Saturday - the market opens at 9:30.
I was blessed with a solo drive out to the country, windows down, music filling the hull of the car, a little rocketship. Nostalgia makes a comforting companion at that hour. The roads are half empty, most people still at home with their soft clothes and coffee.
9:32 and the parking lot is full, a line at Fire Ant Farms; they’re a clear believer in the old farmer’s market adage: ‘stack it high and watch it fly.’ Marketing tactics cannot escape even this simple exchange, and it works. They shuttle back and forth between their stand and their waiting haul: caraflex cabbage, chiogga beets, dandelion greens, green garlic, spring onions, plump bags of pea tendrils and tender spinach.
Spring is here. Lunch awaits.
A sense of occasion is a handy tool these days. You can make anything feel like an event if you give it the energy it needs. Give yourself permission to make a simple moment beautiful. I leave the market with a bouquet of the new spring flowers. They will dot the table, and lend a freshness to the air.
With a tote of vegetables this fresh, there isn’t much needed by way of “cooking.” A little water and some heat is all, really. Sugar snap peas, strawberries bursting with energy, petite carrots, pea shoots as fine as lace. Green peanuts, boiled and seasoned, a real snapshot of the South. These things only need a bit of encouragement and they’ll deliver an easy meal.
The peas get a quick blanch - one minute is enough - before swimming in a waiting pool of ice and cool water. Slice them thinly after.
The same fate for carrots. Tossed in the same boiling water as the peas, tinted green, they can boil away for a few minutes and emerge with their youth concentrated. They can cool on the countertop before slicing.
Eggs get hard-boiled, spring onion divided and seared on your favorite pan in a bit of olive oil. Shell the peanuts. It won’t take much energy - their soft armor has yielded from their long boil.
Anchovies, if you have them. Parmesan. These vegetables are pure and sweet and simple but they’ll always benefit from a sharp hit, something salty to blast through and demand a little attention. Some lemon helps here, too.
Put it on a nice, small plate. Top it with some pea tendrils. Arugula, if you have it. Something elegant and beautiful to conceal a bit of the more rugged bits below. Drape it with an anchovy, a drizzle of some nice olive oil, and crown the whole affair with some flaky salt and freshly cracked pepper.
The strawberries can be sliced and served on a handful of ice.
This is good eating, pure and simple. Who knew lunch could be so goddamn divine?
A spring lunch.
Recently moved into a new house and it happens to be right around the corner from my wife's work which means she's able to come home for lunch. On days I WFH it's easy to just roll lunch into work but this post made me take a conscious effort to step away, prepare an actual meal, and take a quick lunch date on our patio. Long winded way of saying thanks for the inspiration!