Hello! Welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here!
We have almost hit the mid-point to the year. In some ways, hard for me to believe.–in others, not so much. The days always seem to go by quickly and yet, of late, I have found myself with the space, time and opportunity to intentionally experience life and it has felt like a huge gift. The first few of months of the year felt like I was clutching the edge of a runaway roller coaster–they were hectic, chaotic and a little scary. I don’t tend to function too well under those circumstances. But in the last few weeks, my life has taken a quieter turn, giving me time to expand my thoughts and not just go through the motions. Instead of having to find short cuts for everything I’m trying to accomplish, I’ve been able to slow down and embrace each step. On my walk this morning, the universe treated me to the sight of this hummingbird, and I took the time to enjoy the beauty of his early morning breakfast dance:
He’s up in the upper left of the photo. When I saw him, I stopped and watched as he went about gathering sweet nectar from the early-morning blossoms. He was totally unconcerned by my presence and I was able to take several pictures of him in mid-flight. As I paused to take stock of this lovely moment, I started to think about how this abundance of “space,” for lack of a better word, is affecting other parts of my life.
My thoughts naturally turned to the kitchen and to cooking.
I have always tended to treat my life as a race against the clock–trying to get through the preparation in order to get to the finished product–and (although I’m not proud of this), that has included my approach to cooking. But the lovely gift of quietness has been allowing me plenty of time to enjoy the process–to enjoy the feeling of a well-sharpened knife as it glides effortlessly through vegetables, to savor the smell of bread baking in the oven, to appreciate the perfectly browned skin of a roasted chicken, to smell the herbaceous, sweet aroma of basil as I wash and prepare it to make pesto; or to anticipate the sweetness of plump, ripe, red cherries as I wash, pit and stem them before using them to make a cobbler for dessert.
In pre-pandemic times, Mr. Stone Soup and I threw legendary dinner parties. I would set up tables and chairs for dozens of guests and serve elaborate sit-down meals. They were raucous and fun and we’d all spend hours upon hours eating, laughing and yes–drinking a good bit of wine. They were also incredibly complex feats of project management–I became somewhat of an expert at getting everything organized and getting everyone fed with split-second timing and precision. And then I would sleep for a week, having enjoyed the moment, but not so much the build-up or the clean-up.
Life has changed a good bit for everyone since the pandemic. For us, a dramatic shift has been that most of our long-time friends moved away from Silicon Valley during the pandemic, finding that they could live elsewhere much more inexpensively, while working from new homes elsewhere.
We miss all of them and in some ways, I miss planning and hosting those huge dinner parties, too. However, I have found that I am very much relishing hosting smaller, more intimate gatherings. These days, instead of speed-chopping mountains of vegetables and braising pounds and pounds of short ribs, I’m instead taking the time to select the most photogenic asparagus and trying a new recipe for chicken thighs, developing the perfect aromatics and spices to achieve just the right flavors.
We still have several friends in the area and we’re forging relationships with new folks, too. But I now host dinner parties for six to eight instead of 20-30. Over the last few weeks, we have had the pleasure of hosting or being hosted for several small dinner parties and I have been inspired to create what I consider to be the perfect late spring dinner party menu:
Braised asparagus, grilled ribeyes, summer fruit salad, hasselback potatoes and cherry cobbler.
Today, I’m sharing the recipe for braised asparagus a la Victor:
We first enjoyed this dish when visiting friends for dinner on a stormy spring evening. Our host, Victor, expertly braised asparagus to perfection while simultaneously grilling steaks to perfection in a driving rain storm–wow!
And hasselback potatoes:
Tune in later in the week for the recipes for the rest of the goodies–
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
