Utterly divine veg dinner for one, a little bit of kitchen magic

My obsession with platters appears to be reaching a problematic state. I love platters. LOVE them. Of all shapes and sizes, earthily organic or modern as can be, unfinished or perfect, with a hint of decor or none at all. And today I may have bought one more. It was on sale, and I am sure to use it, but the stack in my basement closet (hee-hee, T never looks in there; it's like a tiny wifely-embezzlement nook) is quite tall. But this platter is so lovely, and I've been eyeing it for months, and it went on sale, and so I jumped. It's possible I bought a matching baker, but that's an admission for another day.

I did not get to any of the cooking on my list today, but I did manage to make myself a marvelous dinner for one: pumpkin ravioli with a brown butter sage sauce; and warmed Yotam & Sami leftovers from two nights back. Everything saved beautifully; in fact, it was all better tonight which is not really a surprise. Fried onions get better over time, and tahini sauce is a sit-in-the-fridge-and-improve champ. Yotam's tahini sauce is lovely, and in making it I am always amazed by the way disparately viscous ingredients can come together so uniformly. That sort of magic is one of the elemental reasons I love cooking. Try this yourself:

From Jerusalem:

3½ tablespoons light tahini paste 4½ tablespoons Greek yogurt 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed 2 tablespoons water

Place all ingredients in a medium bowl, add a pinch of salt, and whisk well until you get a smooth, semistiff paste.

Could.that.be.simpler?! No. And when you first put everything in the bowl and start whisking, you'll think, this biz ain't ever gonna come together into a paste. But it does, beautifully and smoothly, and in this rich ecru color that you want to paint your walls with, and that's the magic.

Humid! Hot! Kids love waves! I love fresh food!

This afternoon, we took family pictures on the beach as a gift to my mother-in-law. The photographer reminded me of Jeffrey Dean Morgan if he'd moved to Hawaii and adopted a real kumbaya mindset. By about 8 minutes in, Oliver was wet from the navel down, and Jack -having not napped or eaten much in the prior 5 minutes- was totally on edge, literally twitching with the need to jump in, get wet, "jump the waves. The kids LOVE the ocean. It was also about 90 degrees with 100% humidity, so by the time we rangled everyone home, everyone was fried and sweaty. I do hope we got some good pics. We all sort of plodded our ways through the next hour and a half, and when I checked 5 minutes ago, my sister-in-law was still in bed with her oldest, and Oliver had turned on all the lights, found a plastic bag with which he was playing and taken apart an ironing board. Eff, kids. Go the F to Sleep! Who's read that book? Priceless!

Anyway, all's well, and I made dinner: grilled sausages from Cibola Farms (at the dupont farmers market); roasted eggplant with garlic, lemon and reduced balsamic; summer squash and wax bean -Oliver: "I looove those lellow beans."- salad with pine nuts, garlic oil, mint and basil; and savoy cabbage with bacon and sweet onions. Yum! If only I'd churned out some dessert as well. There's always tomorrow.