6/22/25

My Dear C –

I am back in the place we met. I used to not like coming down here because life is organized entirely around eating and now I like coming down here because life is organized entirely around eating.

I drove down yesterday with my mum – well, she drove us down, going 90 on the 5 in her Prius. Good to see so many yuccas pointing their waxy fairy asparagus candelabra blooms up out of the hills of chaparral south of the Grapevine.

On the way we listened to Long Island Compromise – a novel I thoroughly enjoyed but my mother found lacking so far in humanity (the Beemer character maybe doesn’t speak to her). Todd Solondz’s Happiness is showing at the Aero this evening and we are not going to see it. Too much humanity?

As time came to consider dinner, my old post-road-trip standby of a steak and bottle of red wine came to mind. After getting dropped off home I’d make my way to the Safeway open late on Mission and get a steak and cook it — in my cast iron pan on that gorgeous gargantuan O’Keefe & Merritt stove with its built-in porcelain salt and pepper shakers that spelled PS — and enjoy it alone. A return deserves a reward.

Yesterday we pulled off into Whole Foods and I got a rib eye and some young potatoes. I don’t cook steak much and less on this electric cooktop, so it’s a challenge to get the sear right and also cook it through just enough but not too much. I damaged my mother’s Le Creuset cast iron pan in the past overheating it to get the sear. Turns out you don’t have to go so high heat to get a good sear. It’s more about patience, perhaps.

Added whole young garlic cloves- sautéing gently in the fat at the side of the pan. And the young potatoes I first boiled and then poured off the water to steam them and seal in the flavor – I don’t understand this but it makes potatoes taste like butter. I suppose they’re less watery. Made myself martinis and should have kept it singular.

Oh got some French asparagus and instead of snapping off the bottoms, shaved them and when the steak was done, sautéed some shallot in the fat and added the asparagus and later a bit of red wine for the spears to simmer in. Finished with lemon and salt. Turned out well. Deglazed the pan with more red wine for a bit of sauce. One of my favorite ways to cook asparagus. (Usually I do just snap off the very bottom stem and use it in a stock.)

Tried my hand at compound butter. A bit of marjoram in the fridge that needed using – I tried to massage it into some butter from the freezer. Eventually somewhat successful and excellent on the steak.

Today – the farmer’s market. Green beans, the first tomatoes, the last of the pickling cucumbers, green garlic (still, amazingly, available), strawberries, delphiniums & lilies, mint, basil, Italian olives. A loaf of Jyan Isaac seeded sourdough and a conversation about “crumb” at the dinner table.

I’d driven down some very neglected (moldy on the outside) artichokes and wilty spinach and got those into decent shape here. Steamed the artichokes with the stems (which I love but are too fibrous for my mother) and served with garlic butter.

The spinach I put into a polenta. I’m finally getting a handle on those Italian starches, now that I’ve got a good relationship with risotto and made this polenta, which was…. extraordinarily satisfying. I think I used this as a concept and used a random stock my mother sitting in the freezer as the base, which was maybe made from asparagus? It had a very deep, complex flavor that I couldn’t quite place. After it stopped needing constant attention, I started throwing things in – first, some of tomatoes (not quite sweet enough raw but excellent cooked), the remains of the compound butter, and at the end – spinach, basil. It was like summer and comfort food got married and I got to officiate.

Much Love –

M.

PS I couldn’t figure out how to link it in the title, so here’s a link to Yo La Tengo’s The Asparagus Song