This isn't strictly literary, but this guy cooked meatballs in his own fat. 

One day, when this technology has matured, I will write books printed on Wonderbread, sold at the supermarket, and packaged in loaves.  These "loaf-novels" will be read, converted to sandwiches, and consumed, thus exposing the illusory seperation between the mind and body.  They'll forge my Nobel from the finest cheeses in Sweden, and I will melt it onto the pages of my life's work, and on my death bed, I will eat my own words. [Via Veer, Via Gadgetbox] 

In other new book news, there's a new Hannibal Lecter novel comin' out.  Unlike the new Tolkien novel, which appalls me, this new Tom Harris delights. 

Shh...Don't tell anyone.  I really, really, really enjoy reading science fiction.  And not just your run-of-the-mill, sanctioned, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and William Gibson novels, but young adult science fiction: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, for example, and Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea novels (both works are soon to be movies: I have beef with this that I won't get into now). 

So I've been reading Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy (I'm on #2, Lirael, so don't tell me what happens next), and took today's wonderful hint-of-fall weather to cook a last-of-the-basil, farmer's-market-grape-tomatoes meal with my favorite pasta shape du jour, pappardelle.

End of Summer Pappardelle

Serves 1 

1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes
pappardelle (as much as you're going to eat)
some kind of protein*
pecorino romano cheese
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Small handful fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste 

*I'm vegetarian, so I used a Morningstar Farms garden veggie pattie: cooked it and diced it small.  If you wanted, I bet that cooked chicken would be tasty, too.

While the pasta cooks,  halve the tomatoes and season with salt, pepper, cheese and basil.  Cook the protein you've decided on.

When the pappardelle is cooked, drain it and immediately put back in the pot.  Drizzle with the olive oil and mix, then add the balsamic vinegar.  The pasta should soak up most of the balsamic vinegar.  Toss with the tomatoes, protein, some chopped basil, and grate some cheese on top. 

Pair this with a light dry white wine.  I had some pinot grigio on hand from last weekend, and that was perfect.   

The Reading: Lirael by Garth Nix.  Demons, necromancers, an alternate history, etc.  It's easy reading but has some fairly advanced philosophical underpinnings. 

I live in an apartment.  It's a very nice apartment, but it doesn't have room for a table.  Not a dining room table, not a breakfast nook table.  So, usually I eat on the couch, bent over a coffee table (I have several small ones that I move around like children's blocks), reading a book. 

I like to eat and cook, and I often have several books going at once, so I usually try to pair my reading with my food or vice versa.  In honor of this, I'd like to present you with the first in a series of book/recipe pairings that I've tried out and found satisfactory.

Tortilla Soup with Sweet Potato Fries*

A light tomato-based broth is ladled over the soup fixings and topped with fried tortilla strips in this not-too-time-consuming vegetarian version of a classic.  Serve with sweet potato fries seasoned with ancho chile, garlic powder and rosemary.

6 cups vegetable stock
1 cup tomato juice
2 celery ribs, small dice
1 carrot, small dice
1/2 cup diced onion
cumin or chili powder
1 avocado
several small tomatoes
1 bell pepper and 1/2 onion, cut in strips
1 cup jack cheese
2 tortillas, cut in strips
lime wedges

 
Sauté the celery, carrot, diced onion and whole garlic cloves in olive oil until fragrant and onions are translucent.  Add the cumin or chili powder, the stock (homemade, is, of course, best) and the tomato juice, and simmer while you prepare the fixings. 

Sauté the bell pepper and onion until al dente.  Don't let them get too soft!  Set aside.  Roast the tomatoes in a dry cast iron pan, turning, until blistered.  Chop and set aside.  Dice the avocado and cheese.  Chop the cilantro.

Read while you wait for the broth to taste cooked - what you're waiting for is the moment when the tomato juice ceases to taste raw and suddenly melds with the stock...You'll probably want to salt and pepper the broth, too!  Right before the stock seems done, fry the tortilla strips in some vegetable oil until crisp.

In a large bowl, put a handful of avocado, some bell pepper and onion, some tomatoes, some cilantro and some cheese.  Ladle broth over to cover the ingredients, and top with the crispy tortillas.  Garnish with lime wedges.

