A giant pet peeve of mine is how everyone talks about how busy they are. It annoys me on two fronts. The more obvious one being that since we’re all so busy it’s not actually unusual enough to warrant quite so much conversation space, can we agree on that? The second part is more troubling. How can one possibly explain what’s going  on when one’s life really is exceptionally booked? Not the normal busy of modern life with its commuting and dual-working couples and the bright and shiny objects that distract us on the internet (you’re welcome!), which is enhanced by the nonsense of parenthood for some of us (not all of parenthood is nonsense, of course, but shuttling people to birthday parties and bringing snacks and all that – you know what I mean, the nonsense part, the part that isn’t what you were thinking about when you thought to yourself “I should have some kids”), but the kind of busy that sort of smacks the wind out of your gut and can leave you paralyzed at your desk wondering how, how on god’s green earth, you can possibly get everything done. Sometimes that sense hits for a few hours, other times it comes in horrifying weeks-long recurring waves. What do we call that when we’re always “busy”?

So I don’t know what to say except I’ve been quite occupied. Of course, much of that occupation has been of my own creation (I am such a hard-ass boss!) and I even enjoy the bulk of the actual work, but if anyone else wants to drive my son to a “Pump It Up” birthday party on Friday night, I wouldn’t complain one bit.

Some of the flurry has been recipe work for others, so I can’t post about that. And the bustle and focus on writing work (which I love!) has meant meals haven’t been all that fascinating around here lately. A new-to-me version of tuna pasta has made several appearances, but an accurate picture of that looks like a dog threw up on your plate. I could style it all pretty, carefully placing tuna and herbs on the tangle of noodles so as not to overwhelm them, but that isn’t going to taste very good and it also won’t be what you end up with if you follow my suggestions below. What you will end up with, however, are empty plates, so I feel my journalistic integrity, or at least my claim to be writing non-fiction, is intact when I try and tempt you with the picture above.

Spaghetti with tuna pepper and lemon

This dish was made at the suggestion of a friend when we needed to eat lunch. These things were all hanging around the kitchen. I’ve since made it three times in the last ten days because it is easy, delicious, fast, and I usually have the ingredients hanging around my house. I try to eat more sardines and less tuna, but the intensity of my work schedule lately has brought out cravings for the deeply familiar. Things from childhood: tuna, peanut butter, apples, carrots, cottage cheese. Sardines would work beautifully in this dish, and are a much better choice in terms of keeping the ocean functioning for a few extra years. If you use tuna, you might want to do as I do and shell out the extra money for hook-and-line caught pacific albacore tuna (here are a few brands I like). I also have been known to make a delicious tuna tomato pasta or a tuna olive and caper pasta. This sardine pasta can really fit the similar bill, too.

Put a pot of water on to boil. While that’s heating up mince a few cloves of garlic, finely chop 4-8 green onions, and mince about a cup (less is fine) of whatever fresh herbs you can scrounge up — I particularly like a mix of flat-leaf parsley, mint, and basil in this dish.

At this point there are two ways to proceed: the faster way or the fewer dishes way.

Faster way: Put a large frying pan over high heat. Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, swirl to coat the pan, and add the garlic and a few red pepper flakes or a dried chile or two if you want some heat. Let that sizzle for a few seconds and add the green onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion is softened. Add about 1/2 cup white wine, if you like, and a can of tuna, including the juices in the can. Break up the tuna and cook, stirring a bit and perhaps reducing the heat to keep things cooking but not flailing around wildly in there, until the wine is reduced by at least a half, about three minutes.

During all this, when the water starts boiling, add enough salt to make it taste as salty as ocean water and  1/2 pound of spaghetti (this sauce, with a bit more olive oil, could stretch to cover a full pound, but I might consider adding more tuna at that point). Note that this sauce works very well with whole wheat pasta. Cook until almost tender to the bite, when it needs just another minute to cook, remove a cup of the cooking water, and drain the noodles.

