Spring into these meals
Remembering an old friend (an oven) while celebrating seasonal flavors
It looked so sad, sitting on our driveway. Our old stove, the one that had been central to our kitchen life for more than 20 years, had been cast out, banished to the driveway, where it sat in the cold and rain for a few days, and then was hauled away, headed to the junkyard. It would be pulled apart for scrap metal, at best. I hate to think about it there, lonely and stripped bare.
I didn’t want to say goodbye to it, indeed would have kept it, even in its state of decline. I accepted the old stove’s flaws. I understood the old stove’s flaws. I mean, who among us is perfect, and who does not have their own flaws, both large and small?
We had been chugging along for a few years, with a broken burner, and it was fine. Aside from Thanksgiving Day, when do we ever need to actually have four burners going at once? And so I forgave the stove, and we carried on with three burners. Then, the oven stopped working properly and I forgave that, too. I could still bake a decent cake, still pull cookies out of the oven that were golden brown, only I had to rotate and turn the pans. A lot. But it was OK, because we had been through so much together in 20 years.
Then the day came when the smell of natural gas filled the kitchen when I tried to warm up the oven, and the cost of fixing it — again — outweighed buying a new one. It was a sad reckoning. For the old stove, it was time to say goodbye.
Once I started thinking about how much time I had spent in front of our old stove, the sadder still I became. I made baby food on those old burners, countless birthday cakes inside the warmth of its oven. Memories of all the meals we made for children and their friends came flooding back: the Friday night pizzas and pot after pot of macaroni and cheese. All of it, on top of and inside the oven.
Now, we have a new oven and it’s fine. I’m grateful for it, of course, and we are getting used to each other. The oven works perfectly — there are no hot spots. And like magic, all four burners work. I’ve been using it
a lot, cooking up a bunch of springtime food, which on these cold and rainy days, feels like the right thing to do. Here are three of my recent favorites, recipes that came from our new stove and oven.
Potato salad could be considered a harbinger of good things to come. It is a classic dish to bring to a party (remember those? They’re coming back!) and this potato salad would be a fine dish to share with friends. I love a good potato salad, with eggs and pickles and lots of mayonnaise,
but I also like to mix it up now and then and try something new. In lieu of the classic mayo-egg dressing, this salad is topped with plenty of fresh ginger and garlic. Garam masala is a simple Indian spice mixture, easily found in the supermarket, and it’s made up of a few different warm spices: cinnamon, coriander, cardamom and a bit of cayenne. The spices, combined with the aromatics, are a good balance to creamy potatoes and crisp green beans. The salad
improves with age so feel free to prepare it a day ahead.
We love soup in our house, in any season. The recipe for springtime minestrone feels very this-season-al, with tons of veggies and fresh herbs. The best thing about this soup is the broth, which is loaded up with garlic and fresh herbs. Simmer gently a few garlic cloves while the vegetables cook up, then add everything to the broth — it makes for a beautiful bowl with a ton of flavor. And while homemade broth is always good, store-bought is fine in this recipe. See the note in the recipe about the brand I use. I added a handful of chives from my garden, which were bright green on a cold and rainy morning. (They’re always the bravest plant, popping up first from the icy ground.) I also added plenty of fresh dill, which is a particular springtime favorite of mine. Dill has an earthy, warm scent and it filled my kitchen as we prepared to eat dinner. We ate the soup with crusty bread and each of us piled mounds of Parmesan cheese into our bowls. Elliot ate three bowls of soup, as 16-yearolds can and should do. In my house, I keep the pasta separate, then people can fix bowls the way they like. In this way, those that prefer low-carb (me) can add a few spoonfuls of pasta, and the carb lovers (teenage son) can pile it in.
I made the hand pies for an outdoor, socially distanced, COVID-ERA gathering. They work for this kind of thing: No cutting, touching or sharing one large dessert. But even if you’re not going to be with other people, little sweet pies are nice to have around. They have a buttery crust, a sweet-but-not-toosweet-filling, and are rolled in sugar to make the outside crunchy. The filling is made from a chopped apple, and any old apple will do. I used a scoop of mixed frozen berries, the kind I keep around for smoothies. Use those, or any berries, fresh or frozen, that you have on hand. Fruit of the forest usually includes rhubarb, but it’s not quite rhubarb season yet. When you can find the beautiful red stalks, a bit of it, chopped and added to the fruit, would be a fine addition. A good thing about these little pies, and I say this about almost all of the desserts I make: they’re good to eat at any time of day. Mid-morning cup of coffee? Good time for a hand pie. Afternoon
snack? Hand pie! And, late night snack? Yup, hand pies are good then, too. Consider making a batch of these for anyone who needs cheering up. They are cheery, indeed.
Here we are, my new stove and I. It’s working just as it should, and we really like the
griddle that runs down the center of the cooktop. Elliot fries eggs on it and it’s great for grilled cheese and pancakes and sausage.
As the new stove and I get to know each other and start building the foundations of a long and fruitful relationship, I’m taking a
moment to look back. I’m grateful for our old oven, for sustaining us, for standing by and cranking out cake after cake in good times and yes, being there as I made soup and other comforting food in times of sadness. So goodbye old friend, thanks for the cupcakes and the roasted
turkeys, the curries and the crepes.
Thanks for those things, and thanks for everything.