When it comes to food, this time of summer is always a revelation, at least here in northern New England. The sheer abundance and variety of fresh produce is such a contrast to the rest of the year. One bite from any of the kinds of tomatoes we harvest is enough to make you ask just what those imitations in the grocery really are. You can go down the list.
Yes, this has been building up, beginning with the asparagus and lettuce in the spring and continuing through the strawberries and blueberries and a number of other crops along the way. Should we even mention peaches and apples, now coming on strong?
Let me argue that there’s nothing more marvelous than a sandwich loaded with real mayonnaise and sliced fresh tomato and nothing else. Forget the bacon. Lettuce is nice, if it hasn’t all bolted. Or a sprig of fresh basil. But that’s it. Pure and simple.
You can put all those cookbooks aside.
Another of those nothing-can-be-better experiences is one that sometimes follows a day at the beach. On my way home, I pull off the highway at a nondescript seafood wholesaler and boatyard where I purchase three one-pound soft-shell “chix” culls – the lobsters that may be missing a claw or simply not be visually perfect enough for the restaurant crowd. If it seems extravagant, I remind myself I’m saving 50 cents a pound, which makes each lobster cheaper than a McDonald’s fish sandwich this time of year, even before you get to New Hampshire’s added eight percent Meals and Rooms Tax aimed at tourists. And the lobsters are from local waters, rather than shipped in from Chile or wherever.
A bit up the road I stop at a farm market, if it’s not Wednesday, when I’d have already hit one of two farmers markets. This time, it’s fresh corn-on-the-cob – ears picked that morning.
As soon as I arrive home, I put a big pot on the stove, go outdoors and shuck the corn, which then goes into the pot once it reaches a full boil. Five minutes later, the corn comes out and the lobsters go in. The water’s already flavored.
Butter goes immediately on the corn, to melt thoroughly before I add fresh-ground pepper.
Ten minutes later, two of the lobsters join the corn on the plate – and that’s it, plus a squirt of lemon in the melted butter. Forget the little dish of butter you get in a restaurant; just use what’s come off the corn. Yummers, as we sometimes say.
So I retreat to the Smoking Garden, where making a mess is no problem, and delight in my classic twin lobster repast as the dialogue in my head asserts the king of France never ate better. Gold flatware and rare porcelain would add nothing to this meal. Julia Child, for all of her insistence on fine culinary technique, would have to admit that all of those skills existed only to try to emulate the wonder of this simple afternoon glory. Tamar Adler, with her advocacy of one-pot meals, would no doubt be on my side here.
The third lobster, you ask? It goes into the refrigerator for lunch or even breakfast the next day. I’ll add a dollop of mayo on the side, for dipping, and find myself re-creating lobster salad, minus the bread.
If we’re really being ambitious, we save all of the shells for chowder stock or lobster ravioli, the latter dish sometimes getting an extra lobster all its own for the meat. Either way, that step really lowers the per-serving cost.
This hardly makes me a foodie or even give me any creds in the kitchen. So? The fact is that we’ll never be able to subsist on the food we raise on our little city-garden. But it, and the local farmers and fishermen we visit, give us many reminders of the inescapable wonder of freshness on the plate. You can’t beat quality ingredients after all, and this is where it all starts.
As Julia would say, Bon Appetit! With or without the king of France in the background.
