Fish-Free Salad Niçoise, a recipe in River Cottage Veg, written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
This week we celebrated the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere. Folks, it’s fall. I’ve never picked a favorite season. Love them all…….Retreat (winter), Rebirth (spring), Relax (summer) and Regroup (fall). Autumn, to me, is about lists, to-dos, projects, planning and catch-ups. Simply put, it’s getting your ducks-in-a-row.
Today I’m posting three ya-gotta-try recipes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook. I’m a bit tardy because my Cottage Cooking Club colleagues chose these recipes for August and September. Missed the August deadline but in under the wire for September. Here’s a bonanza, a trifecta of delicious menu suggestions. Since these recipes are already published on the Internet, I can share them with you.
Duck eggs are larger than those laid by chickens. Their shells are various pastel colors.
I’m a fan. Just love Salad Niçoise. That’s why this salad, Fish-Free Salad Niçoise, works. No matter what’s on the menu, you can still enjoy its flavor but without the tuna and anchovies. What might be blasphemy to the French is still darn spectacular and was the perfect foil to roasted shrimp. Last week I traded Sunday supper for technical assistance from my computer guru, Zoe Zuker. One might say, shrimp, this salad, crusty herb-buttered bread and a bottle of Peachy Canyon’s Zinfandel solved all my technical glitches.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will now admit to using duck eggs in this salad. Since discovering the gorgeous eggs at our farmers market this summer, I’ve become a fan. No, no, no, these beauties are not from your run-of-the-mill Mallards but rather from domesticated Pekin and Welsh Harlequin Ducks. I didn’t know if Zoe would be squeamish about this so I didn’t dish about the ducks. Since my computer is now humming along, I am baring my soul.
Hard-boiled Duck Eggs
Fish-Free Salad Niçoise
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 pound new potatoes
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
7 ounces green beans, cut into roughly 1-inch lengths
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 or 3 Little Gem or similar lettuces
A handful of small Niçoise olives (Cailletier)
About 12 large basil leaves, torn (or use small ones whole)
Dressing:
1/2 small garlic clove, crushed with a little coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
A pinch of sugar Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. You can cook small new potatoes whole, but cut larger ones in half or smaller so the pieces are all roughly the same size. Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with cold water, add salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8 to 12 minutes until tender, adding the beans for the last 4 minutes of cooking. Drain, tip into a bowl, and leave to cool.
2. To cook the eggs, bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Add the eggs, return to a simmer, then cook for 7 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pan, lightly crack the shells, and run the eggs under cold water for a minute or two to stop the cooking. Leave to cool, then peel and quarter the eggs.
3.To make the dressing, put the garlic, oil, vinegar, mustard, and sugar into a screw-top jar, season with salt and pepper, and shake until emulsified.
4. Halve, quarter, or thickly slice the cooked potatoes. Put them back with the beans, add some of the dressing, and toss together gently.
5. Separate the lettuce leaves and gently toss in a bowl with a little of the dressing. Arrange the lettuce, potatoes, and beans on a serving platter and distribute the olives and eggs over the salad. Scatter with the torn basil, trickle over the remaining dressing, and grind over some pepper. Serve.
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Pasta with Fennel, Arugula and Lemon
If you delight in the faint flavoring of licorice, you’ll love Hugh’s unique Pasta with Fennel, Arugula and Lemon. Quickly thrown together, it’s easily made and even more easily enjoyed.
This ribboned pasta was glorious. Buy the best-quality pasta you can find.
Mix together the sliced fennel and sliced garlic and sauté for ten minutes.
Pasta with Fennel, Arugula and Lemon
Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 large fennel bulb
1 tablespoon canola or olive oil
1 garlic clove, slivered
5 ounces pappardelle, or other pasta
2 or 3 good handfuls of arugula
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons crème fraîche
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Parmesan, hard goat cheese, or other well-flavored hard cheese.
1. Put a large saucepan of well-salted water on to boil so that you’re ready to cook the pasta while the sauce is coming together.