Pair this late summer meal with Overlord by Jorie Graham (c. 2005).  This book is not only satisfyingly shaped (almost square, like a magazine I know of), but also boasts Graham's signature dense lyrics, this time giving a soft-focus to war and its effects.  The work is occasionally overly sentimental but, as far as political lyrics go, pretty damn good.

*Photo courtesy of In Praise of Sardines. 

School starts today here at Purdue University, and I’m guessing that today when I walk into Heavilon Hall (the English Department building, where the SR office can be found tucked into two windowless offices on the fourth floor) I’ll find swarms of freshmen looking confused and a little bit scared.  I’ll probably go into the office around noon today, since I’m also teaching an introductory creative writing class, and need to prep, in order to do a little Sycamore Review mail-sorting and email-answering, and I need to take a lunch. 

Last night I was finishing up Mark Doty’s memoir Firebird before I went to sleep, and there’s a section where he talks about a friend he makes in one of the many places he lives.  She’s over at his house for lunch and his mother serves them Swanson chicken potpies.  The little girl (skinny, frail) tells Doty that at her house, they’d split one of the potpies between the whole family, and Doty imagines the crimped crust cut into tiny slivers.  But I particularly liked what he said about the potpies themselves: that they were “bland childhood comfort food.” 

Incidentally, the book is fantastic.  I might be a poet, but I usually really dislike super-poetic prose.  It can so often seem flowery and self-important.  Doty's book reins in this tendency, though, and the snapshot-y quality of the short sections is offset by the clarity of the writing.

So in honor of Firebird and the first day of school, I present my celebratory first-day-of-the-new-school-year, kind-of-bland-childhood-food lunch menu, which I’ll pack up and take with me to school:

            1 pbj sandwich: toasted baguette spread with pb and orange marmalade
            1 ripe peach, sliced, tossed with a little cinammon
            1 brownie cupcake (I made these a while ago and froze them)
            a couple chocolate covered cherries (thanks, Trader Joe’s!) for a snack later on

In forty minutes, I'm leaving to go on an epic journey to Indianapolis, where I'll pay some respects and some USD at Trader Joe's in order to stock up for the upcoming academic year.  I cleared out my freezer in preparation, and checked out a bunch of cookbooks from the public library to get myself in the mood. 

I love reading cookbooks, especially before bed.  Something about it seems very sumptuous, and I don't usually have to get out of bed to make anything.  Which is why I was so excited to check out The New Vegetarian Epicure, which isn't really new at all anymore (c. 1996).  It's by Anna Thomas, and is organized by season and meal: for example, there's a section called "Little Dinner Parties for Fall and Winter" (and one for Spring/Summer, too) as well as a section for "Celebrations and Feasts" that offers menu plans for "A Gala Dinner for Late Spring," "A Summer Buffet for a Crowd," and "A Celebration Dinner," plus others. 

 Reading cookbooks is different from planning a meal.  When I read cookbooks for pleasure, I like to read the recipes (especially in older cookbooks, where the directions are sometimes hysterical, sometimes illuminating), but I also like to read the extra bits.  It's the extra bits that make the cookbook, really: a preface, the few sentences that describe the texture and flavor of a dish before commencing the list of ingredients.  Anna Thomas' The New Vegetarian Epicure (and her other two Epicure books) writes some of the very best introductions to food that I've ever read.  Of her "Spinach ande Feta Cheese Alligator," she writes, "It's a long, narrow pastry in which a filling of greens, potatoes and herbs is wrapped in a soft bread crust...I called it an alligator because I made it in the shape of an alligator's head, but you don't have to."  She also suggests, for the tail end of the "Picnic for a Summer Concert," that you should "fill a thermos with strong, hot coffee, and you will have the perfect ending for a lovely al fresco experience, and also be able to stay awake for the concert."  It's almost too cute.

Other reasons to check out Anna Thomas: she's listed as a screenwriter for the film Frida (2002) and as a writer of Mi Familia (1995).  And, in a 1996 review by Roger Ebert (republished on Thomas' website from The Chicago Sun-Times ) that esteemed critic wrote "Anna Thomas is exactly the kind of woman Martha Stewart would kill to be."