Lunch

Let's talk indulgence: lunch, including recipes.

First, a nice healthy breakfast, so as to have a clear spirit: oatmeal with wild blueberries and apricots: Sumatra coffee for a heart starter.

Then, Thinking about that leg of lamb from last night: free range, grass-fed, and local: roasted with thyme and olives with Herbes de Provence, still pink the next day.

Oh yeah, and soup: Chard with Lemon (recipe follows, from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. What? You don't own it? This is the one I woulda gotten after the "How to boil water" basic Cookbook, if I had known then.)

And what I think of as the main course: local sweet organic carrots and sublime shallots, roasted with butter, thyme, and Brittany sea salt: dayum!

Wine note: I went back to my shop looking for more of the beautiful Spanish Merum Monastrell 2005 Dennis noted earlier, (link to follow, if I can figure out how) but found another, a Luzon Verde 2004, also from Jumilla, and also good, and also a $ 9 bargain: huah, Spain!

This is simple and easy food, folks, but, as so many point out, it's all about ingredients. Local and fresh trumps Organic from factory farms in the Imperial Valley, for me. I have the time and inclination to have searched for suppliers and distributors for most of this, though I confess that Olive trees are scarce in CT, as is Monastrell. If ya got a little ground, which I do not, and the time, growing yer own is a lovely option, which I daydream about frequently. Ya can't get good results with those little paper boxed months-old shallots from yer local supermarket; I've not been inside one in six months, but that's luck and the time to chase around for specifics.

OK: enough chatter, recipe.

2 bunches green Chard (about eight -ten cups leaves, loose)

1 lg. onion, diced

2-3 red potatos (I use whatever I got), thinly sliced

6 1/2 c. water

Butter, or Olive oil

sea salt

juice of 1 large Lemon, or 2 cups Sorrel leaves. stems removed

Saute potatos and onion s in soup pot over med high heat until they color: ~ 8 minutes. Deglaze with a little water, add greens and cook till wilted (5 minutes), then add rest of water and cook ~ 20 minutes. Let cool and puree in blender. Bring back to warm temperature, and add Lemon juice if you didn't use Sorrel. Serve with croutons and creme fraiche or sour cream garnish.

Ya owe it to yerself to make this at least once: heh.