2. Trim the fennel, removing the tougher outer layer or two, then slice thinly. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and fennel and sauté gently for about 10 minutes, until the fennel is tender.When the fennel is almost cooked, add the pasta to the pan of boiling water and cook until al dente.
Add the arugula to the fennel and stir until wilted, then add the lemon zest and crème fraîche. Stir well until the crème fraîche coats all the vegetables, then add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Drain the pasta well, toss with the fennel mixture, and serve right away, with grated cheese.
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White Beans with Artichokes
What is best about my last recipe, White Beans with Artichokes, is that I always have these ingredients on hand. This could be lunch, a side for dinner, a filling and nutritious snack or a tasty addition to a buffet table or potluck gathering. Link to the recipe here.
Mise En Place – Here’s what you need for this recipe.
Heating the garlic, artichokes and, eventually, the beans.
The Country Cottage Club is am international group which is cooking it’s way through Hugh Fearnlet-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook. To see more of Hugh’s recipes, link to his Pinterest page here. If you are interested in joining our adventure, go here.
During the three years of cooking-the-book, Around My French Table, I’ve been forced into the grain business. We corn-fed Iowa girls know a thing or two about grains. Yes, corn is a grain. The Quaker Oats factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, near my home town, is still the biggest cereal mill in the world. Our neighboring states, Kansas and North Dakota, are considered the Wheat Belt to Iowa’s Corn Belt. And, in Manchester, even as kids, we had a slight understanding of the soft Commodities Market.
Mise en Place, the ingredients needed for the salad
Dorie, however, has forced me to keep ingredients such as barley, bulgar, farro, quinoa and wheat berries in the pantry next to my rice bags and Quaker Oats box. While I’m no stranger to couscous, it’s not a grain I use often. This week’s French Friday’s recipe, Dorie’s Couscous Salad, reminded me again that salads do not always have to include lettuce.
The broth, the spices, dried fruit and couscous – ready to blend together
Couscous is a staple in North African cuisine. Geographically, think of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, former French protectorates. It’s their day-to-day spices, a combo of ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and cumin, that make this salad so special. The couscous is cooked in spice-laden chicken or vegetable broth but once it’s cooked, the fruit and vegetable choices are yours. What’s in your fridge or fruit bowl today? Couscous salad is calling. If made a day ahead, cover tightly and refrigerate.
I raised the lid to say, hello. Still cooking.
Since Dorie’s recipe is already in cyberspace, I am printing it below. Here are my additional tips:
1.This recipe makes beaucoup de couscous, ten healthy portions. Besides my lunch, I fed the entire front office staff. (That’s why they love me.)
2. I needed more chicken broth while cooking the couscous. Make extra dressing for taste if served immediately and, definitely, if you’re refrigerating overnight.
3. I substituted dried, tart Montmorency cherries for the raisins and omitted the cilantro. The toasted chopped almonds are a crunchy touch.
Served with a smashed avocado and feta cheese sandwich on whole wheat toast, this was a delicious and filling lunch.
Quite a lunch – Couscous Salad and Stuff-on-Toast
Couscous Salad, Dorie Greenspan,Around My French Table
Ingredients:
2 cups chicken broth
2 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt
1 T ground ginger
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cumin
1 10-oz box quick-cooking couscous (or 8 0z of larger couscous and let it sit about 20 minutes to cook)
1/2 cup raisins (dark or golden)
1 small cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, an cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 red pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 carrot, trimmed, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and thinly sliced
1 cup thinly sliced sugar snap peas
1 can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and patted dry
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup toasted chopped almonds
Preparation:
Bring the broth, 1 T olive oil, garlic, 1 tsp salt and other spices to a boil in a medium saucepan. Whisk the broth just to make sure the spices have dissolved, then stir in the couscous and turn off the heat. Scatter the raisins over the couscous, cover the pan and let sit for 10 minutes.
Fluff the couscous with a fork and turn into a large bowl. Stir in the vegetables, chickpeas, and lemon zest.
Combine the lemon juice, another tsp of salt, and the remaining 1 T olive oil, whisk. Pour over the couscous and toss well. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Set aside to cool. Add cilantro and almonds at serving time.