Grate some lemon zest over the sauce mixture – about half a lemon’s worth. Add the herbs and at least 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (I’ve been known to add more, but I have a thing for black pepper) and stir everything together. Add the reserved cooking liquid, stir to combine, and dump in the pasta. Use tongs or two forks to help combine everything. Cook until the liquid is mostly absorbed and the pasta is al dente. Squeeze a tablespoon or so of fresh lemon juice over the whole mess, toss again, taste, and add more salt, pepper, or lemon juice as you see fit. This makes three or four reasonable servings or two “I cranked out the pages this morning and my brain needs carbs” starving-writer servings.

The fewer dishes way: Prep everything while the pasta cooks, but wait to cook the sauce in the pasta-boiling pot after you’ve drained the noodles.

Sometime between the end of the school year and having “part of a dead person,” as my son calls my ACL donor graft, put in my right knee, we were lucky enough to spend a bit of time in Hawaii. The Big Island of Hawaii. We were in a part the locals call “Up North,” which, since that is what Minnesotans call anywhere their lakeside cabin finds itself, amused me to no end.

“Up North” on Hawaii and in Minnesota, I discovered, have three things in common.

First, they both offer excellent swimming. I believe I am clearly and firmly on the record as loving swimming, particularly in naturally occurring bodies of water. The warm salt water bath of the Hawaiian Pacific and the bracing effect of northern lakes are two sides of the same coin in my book.

Second, if you happen to go out for breakfast in either place you are likely to find yourself surrounded by old guys with incredibly strong accents spending the morning drinking black coffee and shooting what can only be called the shit.

Third, fresh fish. The soft spot on my palate for the delicate taste of fresh water lake fish like sunnies and walleye and bass seems to be fairly entrenched. But who am I to turn up my nose at a supremely fresh piece of ono? The very name of the fish means “delicious.”

The lunch wagon above was parked next to the fish market in the small town near where we stayed. You could watch the fishermen come in with their catch, off-load it into the giant refrigerated section next to the shack where it would later be sold, and, if you didn’t make too big of a deal about it, watch the fishmonger filet it up before it was walked over to the lunch wagon and cooked up for your sandwich. Dude had a way with the knife.

What’s not on the menu is the specials page taped to the window – the daily special plus a list of the fish you can choose to have cooked up for your plate or burger that day.

Besides being deliciously fresh food at a fair price, the lunch wagon offered the opportunity to interact with the lunch wagon lady. She was the kind of woman who happily gave Ernest all wings in his Korean chicken special. The kind of cook who noticed that I salted my sandwich one day and so asked if I’d like extra salt the next. Plus, I liked how the lawn furniture she had out front was the same kind I used to scrub clean when my parents brought it out from the storage space under the garage every spring.

If you’re on the Big Island anywhere near Kawaihae at lunchtime Monday through Saturday, I cannot recommend strongly enough eating lunch out of this ailing old vehicle.

Once upon a time, when he was a young boy, my dad did not want to eat his dinner. He didn’t like it. It was a casserole. His mother found this quite vexing, so the story goes, since, according to her estimation, he liked everything that was in the casserole. She went so far as to name everything – ingredient by ingredient – that had gone into the dish to prove to him that he did, in fact, like the casserole. He maintained that no, he did not. She asked him what he would prefer to eat. He said hot dogs. Legend has it that she then fed him hot dogs at every meal for a week.

We had a busy weekend around here. It started with Thursday and Friday off of school (Lunar New Year and a furlough day because the school district doesn’t actually have any money to pay the bill for one thing that they seem to still pay: teachers’ salaries, but please, let’s not get me started on Prop 13 or we’ll be here forever) without corresponding days off of work for me and my dashing husband, which is always a somewhat fraught situation. Then on to a Lunar New Year’s banquet organized by fabulous Cousin Katie and her friend, and then a truly lovely dinner party the next night, all against a backdrop of weather a description of which would torture those suffering from early-onset cabin fever due to all the winter storms this year (okay, I’ll say this much – I was trotting around town in a sundress, a sundress, people!  It’s February for goodness sake!).

