per­fect Con­necti­cut day… and cooking!

It’s a gor­geous blue-sky day in Con­necti­cut, we’ve just come from a round of sweaty ten­nis and a swim. I’m thrilled: John said today, “You’re good enough now that it’s fun for me to play with you.” As opposed to the mind-bend­ing­ly dull job he had at first of sim­ply… serv­ing! End­less­ly, since I could­n’t real­ly hit it back. I love ten­nis, and I hope I can find a place to play in Lon­don. The pool was freez­ing again, how­ev­er, so we chick­ened out and came home for lunch.

Which brings me to: recipes.

Now, I must say that I quake even to claim to repro­duce a recipe by our friend Olimpia. I say this not because I don’t think I can cook, but because of an intrigu­ing notion sug­gest­ed to me by our neigh­bor friend Alice over the week­end. As I was describ­ing what Olimpia had cooked for us, Alice mused, “It sounds almost like a kind of mys­ti­cal thing you are sug­gest­ing, a sort of alche­my.” And that is exact­ly right. The oth­er per­son in my life whose cook­ing strikes me this way is my friend Alyssa, whose mat­zoh ball soup is leg­endary, and with whom I have, as I have with Olimpia, stood at the kitchen counter, watched, tak­en part, writ­ten down, lis­tened. And yet… when I try their recipes myself, while they’re all right, even quite good, they’re lack­ing some­thing. And Alice may be right: it’s not an ingre­di­ent or a method, it’s the mag­ic of the cook her­self. And as John always believes (I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly agree with him!) that if I love some­one I think she’s beau­ti­ful to look at, it’s pos­si­ble too that some­thing of the love and admi­ra­tion I feel for the cook per­me­ates my taste buds right along with the gar­lic or chick­en. Possible!

But I will do my best to tell you how to make what we ate so hap­pi­ly this week­end in the Catskills with our friends, Olimpia and Tony. And she let me cook with her.

Zuc­chi­ni all’Olimpia
(serves 4 as an antipasto)

2 medi­um zuc­chi­ni, sliced round
olive oil to reach an inch up the side of your skillet
1 tbsp fresh olive oil for sauteeing
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
driz­zle more olive oil
4 leaves basil or mint (we had mint, I’d like to try basil too)
1/4 red wine vinegar
salt and fresh pepper

Heat oil in skil­let until a small piece of bread on the end of a fork siz­zles imme­di­ate­ly when dipped in. Fry the zuc­chi­ni slices until soft, then drain on kitchen paper.

Dis­card the olive oil and wipe out skil­let. Cook down a bit and add 1 tbsp olive oil, then saute gar­lic gen­tly (do not brown).

In a pret­ty serv­ing dish, lay­er the zuc­chi­ni slices, sprin­kle gar­lic and mint or basil, driz­zle oil and a bit of the vine­gar. Repeat this till all zuc­chi­ni slices are lay­ered. Salt and pep­per to taste. Mar­i­nate for at least an hour before serving.

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Moz­zarel­la in Carrozza

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Roast Shoul­der of Pork with Garlic

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As you can imag­ine, it was just unbe­liev­able. We rem­i­nisced about friends in com­mon, old days in New York, our vis­it in Feb­ru­ary, our wish­es that they come to us in Lon­don. Then too we exchanged lots of views on child-rear­ing (they are proud grand­par­ents and great-aunt and uncle to Tony’s fam­i­ly), and it was nice to agree on every­thing! “Keep com­mu­ni­cat­ing, keep talk­ing. You have to know where they are and who they’re with, and what they’re think­ing,” Tony said wise­ly. A for­mer New York City fire inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer, he has a most com­fort­ing demeanor of innate wis­dom and sagac­i­ty that I just love. Not to men­tion: he built the kitchen him­self! I adored the Wolf stove, and all the intri­cate and savvy lit­tle spice shelves, slid­ing draw­ers, sev­er­al sinks and oth­er lux­u­ries that John and I filed away in our imag­i­na­tions for the remote day that we might design our own kitchen.

Thank you, guys, for a great after­noon. I like to think of your dish­es being made now all over the world! But miss­ing, I fear, that spark of… Olimpia.