of the quickest meals to whip up you’ll come across — it took me about 30 minutes start to finish, and it was all in just one pot.) I added generous handfuls of spinach because I am loathe to do without my greens if I can help it, and if I’d had a little coconut milk I would’ve slipped that in, too, but as-is this soup is just about perfect, hearty yet light at the same time and infinitely satisfying. The lentils crumble in on each other to make a thick slurry that’s saved from mushiness by the rice, and a bit of heat from the curry powder saves it from being too bland — like I said, it’s pretty much perfect.

I ate exceedingly well in England — sweet, sweet England I missed as soon as the plane’s wheels left the ground at Heathrow — and even did a tiny bit of cooking for my wonderful hosts, but it was good to get back to basics in my own little kitchen again. The other night I went out for my run and ended up chasing the sunset down to Ocean Beach and back again (nearly 9.5 miles round trip) — which was unexpected but the air felt so good against my bare arms and I’d been missing the Pacific and, apparently, needed to see it — and came home to make a grilled cheese sandwich and heat up the soup I’d made the night before, so very grateful it was there for me to eat. I got sleepy straightaway but managed to wash all the dishes before I folded myself into bed, the light just barely switched off before my eyes closed.

This week is better. Soup season or no, I’m getting there.

ps: Thanksgiving is but a month away - are you ready?

Red Lentil and Brown Rice Soup

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. curry powder

6 cups good-tasting vegetable broth or water (or a mix; I did half-half
1 1/3 cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed
1/2 cup brown rice
salt and pepper
4 cups spinach, roughly torn

In a big soup pot, over medium heat, combine the olive oil, onion, garlic, and spices. Let them brown, and caramelize a bit, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the broth or water, bring to a boil, then stir in the lentils and rice. Simmer for about 30 minutes or until the rice is very tender. Add the spinach and a bit more water if necessary.

Add salt and pepper to taste. When you’re reheating the leftovers you may want to add more water each time to make it more brothy.

Today I am 31 and am drinking tea. Four days ago, on another birthday, Cambridge shone in sun and light clouds, and we ‘punted’ down the river hearing about Lord Byron and all the old poets. Evensong at King’s College nearly made me cry: the sweetness of the choir in that old cathedral, that pure light streaming in through the high stained-glass windows, the hard pew under my hands. We came out to sunset staining the sky rose-pink and blue. The air was cool against my face and as the sun faded against the cow fields the lights came on in the stone buildings and burned softly out into the purple dusk; I wished I could stay for always. Then I had a Guinness and ate Turkish food for dinner.

So far there has been lots of: tea, coffee, pints (Guinness always tastes better ‘cross the pond), my friend’s delicious homemade lasagna, toast, crisps, baguettes with brie and cranberry, “Little Britain America,” driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, sheep spying, conversation. Vacations are marvelous, especially when spent visiting friends-who-are-family.

[Cambridge, U.K., October 2009.]

So today is my birthday and I cannot help but to think that birthdays are funny creatures — every fall round this time I am by turns melancholy, introspective, elated, quiet. This year I am fortunate enough to be spending mine with two of my best friends, near London, which is one of my very favorite places in the whole world. I am soon to go for a proper English breakfast and finally feel over jetlag. And I am reading Dylan Thomas, as is appropriate for any October baby.

Back soon.

[On the Cam, Cambridge, U.K., October 2009.]

Poem in October

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill’s shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart’s truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

- Dylan Thomas (b. Oct. 27)

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot

Beautiful October, you are sweet blue skies and cool breezes flowing through the screen and the bit of melancholy that always seems to crop up around this time every year. The air is simmering down from its Indian Summer and in Sonoma County it smells like smoke and damp earth and the coming of winter. Crickets are busily singing their last songs. The redwoods yesterday afternoon were quiet and beautiful and still.

