This morning I was woken up by wild turkeys gobbling outside my window and by the damn cat digging his claws into to my inner thigh as indication that, in his opinion (which is the only one that matters to him), 5 am was a perfectly respectable time at which to request room service. When I went to throw open the front door and look at the garden (step one of my Cape morning ritual whatever the cat might think a priority), fog was rolling in rapidly, and had turned the garden into a fey wonderland, the perfect backdrop for fanciful imaginings of fairies, goblins, and talking, anthropomorphic animals. Our burgeoning bamboo grove, usually a densely planted, feathery yellow green circle, looked positively neon green through the fog tendrils.
And all I could think at that point in time was how much I miss my Manhattan pantry. While I am not quite ready to exchange my Cape Cod garden and its daily wonders for my New York kitchen with its well-stocked cupboards, my mind has recently started to catalog what I have at home that I would like to be using in recipes right now. In some instances, the solution is self-evident, but I refuse to buy doubles, but many of the items that I use are not so readily available here (though lemongrass is in all the stores) and I have had to do without.
It has therefore been a curiously spiceless and exotic condiment free summer and, while I think that I have still managed to make fairly interesting and relatively varied meals, I am starting to really miss all the little culinary furbelows that I usually have to hand and consider fundamental to my preferred manner of "a pinch of this and a drizzle of that" cooking.
That being said, there are a few weeks of proper summer left and, if one can’t cook deliciously and simply with its wonderful produce, then one should probably not label oneself a cook.
Rising to that challenge, with my salt and pepper in hand, here are a few of this week’s menu offerings:
Black Bean Soup with Pork Rind Crusted Seared Scallops and Summer Salsa
Warm Dijon Potato Salad
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