dinner with wild rice.
Serves 4 as a side dish, 2 to 3 as a light main course
White Peach and Blueberry Salad with Rose Syrup
Salade de Pêches Blanches à la Rose
It’s nearly impossible to improve on the white peaches in Provence, but I did find a bottle of locally made rose syrup in the
boulangerie
that piqued my interest. This makes a quick but surprisingly elegant dessert for guests.
4 perfectly ripe white peaches, cut into ½-inch slices
1 cup blueberries
1–2 teaspoons rose syrup
Combine all the ingredients.
Serves 4
Tip: Rose syrup is available online and from some specialty supermarkets. A small bottle will keep forever in the fridge. You can use it to make champagne cocktails or raspberry smoothies, or to flavor a yogurt cake. You may find rosewater, which is unsweetened (and very concentrated), at a Middle Eastern grocery. Use it sparingly (a few drops plus 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar for this recipe), otherwise your fruit salad will taste like soap.
Chapter 6
Leftovers
I ’m reconquering my kitchen. Clearing the counters and throwing out the rice cakes. Pitching the leftovers and Wildberry fruit roll-ups. After my mother’s five-week visit to our new home, I’m in need of a scorched-earth campaign: leave nothing behind that the enemy can use. Not her instant Vietnamese noodle soup, not her Skippy chunky peanut butter. Following in her Napoleonic wake, I had no choice but to dump it all, exorcise it with the ritualistic pleasure that some girls get from burning pictures of old boyfriends.
Let me be clear. I love my mother and I hate, hate, hate throwing away food. Yet every time my mom leaves France, I’m saddled with a huge bag of leftover, canned, partially hydrogenated horrors that neither I nor my family want to eat. Food is one of the central pleasures of my life here, and particularly at a time when I am doing my best to lose the last of the baby weight, I simply cannot tolerate putting (excuse my French) shit in my mouth.
When we lived in Paris, the evening she left I would discreetly deposit the bag outside our building, where it would be recycled by the local population in less than fifteen minutes. Here in the village, there is no spot to discreetly do anything. I can’t imagine what my neighbors would say if they saw me throwing away a shopping bag full of instant Raspberry Cool iced tea and processed chorizo pizza. Would anyone here even know what to do with Raspberry Cool iced tea? For now, the bag is sitting in the vaulted stone cellar, awaiting further study.
I THOUGHT THE August heat and the extra leg to Céreste would force my mom to pack light, but no. As we hauled the five suitcases, the four carry-ons, and the computer bag down the hill, my mother looked exhausted. “We’re never doing this again.” She sighed. Which is exactly what she said the last time.
“What the hell is in here?”
“Paul has to bring his mask.” Paul is my stepfather, a title that doesn’t describe at all how I feel about him. Since he came into our lives, the year I turned twenty-one, he’s been my third parent. Introduced by a mutual friend, Mom and Paul had their first date on a Friday night. My mother called me in my dorm room on Saturday morning—way too early—and announced: “If this man is still around on Monday, I’m going to marry him.” He moved in on Wednesday and has been with us ever since. I sometimes call him my fairy godfather, because he appeared out of nowhere and made so many things better. Paul loves his gadgets: computers, adapters, telephones—you name it. He also has a super-cool Darth Vader–like mask he wears for his sleep apnea. As if this contraption the size of a dust buster could account for the camel caravan that just arrived in my courtyard.
After clomping the suitcases up the stairs, my mother began the ritual unpacking. Along with a pair of silver grape shears, out came a package of marshmallow Peeps (I do love a good marshmallow Peep) and the apricot
Serves 4 as a side dish, 2 to 3 as a light main course
White Peach and Blueberry Salad with Rose Syrup
Salade de Pêches Blanches à la Rose
It’s nearly impossible to improve on the white peaches in Provence, but I did find a bottle of locally made rose syrup in the
boulangerie
that piqued my interest. This makes a quick but surprisingly elegant dessert for guests.
4 perfectly ripe white peaches, cut into ½-inch slices
1 cup blueberries
1–2 teaspoons rose syrup
Combine all the ingredients.
Serves 4
Tip: Rose syrup is available online and from some specialty supermarkets. A small bottle will keep forever in the fridge. You can use it to make champagne cocktails or raspberry smoothies, or to flavor a yogurt cake. You may find rosewater, which is unsweetened (and very concentrated), at a Middle Eastern grocery. Use it sparingly (a few drops plus 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar for this recipe), otherwise your fruit salad will taste like soap.
Chapter 6
Leftovers
I ’m reconquering my kitchen. Clearing the counters and throwing out the rice cakes. Pitching the leftovers and Wildberry fruit roll-ups. After my mother’s five-week visit to our new home, I’m in need of a scorched-earth campaign: leave nothing behind that the enemy can use. Not her instant Vietnamese noodle soup, not her Skippy chunky peanut butter. Following in her Napoleonic wake, I had no choice but to dump it all, exorcise it with the ritualistic pleasure that some girls get from burning pictures of old boyfriends.
Let me be clear. I love my mother and I hate, hate, hate throwing away food. Yet every time my mom leaves France, I’m saddled with a huge bag of leftover, canned, partially hydrogenated horrors that neither I nor my family want to eat. Food is one of the central pleasures of my life here, and particularly at a time when I am doing my best to lose the last of the baby weight, I simply cannot tolerate putting (excuse my French) shit in my mouth.
When we lived in Paris, the evening she left I would discreetly deposit the bag outside our building, where it would be recycled by the local population in less than fifteen minutes. Here in the village, there is no spot to discreetly do anything. I can’t imagine what my neighbors would say if they saw me throwing away a shopping bag full of instant Raspberry Cool iced tea and processed chorizo pizza. Would anyone here even know what to do with Raspberry Cool iced tea? For now, the bag is sitting in the vaulted stone cellar, awaiting further study.
I THOUGHT THE August heat and the extra leg to Céreste would force my mom to pack light, but no. As we hauled the five suitcases, the four carry-ons, and the computer bag down the hill, my mother looked exhausted. “We’re never doing this again.” She sighed. Which is exactly what she said the last time.
“What the hell is in here?”
“Paul has to bring his mask.” Paul is my stepfather, a title that doesn’t describe at all how I feel about him. Since he came into our lives, the year I turned twenty-one, he’s been my third parent. Introduced by a mutual friend, Mom and Paul had their first date on a Friday night. My mother called me in my dorm room on Saturday morning—way too early—and announced: “If this man is still around on Monday, I’m going to marry him.” He moved in on Wednesday and has been with us ever since. I sometimes call him my fairy godfather, because he appeared out of nowhere and made so many things better. Paul loves his gadgets: computers, adapters, telephones—you name it. He also has a super-cool Darth Vader–like mask he wears for his sleep apnea. As if this contraption the size of a dust buster could account for the camel caravan that just arrived in my courtyard.
After clomping the suitcases up the stairs, my mother began the ritual unpacking. Along with a pair of silver grape shears, out came a package of marshmallow Peeps (I do love a good marshmallow Peep) and the apricot
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