Keep it easy.

Fork.  Ahhh, a new year!  What a lovely time for reflection, contemplation, change.  I have plenty of goals for the year, for life, but something I'd like to make a priority is simplicity.  Our world is abuzz with new gidgets and gadgets all hemorrhaging information.  Too much for my little self to handle all at once.  Distractions entice from every device.

Nevermind those dishes with a trillion different ingredients, the ones that have you hopping between various specialty food stores for specific pastes and obscure spices.  I'm in operation eat-down mode in an effort to clean out my pantry before Daniel and I start on our journey westwards (more on that adventure soon).  So, no fancy foods for me this month.  Its all about using what I have, simply.

OVEN ONION JAM

red onions

balsamic vinegar

brown sugar

salt and pepper

Thinly slice onions on a mandolin (carefully!).  Spread on a shallow baking tray and season with salt and pepper.  Cover with a lot of brown sugar and douse with balsamic vinegar.  Bake in the oven (350 F), but stir often, almost every twenty minutes.  They will get sticky and jammy!  Add water as needed if the onions dry out too much.  I probably added 2-3 cups in one cup increments for one tray of onions.  After about an hour, you'll have a thick, tangy, sweet onion jam. 

Before the oven.

Half-way done!

Use as a base for a savory, earthy pizza.  Or in a cheddar and apple sandwich.  Or as a condiment for a cheese plate.  Think cranberry-walnut bread, onion jam, and a salty blue cheese.  Easy peasy.

Glass.  As the winter cold sets in (Daniel and I saw a hint of snow yesterday, I swear!), I've been drinking cup after cup of warm, spicy tea and curling up under blankets, digging into a new book.  My favorite winter tea is Good Earth's Sweet and Spicy.  It tastes like Big Red chewing gum - all cinnamon and honey and cloves.  Although very complex flavors come from a single tea bag, no additions are necessary, making it a very simple and very satisfying cup.  Don't add milk or sugar, it will overwhelm the natural sweetness of the leaves.  Simply boil water and let the tea steep for 5 minutes.  Breathe deeply and sip with ease.

Play.  M.F.K. Fisher.  There is too much to say about this superb lady.  She was probably the first official food writer, creating and then transforming a genre very dear to me.  Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher loved to eat, loved to cook, and loved to write about how food has the ability to inspire and thrill.  She encouraged her readers to look at life as a series of meals, and examined how every bite (no matter how small) gave insight into grander hopes and dreams.  Her prose is absolutely enjoyable and her subject matter rift with girlish innocence and mature wonder.  She has a knack for storytelling and relishes in the tiny excitements of life, in the people she has encountered, and in the meals she has eaten.  For anyone that takes just a moment of reflection before lifting their fork, I encourage you to dig into M.F.K. Fisher.  She'll delight.

An excerpt from An Alphabet for Gourmets: 

Every good cook, from Fanny Farmer to Escoffier, agrees on three things about these delicate messengers to our palates from the kind earth mother: they must be very green, they must be freshly gathered, and they must be shelled at the very last second of the very last minute. 

A lovely dappling of lovely memoirs.

My peas, that is, the ones that reached an almost unbelievable summit of perfection, an occasion that most probably never would happen again, met these three gastronomical requirements to a point of near-ridiculous exactitude.  It is possible however, that even this technical impeccability would not have been enough without the mysterious blending, that one time, of weather, place, other hungers than my own.  After all, I can compare bliss with near bliss, for I have often, blessed me, eaten superlative green peas. 

So, there you have it.  Heaven in just the taste of a pea.  True simplicity.