Inspiration

Red Sweet Onion, Yellow Patisson, Tomatoes: Gardener’s Delight and Black Prince, Basil

I love this time of year; well, I love this time of year besides the blazing, unforgiving, and constant heat.  I can walk into the vegetable garden with no idea of what I’m making for lunch and I can fill my basket with almost anything I’d like and I’m back in the kitchen with a plan.  It’s more than just having a menu idea; the vegetable garden is a place where I find ideas about my life beyond the kitchen.  I often sit on one of the stone walls in the evening and try to take it all in: the garden, the surrounding mountains and forest, and the setting sun.  I hone my future plans and realize what ones are worth keeping and what ones need to be modified.  Perhaps because it is the only green space for the moment, the various colors, or the appreciation I get from watching my seedlings grow into plants that tower over six feet tall, but the garden is a place where I find my inspiration.  I learn more about who I want to be and how to be a better person.  It is constantly changing, and I hope me too, for the better.

Pleasures of the Season: Toulouges Sweet Onions

“Pleasures of the Season” is a series of posts which appear from time to time.  They focus on something special that occurs only seasonally, often fleeting, and something we anticipate.  The posts are sometimes food related, sometimes not, but highlight moments of what I’ve learned about living with the seasons since moving to Southern France.

Not cultivated to be stored long, these sweet onions look like Spanish red onions but without the bite.  They are often served raw and, so mild always prepared with tear-free eyes.  Named for the city of their origins in Southern France, Toulouge onions add a complexity to dishes that ordinary yellow onions don’t.  The one hundred plus planted in the garden are quickly disappearing; we pick and cook as needed.  Now their growing season is over, the remaining are left to dry so they might make it to November, but I’m having my doubts. They are crucial to a successful ratatouille, a Mediterranean dish consisting of four ingredients in equal parts - sweet onions, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini.  Christophe proudly whips it up by the pot full, but it disappears as quickly as it is made.