I wish I had taken pictures of dinner tonight, but while the beautiful food was part of the beauty of the whole thing, it wasn't the whole of it. There was the weather, the complete lack of mosquitoes and other bugs that make me stay inside in the summer, the perfect temperature, the nice company of Chris and Cora (though she did wiggle away half way through and spend the next 30 minutes carrying sand from the sand mountain to the sandbox...skirtful by skirtful).
So, it is hard to explain all the dimensions, but let me try with the food:
- Lemon-garlic chicken kabobs (on sale! less than a pound for the three of us, so more of a meat side dish, just like I'm trying to do. grilled to perfection by Chris.)
- Pesto pasta (leftover pesto, ends of two boxes of pasta - linguine and fettucine - and Cora LOVES it.)
- Golden beets (roasted while Cora napped two days ago) and blue cheese (organic and local from our CSA - perfect for me, but a little sharp for Chris)
- Salad (end of a head of red leaf plus baby spinach from the CSA plus sliced radishes from Cora's garden - she chose them, pulled them, washed them, put the slices in the salad, and even ate a couple slices)
- Plus Leiney's Sunset Wheat beer for the adults.
So, food that was on sale, leftover, needing to be finished up, local, CSA-grown, homegrown, that everyone liked and everyone contributed to the making of the meal. It might sound a little corny, but I love that!
This goes along with my larger summer food project - all those things above, and also to make a bigger push to eat more veggies and to try some different ones. Not too many new or different things tonight, but all the rest was there. This is in connection with a plan I have for my fall classes. One of the books we will be reading is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I'm going to ask my students to create for themselves some kind of semester-long project or plan (it needn't be food-related, of course), track their project/endeavor, and then their final paper will be a reflection on their experience, much like Kingsolver's book is. And just like AVM has sidebars with more information (scientific info and recipes), I'm going to ask them to have sidebars also.
I haven't done an assignment like this before, so this summer I am being my own guinea pig and doing the assignment myself. Then I'll also have a "short-form" model to show them. They will probably think I am the biggest dork ever...but, let's face it, that's inevitable.
3 comments:
I love what a fabulous dork you are! ;>
We must have been on the same mental wavelength this weekend, because the title of your post uttered from my very lips more than once. We had a couple of meals that were visually and gastronomically beautiful. One a pretty salad with red leaf from the CSA, fresh herb vinagrette, crusty bread, and a plate of cheese and salami. The other a saute of mushrooms, white beans, mixed greens and other CSA goodies over rice and lentils. I was tempted to photograph both they were so pretty. "I should start a website called Food Porn," I thought, but of course one already exists!
I love your assignment idea. Can I see it when you're done?
Post, Beautiful Post! I love this. Such a great idea, and such a yummy sounding dinner. I think it is a great assignment. It probably would have chenged my whole outlook on food had I been able to read this in college!! And, of course, what Tricia said! :-)
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