Pasta e Fagioli

People say when you're trying to sell a house, pop a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven to fill the air with the scent of sweet nostalgia, and entice the prospective buyer to invest in the Rockwellian pricelessness of a home-baked yesteryear. I say, go for a pot of pasta e fagioli on the stovetop instead.

For me, nothing offers a comforting embrace like the smell of sautéed garlic and onion. Add to that stewed tomatoes, brothy pasta, fresh herbs and grated cheese, and I'm sold. The beauty of most Italian food is that was born from the peasants; simple but satisfying concoctions from the earth that warm the heart and nourish the soul, invoking visions of your rotund Italian nonna with her long skirts and weathered hands (even if you don't have one), and multi-generational meals around the proverbial kitchen table.

Pasta e fagioli, or pasta and beans, has many variations but basically amounts to a wonderfully humble dish of white beans, small pasta, broth, and herbs. Most recipes suggest the tiny tubular ditalini pasta, but I think orecchiette lends a more elegant look. Often, recipes also call for tomatoes in either fresh-stewed, canned or paste version; you may choose to add other vegetables, pancetta, or varied herbs. Here is my version, adapted from an adorable site called Italian Food Forever and my favorite classic Italian cookbook, The Silver Spoon. Of course, we also have the Chef's added touch of homemade garlic croutons, which really does take the experience to a whole other level.


GARLIC CROUTONS

2 c stale french bread
1 clove garlic
1/4 c olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbs fresh grated parmesan cheese

Cut bread into large cubes. Mince garlic. Heat oil over medium-low heat and sauté bread cubes with salt and pepper until bread begins to turn golden brown. Add garlic, oregano and basil, and sauté until garlic is golden and bread is crispy. Remove from heat and immediately toss with parsley and parmesan cheese, and extra olive oil if necessary.

PASTA E FAGIOLI

8 roma tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1/2 yellow onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
3 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs "Better Than Bouillon" dissolved in 1 qt hot water (or 1 qt vegetable broth of any kind)
2 cans cannellini beans (or navy beans for substitution) drained, or 1 c dried beans
     soaked and drained
1 Tbs dried herbs, such as sage, oregano, and/or thyme
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/3 c chopped fresh parsley
garlic croutons

Blanch tomatoes to loosen skin, then peel and chop. Mince garlic. Dice onion, carrot, and celery. Heat olive oil in soup pot and sauté onion, carrot and celery until softened. Add garlic and cook another minute. Add tomatoes and broth. Simmer 15 minutes. Puree half the beans with a few ladles full of soup. Add puree and the rest of the whole beans to the pot. Add dried herbs, salt and pepper and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer, add pasta and red pepper, and simmer until pasta is cooked. Stir in fresh parsley. Ladle into bowls and top with croutons. Serve with simple salad. (We love mixed greens with fresh basil, raw zucchini and grilled artichoke hearts, topped with balsamic vinaigrette and fresh grated parmesan cheese.)

Note: Soup will get thicker overnight as pasta absorbs broth, and makes excellent leftovers!

Mangia!

Porca vacca! Ho fume.

Elevated Gardening

Ah, high-rise living... the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the open floor plan, the views, the garden... the garden? Ok, the one thing I don't love about our apartment is the lack of actual earth with which to grow a garden. This year, we decided to give it a shot anyway. Between the tiny east-facing room that is filled with summer sun from 6am to noon, and the tiny south-facing balcony that is bathed in sunlight the second half of the day, we have pots growing heirloom and cherry tomato, cayenne pepper, and Italian basil plants, and one dwarf Meyer lemon tree.

One thing that has always devastated both my plant-growing enthusiasm, and my poor plants themselves, is infestations of bugs and disease. Nothing kills the glorious dream of full, healthy, organic plants bearing home-grown fruits and herbs like dowsing your sprouts in pest-killers, no matter how "non-toxic" they claim to be. So I figured in positioning the plants several stories off the ground, at least I'd found a way to outsmart the tormentors. Foiled again. Our first attempt at an indoor herb garden - a giant clay pot airing the sweet perfume of basil, mint, sage and oregano - fell victim to white mites in the winter, after allowing only a short time to admire its splendor. After wasting almost an entire bottle of insecticide trying to abolish the legion of bugs, I pulled the last sorry, half-brown, stunted sage plant out of the bare dirt and swore I was giving up forever.