All that is to say that Sunday night popped up out of nowhere and despite the fact that I hadn’t cooked for days I still wasn’t all that anxious to get back at the stove. I was even less interested in going to the store or drawing up a list for someone else to go to the store. To the cupboard I turned and the cupboard revealed unto me:

Sardine olive caper pasta

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While that happens mince a few cloves of garlic and/or shallots, a chile if you have it (use some red pepper flakes if you don’t), a handful or two of olives (pit them first if need be), a spoonful or two of capers, and – these are nice to add if you have them and I always do because it’s so nice to add them to things when you have them – a few pickled green peppercorns. Put the pasta to boil and cook until tender to the bite with that bit of give in the middle – just a little more than you want at the end. Pull out a cup or so of the pasta water before you drain the pasta. Put the pot back on the stove and add a bunch of olive oil and all that stuff you chopped up. Stir until everything is sizzling and yummy smelling. Add about 1/2 cup white wine and cook until about half the wine is evaporated. Add a can or two of sardines (tuna works too), stir to break them up and add the pasta and reserved pasta water. Stir to combine everything and cook, stirring now and again, until the pasta is perfectly done. You can chop up some parsley and add that if you have it and you’re so inclined. If you have a bit of last-chance arugula sitting in the fridge that is going to be tossed the next day if you don’t use it now, pile some on top of each serving of pasta along with the freshly ground black pepper.

My dashing husband proclaimed it the “best pasta of 2010-2011.” I inhaled a bowlful and went back for more. My son sat and poked at his.

“But you like sardines,” said my dashing husband.

No response, just more poking at the pasta.

“And you like olives.”

Silence.

“And we all know how much you like pasta.”

Silence.

“So you must like this!”

Our son turned to me and asked: “Mama, can I just get an apple?”

I sometimes worry that I’ll become too much like my grandmother. My voice isn’t unlike hers and once in awhile I come out with a doozy of a “really!” that even I recognize sounds just like her. I loved her very much and she was an amazing woman. Inspirational in many, many ways. But she was hard on her sons and daughters-in-law and could be dismissive and cold (not to her eldest grandchild, but I saw her be that way to others – including other grandkids – plenty of times). As with so many people, her hard shell was a protective one, and she was a gooey mess on the inside full of endless love for and pride in all of us, but she never came to terms with some of life’s blows and it wore on her. I learned a lot of things from her. I learned to speak my mind. I learned to play a mean game of Scrabble. I learned you belong anywhere you decide you belong. I learned a delicious meal is worth seeking out and worth sharing with others. I also learned that no matter how hard you try, no matter how perfect the logic and well laid-out your argument, you simply cannot talk someone into liking food they don’t like.

It was comforting to learn that maybe I wasn’t turning into my grandmother; perhaps I’d just married her instead.

Last night our making-dinner snack was a bowl of plain olives and sardines straight from the can. We all happily ate our fair share.

I first had sanddabs at Scoma’s about 16 years ago. My grandmother had come to visit and demanded that we go to Scoma’s, an old-school seafood restaurant in San Francisco that she loved.

She asked how I liked the sanddabs. I told her they were great, they tasted just like sunnies.

“No they don’t!” she replied.

“Yeah, Gram, they really do, here, try a bite.”

“Well,” she said for emphasis, “I certainly know what they taste like and they don’t taste like sunnies.”

Luckily I was old enough to know to just let it drop. Because they do. They do taste like sunnies. And I love sunnies and every single memory I have of them. They make me think of holding an ultra-long bamboo pole while my great-grandfather navigated the old wooden fishing boat painted white to his favorite fishing spots – the same spots, I should add, that my father takes my son to every summer. They make me think of warm weekends at the family cabin with tons of uncles and aunts and friends around when my brother and I were the only kids there and if we didn’t cause a fuss no one remembered to put us to bed and we heard (and witnessed) great stories. They make me think of guitars playing and the family singing and crisp bites of pan-fried white-fleshed fish that tasted of the lake we fished them out of and how I smiled as the crumbs fell on the pine needle-covered forest floor.

I bought sanddabs last week. I simple dotted them with butter and sprinkled them with salt and broiled them until cooked through, about 4 minutes or so pretty close to the heat.  We had them with bread and salad and it was a simple, perfect dinner and we talked about school and summer as the well-cleaned bones piled on a plate in the center of the table.