Member of the Clean Plate Club
If you would like to know more about grains, here’s the Whole Grains Council website. Besides Dorie’s interesting grain recipes, Deborah Madison also includes unique dishes in her Vegetable Literacy cookbook. Find my colleagues’ take on couscous on our French Fridays link. As I mention each week, we are an international cooking group having a wonderful time working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table.
Roasted Peppers, this week’s FFWD recipe, are a versatile, delicious and healthy veg,
This week’s French Friday’s with Dorie recipe choice is Roasted Peppers. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit I’d never roasted peppers before. That’s why I am able to promise that these are the most delicious peppers I’ve ever roasted. Like many of you, I get my roasted peppers from a jar and always have one jar in the fridge with two unopened jars as back-up in the pantry.
Before the fire…..
After roasting my own peppers, adding fresh herbs, garlic cloves and salt/pepper, I promise you this. Jarred roasted peppers will never grace my kitchen again. The technique and process are fun. Granted, it takes time, is messy and heats up your kitchen. I cranked up my oven to 500 degrees F rather than the 425 degrees F suggested by Dorie. (Instead of the oven, in hot weather, use your grill.)
Ready to roast in my 500 degrees F oven
But the rewards are many and plentiful, adding flavor, color and depth to a myriad of dishes. “In France, roasted red peppers slicked with olive oil, sometimes scattered with garlic, and often speckled with herbs are a time-honored bistro dish,” Dorie suggests. “They’re served as a starter with a fork, a knife and plenty of bread.”
Blistered and charred – that’s the look we’re wanting
Dorie serves her peppers as an appetizer with a fork, knife and crusty bread.
Need an alternative? I scoured the Internet and searched through my cookbooks. Here are some other great ideas to pepper-up your menus with this versatile, nutritious vegetable:
1. Red Tomato, Red Onion and Roasted Pepper Relish, an alternative to pickle relish
2. Red Pepper Hummus
3. Deviled Eggs
4. Muhammara – a hot pepper dip which blends roasted peppers, lemon, olive oil, pomegranate and walnuts. (used in Middle Eastern cuisines)
5. Roasted Pepper and Tomato Pasta Sauces, pureed or chunky, regular or meat-based.
6. Topping for Pizza, Bruschetta, Flatbread or Galettes
7. Roasted Red Pepper Soup, Bisque or Gazpacho
8. Fold into pasta or grains for an additional kick.
9. Stir into egg, chicken, tuna and potato salads.
10. Roasted Pepper Puree
11.Serve as an additional filling for fajitas
12. Roasted Pepper Dip (pureed with sour cream, Greek yogurt or cream cheese)
13. Fold into scrambled eggs, frittatas and omelets.
14. Stir into mashed potatoes (sweet potatoes, also), mashed celery root or cauliflower.
15. Add as an additional item to any sandwich.
16. Add to the steaming broth for mussels and shrimp.
17. Add roasted peppers to traditional condiments and side dishes like Ratatouille, Gremolata, Shakshuka, and Harissa (which already uses some roasted red peppers)
18. Add to roasted vegetables like corn, green beans, brussels sprouts, artichokes or zucchini.
19. Use it in your preserved lemons recipes which turns the preserved lemons into a delicious relish.
20. Have I missed anything? Now, it’s your turn.
Check out these food sites where I gleaned these many ideas: here and here and here and here and here. My Colorado friend, Michele, who blogs at Cooking with Michelle, offers many unique recipes. You’ll find Dorie’s version here. Pinterest offers other suggestions. Can’t find a particular recipe? Contact me. I’ll send it your way. Find my colleagues’ roasted peppers on our French Fridays link. As I mention each week, we are an international cooking group having a wonderful time working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. And, these are duck eggs, fresh from our local farmers market. Another first for me.
Do you sometimes have an experience, create a memory you just want to wrap your arms around and hold on to forever? Without seeming really sappy – drip, drip, drip – may I share with you a recent evening of friendship, nourishment and reminiscence.
