One spring term at Rogue Community College, where I teach [I have since retired], I had two students in class whom I especially liked, Jasmine and Chelsea. For a special treat at the end of term, I invited them to lunch at my house.
Jasmine is a flamenco dancer, tall and thin, with movements as graceful as though instigated by wind. Around her neck is an unclosed, forked tattoo, like a cloth of thin iron. Her partner, Brian, is a man with farming in his soul, a man of the land. The other student, Chelsea, is tall and solid, with enormous earrings and marvelous tattoos: branches reaching up between her bosom, snakes spiraling up her arms, floral motifs vining her wrists. She and her husband, Tyler, a musician with a dreadlocks beard, wear identical nose rings. After lunch, when Chelsea leaned back and put her arms behind her head as she talked, I envisioned a baby at her breast, tracing its tiny finger along the red and black snake winding around her arms.
To prepare for lunch with these special guests, I squeezed five place settings onto my card table by extending it with a piece of plywood. I set the table in the small, square room that was the original structure of my house. With the skylight stretching across the length of the room, windows opening onto the postage-stamp lawn and peony bed, the new hardwood floor, and the stove and sink in the back side of the room, it is still the brightest and most welcoming room for good meals. Over the enlarged table I spread my blue-on-blue checked tablecloth, bought in Sweden at the weavery that makes linens for the Nobel Prize banquets.
I set the table with three Swedish dinner plates, edged with a delicate blue floral design inspired by Mårbacka, the home of novelist Selma Lagerløf, and with two powder-blue plates rimmed in deep yellow—garage sale treasures. Above these latter plates I set two small, dark blue, hand-blown Swedish water glasses. The other water glasses were pottery chalices from Goodwill. The tableware came from my son, a metal sculptor, who had twisted the handles of Goodwill stainless-steel knives, forks, and spoons into spirals. Cloth napkins (two from Sweden, embroidered with forget-me-nots; three from my mother) lay folded on each plate. On top of the napkins were delicately colored, wide-mouth wine glasses, not for wine but for soup, since I only have three soup bowls and the wine glasses gave continuity to my otherwise mismatched place settings.
Martha Stewart, no doubt, would have pursed her lips and twitched her shoulder to see my table, but I thought it looked elegant in my little house with its tiny lawn, colorful flowers, and tree-framed view of Humpy Mountain.
For lunch I served tomato avocado soup, lentil-and-jicama salad, and Cuban flan.
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| Cuban flan, for a different occasion |
The delicate glass of my "soup bowls" added a touch of class to the cold tomato soup with its soft spots of avocado. Everyone tried to guess all the ingredients in the salad, but it was the man of the land who named every subtle flavor. The Cuban flan was a great hit, served with homegrown raspberries Chelsea and Tyler had brought with them. Chelsea wrote me later that they all raved to their friends for days about the food, always adding glowing descriptions of the table so beautifully laid and the little house in the mountains where they had walked through the woods to have lunch with their writing teacher.
Next week: "Wedding Cake, Part 1"
Recipes for this post:
Avocado tomato soup, layered
Lentil and jicama salad
Cuban flan
AVOCADO TOMATO SOUP, LAYERED
SERVES 4
Ingredients
2 pounds ripe tomatoes
3-4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Salt
2 firm-ripe avocados
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons minced shallots
1 teaspoon minced fresh tarragon
Preparation
Tomato layer: Rinse and core tomatoes. Cut into chunks. Whirl in a blender (or mash thoroughly), then push through a fine strainer to collect about 3 cups of purée in a bowl. Season purée with 2-3 tablespoons of vinegar and salt to taste. Cover and chill at least 1 hour.
Avocado layer: Peel and pit avocados. Cut into chunks. Whirl in a blender with broth, sour cream, and lime juice (or blend thoroughly by hand, with an egg beater) until smooth. Cover surface with plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour.
Topping: Mince shallots and tarragon and set aside. Peel cucumber and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds. Peel cucumber and dice into 1/8-inch pieces to make about 1 cup. Mix cucumber bits with minced shallots, tarragon, and 1 tablespoon vinegar. Cover and chill at least 30 minutes.
To make
Stir avocado mixture to blend and pour equal portions into glasses or bowls. (Use clear glasses for the best effect.) Whisk tomato mixture to blend and gently pour over the avocado layer in the glass. Top with cucumber.
LENTIL AND JICAMA SALAD
serves 6-8
Ingredients
2 cups (about 13 ounces) lentils
1/3 cup olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic
3 tomatoes, approximately
1 jicama
2 bunches green onions
1 large ear corn
Fresh basil (1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons)
1 lemon for juice
Preparation
Cook lentils in a large pot of boiling water till tender, about 20 minutes. Seed and dice the tomatoes to garner 2 1/2 cups. Peel and dice the jicama to yield 2 cups. Chop enough green onions to fill 1 1/2 cups. Cut the kernels from the corn cob. Thinly slice the basil to yield 1/4 cup. Squeeze the lemon to make 3 tablespoons fresh juice. Chop or mince the garlic to yield 1 tablespoon.
To make
Drain lentils well. Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Sauté garlic till golden. Add 1/4 cup of basil, the lemon juice, and the rest of the vegetables except for 1/2 cup tomatoes and 2 tablespoons of basil, which will be for a topping. Then stir in the lentils and heat through, without really cooking the vegetables (about 6 minuets, maybe less if the lentils are still hot.)
Assemblage
Ingredients
2 tablespoons fresh basil, thinly sliced as above
1/2 cup chopped fresh tomatoes, as above
Cooked lentils with sautéed vegetables
To assemble
Stir the basil into the hot lentil sauté. Mound the salad in a large serving bowl. Arrange the chopped tomatoes around the edge, and serve at once, while the salad is still hot. It is good cold, but it is most superb, and most surprising, when hot.
CUBAN FLAN
serves 10
Ingredients
1/2 cup white sugar
5 egg yolks
1 whole egg
1 can condensed milk
1 can whole milk or evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350º. Butter a round metal mold or a 1-quart round casserole dish.
To make
Melt the 1/2 cup sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat without stirring, then pour it, golden brown, into a well buttered, round, metal mold or a 1-quart round casserole dish to cover the bottom. Beat the eggs and add the condensed milk, the whole milk, and the vanilla extract. Mix well and pour into mold. Put the mold in a baking pan and add hot water to at least half-way up the mold. Put the pan with the mold in the oven and bake at 350º until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the flan, about 1 hour. Cool. Place a plate on top of the flan mold and invert to remove flan with its caramel on top. Chill well before serving.
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