Culinary Staycation

I recently made travel plans which had unexpectedly gone awry. I found myself in my parents' house for a whole week with no plans. Yes, I did sulk -- it was not the type of vacation I was hoping for. But I was still off from work, so I took the opportunity to enjoy an airy kitchen with room to move and enough counter space for me to make a beautiful mess. First was a green bean salad with homemade roasted red peppers and cannellini beans. A simple dressing of shallots, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper made it a bright and colorful side dish. Serendipidously, the next night was my parents' 26th wedding anniversary. I prepared tomato fennel soup (http://lettucetalkfood.blogspot.com/2009/12/fennel-and-tomato-soup.html), a simple salad of mixed greens and lightly steamed asparagus, and onion tart. For the latter, I slowly sweated onions with butter, oil and fresh thyme until almost falling apart. Puff pastry made for a rich, crispy base for the sweet onions.

I prepared homemade ricotta cheese, made in the microwave with a touch of salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice. It took a ton of milk to yield a modest amount of ricotta, but the flavor was incredible.

I made radish sandwiches with homemade thyme butter (below), sea salt and toasted baguette.

Here is the plain butter...

And the one with fresh thyme.

Oh -- and there was dark chocolate sorbet. I (surprisingly) followed a recipe, but decided that following the ice cream manufacturer's instructions was unnecessary. This lead to confusion, frustration, and a hell of a lot of effort, but it was incredibly rich and worth the stress.

And of course, since it was vacation, there were cocktails. Bloody marys made with vegetable juice, horseradish, Worchestershire sauce, lemon juice and vodka.

I guess this post serves a selfish, cathartic purpose. I realize that it's not where you are, but what you do -- and who you do it with -- that ultimately makes you happy. I was not expecting to spend my vacation this way, but I'm glad I did.