I’m honored to have been asked to read at the Eat Real Lit Fest in Oakland. I’ll be there tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon reading sometime between 4 and 5. They’ve asked us to tell a story rather than just read. I’m thinking I might tell a story about sunnies. Come by and say hi, it would be great to have some friendly faces in the crowd.

We’ve had some sardines in the house this spring. How long could they possibly keep themselves out of a dish of pasta?

Sardine red pepper pasta

The sweet silkiness of the peppers and the salty silkiness of the sardines do a lovely little dance with the tangle of noodles.

1 pound spaghetti

Salt

3 Tablespoons olive oil

3 cloves garlic

1/2 teaspoon red chile pepper flakes (optional)

1 jar (12-ounce) roasted red peppers

6 or so fillets of home-cured or skinless canned sardines

Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add enough salt so it tastes like the sea. Boil the pasta until just tender to the bite. Drain the pasta.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Add garlic and chile flakes and let them sizzle until the garlic turns golden. Add the roasted peppers and stir, using the spoon or spatula to break up the larger pieces of peppers into bite-size pieces.

Add sardines and stir, again, breaking them into pieces if you need to. Cook, reducing heat to maintain a simmer, until everything is heated through and the flavors blend, about 10 minutes.

Divide pasta between the serving bowls or plates and top with the “sauce.” Garnish with black pepper.

I had a lot of fun earlier this spring playing with sardines. It was for the cause of a good story (Our Little Local Fish) in the spring issue of Edible San Francisco). After lots of research and some experimentation, this is the curing method recipe I liked best – easy, delicious, and rather fun.

Home-Cured Sardines

Curing softens the flavor of sardines, makes the texture of the fish more dense and a bit silky. Use them as you would any smoked or cured fish – on crostini, in salads, or on bagels with cream cheese. These sardines are particularly lovely topped with a mixture of grated hard-cooked egg, capers, and a squirt of lemon. Cured sardines can be stored, covered with oil (a decent but not too fancy olive oil works great), for up to a week in the fridge. This recipe scales up (or down) very easily.

12 Pacific sardines

1/2 cup sea salt

Use a sharp knife to cut off the heads just past where their gills are. Cut a slit down their bellies almost to the tail (you can also simply lay them flat on one side and cut off a thin edge down the length of their belly-side), open them up, and (I like to do this part under running water) sweep out their guts with your finger.

You can, of course, ask the fishmonger to do the beheading and gutting for you and leave the guts out of your kitchen. Sardine guts are, however, about as innocuous as fish guts get, so if you know how to clean fish or want to give it a try, this is a good place to start.

Rinse the fish clean and pat them dry (do this when you get them home even if you have the fishmonger clean them).

Lay the fish in a baking pan or similar vessel (you can put them on a rack in the pan to encourage even curing, but it isn’t necessary). I like to put mine in a neat row because they look like little soldiers ready for duty, but you can arrange them as you see fit. Sprinkle them with about half the salt; turn them over and sprinkle with the remaining salt. There’s no need to open the fish up and salt the flesh directly on the inside. They will cure nicely through the skin, and this method will help them from becoming too salty in the end.

Cover the pan with a layer (or two or even three) of plastic wrap and tuck it away in the fridge for two days.

After two days (in the realm of 36 to 48 hours), uncover the pan and rinse off all the sardines under cool running water. Open up a sardine and – this part is really amazing – use your fingers to work the two filets (one on each side of the fish) away from the skin. In most cases, the filets quite easily pull away from the skin. Some bits of skin may remain on the fish, but they are perfectly edible and you don’t need to worry about them.

What you have now are lox-esque versions of sardines. Give them a taste. If yours are quite salty, soak them in cool water for about an hour to leech out some of the salt. They are totally and completely and deliciously edible. They become even silkier and milder if you let them sit covered in olive oil for a few days.

Then, if you want, you can make…

Marinated Home-Cured Sardines

This is but one way to use home-cured sardines. Feel free to play around with this marinade, adding aromatics and herbs as you see fit. Marinated home-cured sardines are delicious served with a warm potato salad, on a mash of root vegetables, or – my favorite – on top of a bed of lacinato kale gently cooked until quite soft. Leftovers – if you’re lucky enough to have such a thing – are delicious alongside scrambled eggs for breakfast.

