Farewell dear, sweet corn. Goodbye bright melon salads, see you next year. And don’t think I have forgotten about you smooth, seedy summer squash. I’ll pick you all up next June, when the weather’s warm, and tank tops beckon my shoulders out into the sunshine. For now, there are new foods churning their way into my psyche. I mean, it is October for heaven’s sake!
The weakening sun hides behind the ever-burgeoning clouds, and it’s warm one moment, cool the next. I leave the apartment with a light jacket and scarf-mina (one part scarf, the other part pashmina) firmly affixed round my neck one moment, only to remove the jacket, and blot the perspiration from my brow with said scarf-mina, the next. This of course, translates into stomach confusion for my appetite– a salad…no, a stew…no, a salad.Well, what about a hearty salad, how does [...]

There is something almost magical about a beet. Dirty, ruddy, and altogether blah on the outside, but crimson (if you’re using red beets), shiny, sparkling little orbs on the inside. When cooked and peeled they are like a sanguine surprise just waiting to be eaten. I eat beets in all sorts of ways, but I particularly love them used as a filling for (mostly) homemade ravioli.
To me, this ravioli mimics how a beet occurs naturally. All folded up, the ravioli look like neat little pillows of pasta, beige in color and well, beige in flavor too. But when these ravioli are cut into, out comes a shock of pink filling, and the flavor is divine. They are hidden treasures of sight and flavor.
Prepared simply, by roasting the beets in foil packets at 400 degrees prior to filling, the beets are then mashed with a potato masher or a fork. But [...]