But, spring's promises of renewal got the better of me. Up came the dry dirt, loosened and mixed with fresh nutrient-rich soil, with a cozy spot just perfect for our new chocolate-striped heirloom tomato plant. Fertilizer - check. Water - check. Sunlight - well, sort of check. It was only spring in Vancouver after all. But, wow, that plant shot up! Flowers galore! And then, flowers dropping. And dropping. We could not get one of those damn flowers to bear fruit! We discovered that since the plant was inside and away from natures helpers, we needed to give it some assistance in pollinating itself. So we gently tapped and shook, and the sun finally came out to stay, and along came a beautiful baby tomato, followed by another and a few more (even twins!).

Then, just as I was feeling like a proud tomato mama...mold. I wish that word could drip with the disdain I feel when writing it. Refusing to buy anything toxic and disgusting to spray on my lovely babies, I tried using the veggie wash we keep under the sink in case of emergency purchases of non-organic thin-skinned produce. Since it contained baking soda - a natural killer of mold - I figured it would be great. Turns out all new parents make mistakes. Weeks later I resigned to the fact that the wash was too harsh, and it was drying up and killing the leaves along with the mold. By the time I finally found the proper solution of baking soda, water and vegetable oil, a lot of damage had been done.

But the tomatoes were still hanging on, and our adorable dwarf Meyer lemon tree on the balcony was growing, centimeter by centimeter, and blossoming with sweet-smelling lemon flowers. We were so encouraged that we bought a cayenne pepper plant at the farmer's market and carried it proudly to its new home, confident in our future bounty.

Then we bought a little cherry tomato plant to keep it company. We diligently moved the smaller plants back and forth between the sunroom and the balcony for maximum advantage of the northwest's long summer days. The cherry tomato plant shot up. The pepper plant had lots of little buds. But the heirloom started showing signs of end rot on the little reddening tomatoes. Calcium deficiency it seems. So we fed it some crushed up calcium vitamins to stop the rot with only minimal damage.

And then we went away for a week. We watered the plants heavily before we left but, really, that's no way to treat a growing plant in the middle of summer. And when we came home, the plants told us so. You have never seen such a sad wilted sight as three fruiting plants that haven't been watered in a week. We quickly fed them and apologized profusely, but as I was coaxing the pepper plant into forgiving me, I noticed that it was covered - absolutely covered - in aphids. ARG. Seriously?! Over to the sink to carefully wash the leaves and buds off one by one, nasty little aphids down the drain. The next morning, the cherry tomato plant had bounced back happily, the pepper plant was looking revived (although over the next couple days it lost half it's leaves), but the heirloom really took a hard hit after fighting all that mold. The tomatoes were still hanging on but no longer growing.

It's been a couple weeks since then. I finally had to resort to insecticide (only semi-toxic) for the pepper plant. I just can't bear the thought of losing a battle to tiny ridiculous bugs, and I figure the chemicals will be long gone by the time the flowers finally open and bear fruit. The cherry tomato is overloaded with flowers and will need to be transplanted to a larger pot. The heirlooms really did stop growing but we ate two larger-than-golfball sized tomatoes with bocconcini and fresh basil (our latest addition - I'm giving herbs one more shot) and they were still heavenly sweet and perfect. There are three more to come, and another flower that looks like maybe just maybe it will bear fruit, and hopefully this time, armed with the knowledge of our past battles, we will be able to help it meet its full potential. The lemon tree lost all its 10 or so flowers and in return gave us one tiny growing lemon, which supposedly by percentage yield is a mad success!

So the moral of the story is, you just can't escape the pests and grievances, no matter how far away you try to get from the source. But, you can overcome them, and the rewards of hard work, dedication and love are always worth it. Sweet tomatoes, spicy peppers, savory herbs, tart lemons, parasites, trial and error, and literal fruits of your labor, a garden really is a metaphor for life.

And shoot, I'm hungry.