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act of 1964, last week three local environmental groups threw a party, the Maroon Bells Birthday Bash. The Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System, designating the original 54 wilderness areas. That’s when our beloved Maroon Bells-Snowmass area, visited by over 100,000 visitors each year, was saved in perpetuity.
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act with the magnificent Maroon Bells as a background.
Partying on, Sunday afternoon, at the Aspen Musical Festival’s weekly concert, the orchestra got into the act of honoring the Act by playing Richard Strauss’s magnificent Alpine Symphony. Strauss created his musical homage to a trek in the Alps. For the purposes of the weekend, his Alps was to become our Rockies. That’s when I decided to call my friend, Judy Schramm, and plan a bash of our own.
Judy and I have been friends, it seems like, forever, but we never have time for each other. Sounds crazy, huh, but don’t you get that? We were among the 16 original volunteers who our mentor, Joanne Lyon, corralled into becoming forest rangers. But it was Judy and Joanne who, in 2001, founded the Forest Conservancy and nurtured it to the 120 boots on the ground we have today. We lost Joanne last year.
The best of the supper menu: Roasted Shrimp Salad, Roasted Artichoke Hearts and Colorado tomatoes.
I called Judy and suggested we attend the concert together and then have dinner at my condo. We would have an opportunity to celebrate, savor and recollect some priceless mountain memories only we share. Game on. She’d bring the vino. I’d make the food. We’d both bring the laughter and remembrances.
For an after-concert supper, I needed something simple and made ahead. Turning to Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That? cookbook, I found the perfect menu. The following two recipes were especially delicious. Although these are Garten’s recipes, I changed them some to save calories. Kept the flavor. Lost some fat.
Call a friend you don’t see often. Plan something special. It’s magic.
Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there. Anonymous
Roasted Shrimp Salad, adapted from Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa
Serves 8
Ingredients:
2 pounds (16 to 25 count, jumbo) cooked, tails on, peeled shrimp
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon good white wine vinegar
1/4 cup minced fresh dill
2 tablespoons capers, drained
2 tablespoons diced shallots
2 tablespoons diced canned Jalapeño peppers
Preparations:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
1. Defrost shrimp according to package directions. Pat the shrimp dry with paper towels.
2. Place shrimp on a sheet pan. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle on 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper before toss together. Spread the shrimp in one layer and roast for 4 minutes, turning once. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.
3. Make the sauce. In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, yogurt, orange zest, orange juice, vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.
4. When the shrimp are cool, add them to the sauce and toss. Add the dill, capers, red onion, and jalepeno and toss again well. Because I substituted yogurt for some mayo, my dressing is thinner than Ida’s. Place the salad in a colander to drain off the extra sauce to serve at the table in a pitcher. The flavors will improve when you allow the salad to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving. Otherwise, chill but serve at room temperature.
Roasted Artichoke Hearts, adapted from Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa
Serves 8
(The only change made to this recipe is the addition of preserved lemons. Use your leftovers in a pizza or as part of an antipasto platter.)
Ingredients:
2 boxes/bags (9 ounces each) frozen artichoke hearts, defrosted
3/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 shallot, minced
1/4 cup diced preserved lemons
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoons capers, drained
1 jarred roasted red pepper, small-diced
1/4 cup of chopped parsley
1/4 cup minced red onion
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
1.Place the artichoke hearts on a sheet pan in a single layer. Toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and roast for 20 minutes, turning once.
2. Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette. Place the shallot, diced preserved lemons, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a blender or in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Blend for 5 seconds. Add the basil and blend to make a purée. With the blender running at low speed, slowly pour in 1/2 cup olive oil until all is incorporated and the vinaigrette is an emulsion.
3.When the artichokes are done, place them in a bowl and toss with enough dressing to moisten. Add the capers, red pepper, red onion, parsley, and vinegar and toss gently. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and allow to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes for the flavors to blend. If you do refrigerate this, bring to room temperature before serving.
Quick Preserved Lemons, Mark Bittman, The New York Times
To prepare the preserved lemons, first slice.
Then, dice.
Ingredients:
4 lemons, organic (or, scrubbed of wax)
(To remove wax, blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds. Then rub off the wax with a towel.)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar.
