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.

Dinner with Yotam and Sami

Well, not really, but kind of. For our Meatless Monday sup, I made two dishes from Jerusalem: roasted eggplant with fried onions and chopped lemon; and Swiss chard (though I subbed lacinato kale and turnip greens) with tahini, yogurt and buttered pine nuts. Wonderful!

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of these darling, delicious little eggplants. Purple, round, with a flesh not the least bitter and in fact, per my husband, somewhat artichoke-like, I bought these at the farmers market Sunday and hope to buy more next week. They are so good!! Should I rediscover them Sunday, I will let you know the varietal name.

For this recipe, Yotam and Sami have you halve and score the aubergine, brush liberally with olive oil, season well and then roast until soft. Meanwhile, you make a lemon-garlic-chile mess and some fried onions with sumac, cumin and chiles. I love fried onions of any stripe, but these were really fabulous. The kick of the pepper and pretty, tangy oomph of the sumac made them something special. Towards the end I stirred in best-quality feta and then you just pile everything onto everything.

Meanwhile, I quick-boiled my greens, made the tahini sauce and sauteed the pine nuts. And then, once again, you sort of just pile on. I suspect T, poor man without the bitter-loving allele, would have preferred this dish with the chard it calls for, but I myself enjoyed it quite a bit.

And did I mention I made this divine ricotta-olive oil-plum cake yesterday? I just had to. Last o' the season plums, you know? The boys adore it but won't eat the cooked plums. More for me, tee-hee.

It is always something, funny and otherwise

We're in some sort of new phase. Much of the time now, the boys wake up and play together rather than immediately screeching for me or Tom. Actually, they just screech for me, so Tom gets some sort of pass but is, nonetheless, privy to the immense noise said screeching produces. In any case, we are now getting an extra 15-20 minutes of light sleep on most mornings which is truly a miracle as it means we often don't get out of bed until at least 6:30. You'd think we won a pot of gold for all our goings-on but when juxtaposed with pre-5am wakings (oh, about 15 months of Oliver's life), or the almost equally sucky, 5:20-5:40am range (another good 8-12 months), you might understand why we feel so grateful. Earlier this week however -by which I must mean Monday because it wasn't yesterday and today is only Wednesday; gawd, the days can feel long- we were awakened by news of a mysterious rogue poop on the boys' bathmat. No chance in the world it was Jack's, and Oliver swore up and down it wasn't his. Percy? We hailed him, and as he trundled up the stairs, all eyes turned towards him;  his tail did seem to be slinking down guiltily if our bleary eyes were reading him correctly. There's really nothing else to this story beyond a serious clean-up in the bathroom, but it reminded me of this absolutely hysterical, though - warning - extremely scatological, bit about various poopies that circulated some years ago. Never ceases to make me laugh, and in this regard, I feel certain I was indeed meant to mother boys.

In news of the cry-rather-than-laugh sort, did you see the most recent unbelievably idiotic verbiage spewing from Romney's mouth? Nearly half of Americans feel they're victims entitled to government welfare? Really? Journalists called him out of touch; this must be diplomatic news-speak for wildly out of touch, like lives in a gilded cage out of touch, douchebag. And really folks, how many people "caught" on tape does it take to make others know that unfortunately/fortunately, a camera and mic are always around. You know it Peggy Noonan, George Allen and so forth. If Romney weren't trying so desperately to master a multiple personality persona, he might not have such a hard time articulating his opinions or, at the least, keeping them straight.

And, finally, in the realm of interest and enthuse, Yotam Ottolenghi has a new cookbook coming out next month. Entitled Jerusalem, it's a joint effort by Yotam and his ages-old friend, Sami Tamimi. Both men were born in Jerusalem, Yotam in the Jewish west and Tamimi in the Arab East, and this book is an homage to their hometown through the cross-cultural lens(es) of their experiences. They still work together, today in London with Tamimi manning the ship at one of Ottolenghi's restaurants. I'm looking forward to this book!