June 12, 2005

Tonight we are having the first lettuce from the garden. Because I did not take over my plot until relatively late in the spring, and because it was full of weeds when I finally did take it over, I really did not have much of an opportunity to put in a spring garden. I did, however, plant some lettuce, so that I could have some fresh salad. For me, that is one of the most important things to grow in the garden, because it is a pain to make a special trip to the market just to buy lettuce.

I am planning on making a "bacon, lettuce and tomato salad." Here's what I'll do:

Thinly slice a shallot and saute in olive oil with some diced pancetta. After everything is cooked, let the oil cool a bit and add some sherry vinegar. Toss the dressing with some fresh lettuce and tomatoes.

We're going to have that with a roasted chicken and potatoes and what I'll call zucchini carpaccio. (Thinly sliced zucchini dressed with olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and freshly grated Parmesan and then baked for a bit.) We're going to drink a French Muscadet (Domaine de la Quilla), which is a very nice dry white wine. The Wall Street Journal wine columnists highlighted this wine in their column on Friday, and the Domaine de la Quilla was their top rated version. I was excited because I found it at our local discount wine place for a dollar less than the Wall Street Journal quoted as the average price. I ended up buying three bottles. (I find that the Wall Street Journal columnists are very good at recommending unsung heroes in the wine world, i.e. more obscure varieties that are pretty good buys. They also don't pull punches about what isn't a good value, e.g., cheap American merlot. We end up drinking a lot of French wine because it can be a pretty good value for basic, everyday wine. Of course, that is because the French tend to drink wine every day.)

And finally, in the "why didn't I ever think of this" department, I'll mention a very guilty pleasure I had yesterday: peanut butter melted in the microwave over vanilla ice cream topped with hot chocolate sauce. Wow. So good. And probably not so good for you. But every once in a while...it probably can't hurt too much. I can't remember where I encountered this idea; I saw it somewhere recently. The source escapes me, though thankfully the idea does not.