Preparation:
1.Dice lemons, including peel, removing as many seeds as possible.
2. Put the lemons and their juice in a bowl, sprinkle with the salt and sugar; tossing well before transferring to a jar.
3. Let the mixture sit for at least 3 hours at room temperature, shaking the jar periodically. It can be served at that point or refrigerated for up to a week.
Yield: About 2 cups.
Time: At least 3 hours, largely unattended
In the spirit of full disclosure, this month’s Cottage Cooking Club post will make you weep. In fact, it’s a two-weeper. Since I’m not the sort to hold back, suffer in silence, I feel inclined to share the pain.
PANZANELLA, recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Veg
Cottage Cooking Club is a group devoted to eating our vegetables. With able assistance from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook, we are discovering unique and more creative ways to put nutrition on our tables. Every month our leader, Andrea, an award-winning blogger atThe Kitchen Lioness, sends ten recipes for our consideration. We then make our choices.
Knowing July would be a busy month, I picked two classics: Panzanella (recipe here) and Eggplant Parmigiana (recipe here). Panzanella, a Tuscan bread salad, is considered an Italian national treasure. The late, Italian cooking legend Marcella Hazan described it best. “Throughout Central Italy, from Florence to Rome, the most satisfying of salads is based on that old standby of the ingenious poor, bread and water. Given the right bread – a gutsy, country bread such as that of Tuscany or Abruzzi -,” Hazan continued, “ there is no change that one can bring to the traditional version that can improve it.”
Unfortunately, like most classic dishes, every cook has a tweak or two. Link to the Pinterest site, type in Panzanella and, mamma mia, you’ll find 60 different bread salads. Gingerbread? Brussels Sprouts? Amaranth? Seriously? While Whittingstall’s version doesn’t venture too far off the rails, I was intrigued by his tomatoey dressing followed by his technique to moisten the bread. No water for this guy.
My friend, Donna Grauer, asked me to Theatre Aspen’s Little Women production (husband, Bernie, was a no-go for LW). Wouldn’t a light supper, a little wine, be a gracious before-the-theatre touch? The Grauers are card-carrying Italianophiles so Donna, unlike me, knew her Panzanellas. We found this bread salad flavorful and refreshingly light. If needing to satisfy bigger appetites, we agreed that protein, an entrée, is needed.
This is what a Before-the-Theatre soirée looks like in the mountains.
We all are familiar with Louisa Mae Alcott’s Little Women. Right? The theatre production, a musical, Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy, was wonderful. At Intermission, Donna handed me a wad of Kleenex, “Here, you’ll need this,” she said.
And, we did. I’ve read this novel many times. It’s a story. I know Beth dies. I’ve known that for more than 55 years. And, yet, when Beth died in the play, we could hear the sniffles, see the tears, throughout the theatre. My first weep.
EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA, coming out of the oven
If you return to Pinterest and do a Eggplant Parmigiana-search, you will again find 60 different recipes but very few variables. Eggplants. Tomatoes. Cheese. Quell è tutto. The techniques are similar. No one crawls too far out on that limb. Whittingstall’s recipe is easily put together and very, very good … I think.
This is where the second weep begins. I made this dish late Wednesday afternoon in anticipation of my daughter’s visit. It’s a 14-hour drive from California and Melissa would arrive Thursday evening, weary and hungry. My welcome-to-Aspen dinner would be the requested greens salad, Filet Mignon, (cooked John Lester-style) and fresh green beans. The Eggplant Parmigiana would be a Mom-addition to dazzle and impress.
That’s three small bites for me………
This is what went down. I pulled the EP out of the oven, took two or three bites, pleased with the result. After taking photos, I set the dish on the counter to cool and cleaned up the kitchen. The evening passed quickly with last-minute chores. Then, to bed. The next morning I discovered the EP sitting on the counter, cooling! Since I had already once poisoned my son-in-law with an unrefrigerated leftover corn dog, I decided against going 2-for-2. I’m still hearing “Do you remember when Gramma poisoned Dad?” at family gatherings. With a very heavy heart, I tossed it. Second weep.
