Hearty Whole Foods

It's been a week of home cooked meals, some in front of others and some just the two of us. It started with Baleen cooking a lasagna on Sunday night for our Ottoman Empire guests, W & C, who went to that part of the world with us, and Joshua and Z, half of whom were born and raised in Ankara. She did what she doesn't always do, which is follow the directions, probably because she trusted the source, Lorna, who had merged three of four recipes like Wood Duck used to merge Margarine's summer internships, how's Williams & Giuliani?, except with much better results. It was excellent, which you can't see from the picture of me mixing her roux with the spinach and mushrooms. But it was. Thanks Lorna.

There were also quiet meals of good quality, more veggie delights by Yotam and thankfully, more Williams & Sonoma, a fava bean and cooked prosciutto recipe. That last one had me peeling fava beans with the wonder of an urban anthropologist that would have made Mama Edie and Pop, my Alabama grandparents, shake their heads at us city folk (first I take the beans from their shell, then I take blanch them for a minute and remove the skin from the bean?).

And though I'm sure I'd soon tire of the fava bean process in the way that Mr Combover's dad told him he'd soon tire of getting up to flip that record to the B side, I'd make it again, soon, even, and I'd also make that tapenade again, the one that included these anchovies, Walker. Sorry, I meant to tell you about them, I did, but I forgot about it.