Producing dinner

Another lovely haul from the farmers market, which I never manage to photograph much of because I've got my hands full juggling poodle and produce. The poodle, ordinarily very sedate, gets a little overstimulated by all the smells and people and other dogs and starts tugging at her leash in a very unsedate manner, trying especially to steer me to the booths that have dog treats.

If you were the kind of dog that does the full-body, self-choking hack-hack-hack lunge, you would laugh at her paltry attempts to suggest the route, but for her it's downright unruly behavior. Which I won't tolerate (badly behaved dogs don't belong in public), so I keep the leash tight with one hand and do my shopping with the other.

Ergo no pictures. (And yes, the poodle enjoys the outing and gets her treats and everyone says how good she is. She's a good poodle.)

Anyhoodle, I got me some potatoes, which got a good scrubbing and then a long bath in boiling water with some stalks of fresh dill. I guess you could call that Japanese-style. And then I drained them and tossed them back in the pot with a fat ol' knob of butter and some rosemary flown in fresh yesterday from California just for me. (Thanks, O Sender of Rosemary!)

I chopped some garlic and shallots, and the stems of the chard. Sautéed them in a dash of olive oil, then threw in the leaves to wilt, along with a squirt of sun-dried tomato paste.

Am I the only one who uses a cleaver for everything? (Except coring tomatoes.) I learned how to chop garlic with a cleaver in China when I was first getting interested in cooking, and to me, using a smaller knife feels much riskier.

If I weren't about to drop a bundle on security doors and swamp cooler and bookcases, I'd run out and get that gas stove right now. Cooking with electric burners is just Not Acceptable. It's a very nice stove and all (ceramic top), brand-new in fact, but turning the knob down doesn't mean the heat goes down anytime soon, so you risk doing something like way overcooking your chard. It's not bad, this chard, but it's more wilty and less green than I would have liked. I also grilled a couple of chicken sausages.

The cantaloupe is dessert. I had to grab some of that dill red-onion bread, too. And I've still got fresh corn and beans!