Oysters!

Armed with the pound of Benton bacon I bought and the benne seeds and bennecake flour that arrived last Friday plus sixteen East coast oysters I bought today, I looked forward to tonight's dinner of Brown Oyster Stew with Benne, a la Sean Brock and Heritage. It occurred to me while at the seafood counter that I'd never shucked an oyster, but we have Kevlar gloves because of an incident between Tom and a clam, and I knew a quick web search would yield reams of helpful tutorials.

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As it turns out, shucking oysters isn't hard at all. I was happy to have my hands properly armored and to have yet another reason to use the cheap paring knife T and I bought in New York before we were even married; a long ago pry popped the tip off, and since then it's been our ice-pick and disjoiner of choice for any sort of kitchen job. It lost a bit more blade this evening, but the oysters were impressive adversaries, so I didn't mind in the least.

Indeed, as they gripped their shells with nearly maternal ferocity, I felt a tinge of sad, a good bit of admiration and a great deal of appreciation. As I often do with each worm I unearth in the garden, I thanked every oyster for contributing to my meal. A neat animal to be sure.

I diced and cooked the bacon down, added onions and then two Anson Mills' flours-the bennecake and fancy white- to make a roux. Into that went the reserved oyster liquor and some homemade chicken stock I had in the freezer. Lemon, Tabasco, the oysters and voila. A lovely stew which I served atop Carolina Gold rice and dressed with benne seeds and parsley.

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My only error was not bringing the roux to a dark enough golden brown. The implication of that of course being that the final product lacked color and looked like beige gravy. Egads! Visually subpar, but the taste was marvelous.

I roasted some thick but not woody asparagus with lemon and olive oil to go alongside, and T made Bourbon-shrub cocktails too. We supped well, caught up on our days (Oliver lost both the 4' cheetah and 8' alligator today because of some unimpressive listening; I was accused of "destwoying" his home as he sleeps under them both instead of blankets.) and then laughed our arses off while watching Real Time from last Friday. I'm so happy you're back, Bill.

Caramelized fennel, leek and orange; the farro again; jury duty

Friends, I do not want to go to jury duty tomorrow. I simply don't. I love to vote, am committed to community involvement and so forth and so on, but jury duty does not float my boat. In the least. Ah well. I did a great deal of cooking today which was a lovely way to spend much of Monday: smothered okra for lunch; caramelized fennel, leek and orange; the fab farro salad again... I also seem to have the dessert-craving tapeworm again so sprung for a jelly-filled, powdered-sugar-dusted beignet at Whole Foods, the best of their bakery goods (in the context of those that are good because many are not). It was, as always, fantastic.

Nanny and Mom often made smothered okra when I was growing up. I am an enormous, enthusiastic fan of okra except in gumbo where I truly believe it has no place. #honesty

Anyway, smothered okra is one of those crazy-simple, crazy-good comforting home foods that makes me happy. I hadn't thought about it in ages, but when I took the boys to Louisiana in August, Mom had just made a huge batch with a bushel of Louisiana longhorn okra some friends had grown and given her. I swear I ate 90% of the batch and have been craving more ever since.

Today at the market, I saw some decent okra. At $6 a pound I didn't get more than would feed me, but it made such a sublime lunch. I sat in silence, on a stool at my counter, breathing in the scent of long- and slowly-cooked okra in bacon fat. I wondered why on earth I gave up bacon for so long. I marveled anew at how good something with two ingredients -three if you count salt- can be. And I thought of home.

Saturday night wishes

Friends, I would be psyched if a leprechaun laid a fire in my fireplace, lit it, gave me a foot massage and bolted out the door with nary a word. Sounds good, yes? If only leprechauns were real. Earlier, I had a somewhat lengthy meeting and then exercised before T handed the kids off to me in the gym lobby. We saw him briefly once he returned home but he's been at the office for the past five hours and is still MIA. During this serious amount of weekend quality time, the boys and I made Valentines, killed each other with Sith evil and sabers, took a walk to exchange Jack's roll of quarters for a $10 to find that bank was closed so now I have a heavy roll in my purse and Jack has my "crisp" and then, post-bath (theirs) settled into my bed to have Part 1 of The Talk which tonight was a lovely discussion about how girl and boy body parts differ. Bath-time to Sex Ed-time was actually a terrifically smooth segue being that J donned his scuba goggles in the bath to better study Ol's private area.

Jesus.

Finally, the night was mine, and despite the fact that I could have hit the sack then, I could not bear to let the beautiful filet of Chilean Sea Bass (Patagonian Toothfish, folks. Those marketers can't fool me!) that I bought yesterday go to waste. As such, I summoned the will to poach it in fresh whey and cinnamon, steam up some Carolina gold rice (also in whey) and roast some asparagus because surely T would be home soon. Alas no, and now this beautiful meal is growing cold on the table (though natch I ate while it was hot). Sad. We have been tag-teaming ships in the night lately; I haven't spent an evening with him since Wednesday and do miss him. Perhaps tomorrow night.

At the least Valentine's Day which is A) Friday, B) one of my three favorite holidays, and C) extra-amazing this year because my in-laws INVITED THE CHILDREN TO SPEND THE NIGHT THAT NIGHT!!!!!!!!! That's better than a damn leprechaun, people. So anyway, maybe I'll see T then.

Dinner was very good as, by the way, was breakfast this morning, aka 4 trillion hours ago: fresh ricotta (hence the whey on hand) plus the pear-ginger-black pepper preserves. That is a great recipe I tell you. They were a hit last night (served with Brie and toasted baguette) and I made more today.