Melissa and I walked through the breathtakingly beautiful John Denver Sanctuary. She will only know about the Eggplant Parmigiana if she reads this post. I do have my pride.
You can find this post’s recipes here and here. I suspect my colleagues chose to make other great recipes this month. Visit them at our CCC site.
Soupe au Pistou is as close to the south of France as one can be without actually sticking a big toe in the Mediterranean. Grab a big dose of imagination, polish up your bonjours and mercis and follow me through a recipe we Americans call Provençal Vegetable Soup. This week French Fridays with Dorie celebrates summer, that glorious few months when Farmers Markets strut their stuff and tout their wares.
Although this soup is jam-packed with vegetables, it’s broth is fragrantly light and airy. By itself, it’s a light lunch. With a green leafy salad and a warm baguette, it’s supper on the patio. If you’ve grown fond of Rosés, pull out your nicest bottle.
The veggies – carrots, potatoes, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes and corn, onions and garlic – grab the spotlight. Hovering nearby are an abundance of fresh herbs – parsley, thyme, rosemary, basil and bay. Salt. Pepper. Depending on your audience, use vegetable, chicken broth or, water as your moisture base. Dorie’s version also includes 1/3 cup of tiny pasta and a can of cannellini beans.
To my mind, what makes this soup très spécial is its lah-de-dah finale. After ladling the liquid into individual bowls, add a healthy dab of basil pesto, drizzle a stream of olive oil over that (not much) and top everything with shredded basil leaves and grated Parmesan. Can’t you just visualize those bowls marching out of your kitchen in lockstep with the proud chef?
A Cast-iron Soup Kettle Packed with Fresh Vegetables and Herbs – Perfect for Summertime
The most challenging but important preparation in this recipe is adding the vegetables in proper order. Now is the time for Mise en Place – have all your ingredients prepped, lined up and ready to go. Tip One: when making this again, I will eliminate the 1/3 cup of pasta. The pasta becomes soft and mushy after a day or two. Tip Two: it’s perfectly acceptable, if you’re pressed for time, to buy your pesto in a jar.
Meet Rusty the Rufous Hummingbird. The word in the neighborhood is “Don’t Mess with Rusty.”
This summer I’ve been eating lunch and dinner on my tiny balcony. It’s fun, my mountain view is glorious and, it seemed to me, my Soupe au Pistou just tasted better en plein air. A little white-breasted nuthatch is often working his way down the nearby cottonwood tree and an amazing number of Anna’s and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds visit my two feeders everyday. These beautiful little creatures are fascinating to watch, making me laugh. Unfortunately this blissful scenario of joy ended abruptly recently. I’ve been kicked off my own balcony by a belligerent bully who is 3.75” long, weighs 3.4 grams, has a wingspan of 4.5” and doesn’t even speak English.
Last Sunday a male Rufous Hummingbird (now named Rusty) spotted my two nectar-filled feeders and decided to claim the territory. He quickly chased off the others and torpedoed any newcomers who ventured by for a sip. Rusty, who is often caught flashing his iridescent gorget (throat) while vigorously moving his head from side to side, is obviously looking for chicks. The more, the better. He is not a monogamous guy.
“WHOOPS, I’ve reached the end of the Line.” The white-breasted nuthatch has worked its way down this huge 100-year old cottonwood. Lots of tasty morsels to be had along the way.
Rusty sits in a nearby bush, guarding, what he now claims as his feeders, chasing off those who venture near. That includes Moi. Sometimes there are 5 or 6 hummers circling the feeders with a frenetic Rusty, darting to and fro. The chattering racket and loud wing-beating sounds have become annoying. The paying guests who are renting the condos surrounding mine are very good sports but we’re all pulling for Rusty to get lucky, eventually lose interest and move on. The sooner, the better, so peace can be restored at The Gant.
Rusty, caught cat-napping. When you’re on duty 24/7, it’s necessary to grab some shuteye when you can.
Whether you enjoy your Soupe au Pistou inside or outside, you will find the recipe here. To see what my colleagues cooked up this week, go to our French Fridays link. French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table.