The thing is, Ms. Evans’ sentiments aside, autumn tends to makes me homesick even as I love it dearly. But what’s that — aren’t I already home? one may wonder, and this indeed would be a valid query. The answer is: yes. And also no. I am that peculiar kind of person who can feel homesick at any given moment for a given moment, if that makes sense — sometimes I feel like I’m missing someone, all the time, even if that person is just a bus ride away or in another room. (But mostly: yes. I’m home, well and truly. It’s just that feeling.)

Missing, it must be noted, is not always a terrible thing. Why-ever else would there be sayings such as absence makes the heart grow fonder if in fact it did not? There is a certain poignancy to missing a person or place, a quiet wistfulness that can lead to a bit of introspection and scribblings on pieces of paper to be mailed East to grandmothers nearly about to turn 90 years old, or dreamily imagining what the Yosemite Valley might look like in deepest winter, deer picking their way across the snow-washed lawn of the Awhahnee and inside warm with tea and wood fires. I certainly don’t think these are terrible things at all.

Still, autumn for me is the truest season of wistfulness, that patient ache. It is brilliant and blue, fiery and orange, apples hanging low on the trees. It is long runs in the waning sun and kicking leaves around the field and feeling the parched grass under your feet that at the end of September you swear will never turn green again though at the back of your mind you know will, and in just a month or less. It is the earth preparing for its long sleep and the sun feeling warmer than it will for a good long while — and how you want to hold on to it. It is the maples turning pale gold against the green and the flowers struggling to hold on just a bit longer. It is time to bring in wood for the fireplace and think about what sorts of soups will ease the starting chill (roasted potato-leek, of course, and vegetable-barley).

[Redwoods, Armstrong, October 2009.]

This weekend I skipped out of town, completely bypassing the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival (Billy Bragg we will meet again, I swear!) I’d so been looking forward to because … well, I was homesick. I needed a little October sunshine up north, a few days of back roads-running, my mom’s delicious scrambled eggs, a few coffees from Hardcore Espresso, and a swim with my dad. I needed to see the season’s shift outside of the city — and am starting to look forward to November and a drive through Sam P. Taylor to see the trees burst into yellow amid the evergreens — and catch a glimpse of the full harvest moon sailing away across the black sky last night. So while I may feel slightly foolish at missing some of my favorite musicians I got no regrets, really.

And it was perfect: sleeping long nights and waking to birds chattering outside my window and a hint of frost on the grass in the field. This morning I went early to get coffee and found the neighbor’s cat — since our own orange Mister took off to walk by himself last year the two next door have adopted us — sunning himself on a a patch of bare earth (he kindly let me scratch his ears for a while). I had a swim in the outdoor pool downtown and seven good miles along the winding road I love and breathed in all that good air.

Fall I lament sometimes but truly I forget how much I love it: Thanksgiving and all the cooking to do and four whole days off. Then Christmas, and my brother comes for a week or so. Pumpkin bread. Roasted Brussels sprouts. Light that slants down over the remaining apple orchards on Pleasant Hill and the way Mt. St. Helena shines in December. Listening to Madredeus late at night with all the lights out. Red wine in dark bars. The transition from gin to scotch (can’t take that one as my own, but it’s so very spot on). Birthdays. The Pacific in October, all foam and dark blue. The bittersweet sun and how fleeting it becomes.

But right now I’m caught in the in-between time, see. And when that happens — as it does, as it must — all I can think of to do is cook a bit and to tie my heart up neatly in preparation for winter. So I did: Saturday night supper of roasted cauliflower soup and a sort of cheeseless herb pesto made with garlic, pine nuts, the last of the herbs in the backyard and a bit of olive oil spread on good whole grain bread and toasted for a few minutes in the oven; and an apple galette made from the apples in the front field, gently held together by an olive oil crust. We also ate a good dinner of linguine with homemade sauce from the neighbor’s tomatoes mixed with sauteed zucchini and mushrooms, and there were breakfasts of eggs and potatoes and pancakes, too.

Food, as always, to bridge the gap.

Delicious autumn, I will treat you to soups and stews, applesauce and upside-down pear cakes — as many as you can stand. And I shall try my darnedest to remember that, after all, we’re old friends.

ps: RIP, Gourmet. There are not enough words to articulate how you will be missed.