12 home-cured sardines (24 filets)

¾ cup olive oil, divided

1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ to ½ teaspoon red chile flakes (optional)

⅓ cup agrodulce (or white wine vinegar plus 1 teaspoon sugar, stirred to dissolve)

Lay sardine filets in a casserole dish or wide, shallow bowl.

Warm ¼ cup of the olive oil over medium heat in a large frying pan. Add red onion and cook, stirring, until onion is soft, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and chile flakes and cook, stirring, until the garlic is also soft, about another 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add remaining ½ cup olive oil and agrodulce or vinegar.

Pour still-warm mixture over sardines. Let sit at least 30 minutes and up to two days. For overnight marinating, cover and chill, but bring to room temperature before serving.

We had a bit of leftover salmon – and after the boys were done pawing at it to get all the crispy skin, it was none too pretty looking either. When I mentioned the possibility of salmon cakes my son jumped up and down, clapping his hands. Regular readers know that I take an almost sick pleasure in frugality. I’m not cheap, but I can really work the clever haus frau angle and something about wasted food makes me a bit nuts. Salads, cakes, and fritters are all ways to stretch leftover fish and seafood. To make what’s old new again, to make what’s not quite enough plenty.

Salmon cakes

Feel free to experiment away with these. I have no idea what you like in your salmon cake. You might want a bunch of minced peppers or chiles or some bizarre combination of spices. Go to town. These proportions of fish to egg to crumb, however, should serve you quite well. If you like mayonnaise in your salmon cakes, go ahead and add 1/4 cup in place of one of the eggs. Me, I can’t figure out why you would do that.

2 cups (about 12 oz.) cooked and flaked salmon

2 – 3 tablespoons minced green or red onion

2 tablespoons minced parsley (or combination of herbs of your choosing)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne (clearly optional)

2 eggs

1/3 – 1/2 cup panko or freshly toasted bread crumbs, plus more for coating, if you like

Flour for coating if you don’t want to use panko or bread crumbs, if you like

Oil for cooking

In a medium bowl, combine the salmon, onion, herbs, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Mix to combine. Move the mixture to the side of the bowl and crack the eggs into the now sort of empty section of the bowl. Use a whisk or fork to beat the eggs. Now gently combine the salmon mixture and the beaten eggs and think about what you’ll do with that minute of washing and drying an extra bowl that you just saved.

Stir in panko or bread crumbs. Breads crumbs vary *so* much that the amount is a bit tricky. You want the mixture to hold together, but you don’t want it to get too bread-y. If you want to form and cook the salmon cakes right away, you’re going to need to add even more panko. If you’re willing to form them and chill them, you can get away with less.

Spray your hands with cooking spray or oil them with olive or vegetable oil and form the cakes. I make mine about 3 inches across and an inch thick. Place them on a baking sheet, cover, and chill for a few hours for best results.

Dredge the cakes in flour or bread crumbs, if you like, but I find it’s not necessary and quite messy.

Heat a large frying pan over medium high heat, add some vegetable or olive oil for cooking, and cook salmon cakes, a few at a time, until golden brown on one side, about 4 minutes. Turn over and cook until golden brown on the other side and cooked through, another 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining cakes. Serve hot or at least warm.

I recently found myself sitting in a room in Yountville with a few other food writers, a whole mess of health and nutrition writers, some fitness writers, some food product development folks, a bunch of chefs, and the usual assortment of marketing and PR people that are so often present when the rest of that group gets together (we need someone to organize us, after all – and getting writers and chefs all in the same place at the same time appears to be a lot like herding cats).

The talk, much to my surprise, centered on healthy cooking and how we (“we” being writers and chefs) can help Americans eat better and I was bored. Really quite extremely bored. I was bored for several reasons.

1) I would never willing attend a talk on “healthy cooking.” I had thought I would be attending a much more specific ingredient-focused presentation and demonstrations. I already know a lot of what is generally called “healthy cooking.”

2) I don’t think people lack information about eating well. I think most people know they should eat vegetables and not fry everything. I think most people are stuck between a rock and a hard place of economics, convenience, and the horror of confluence that is human biological craving and food science’s ability to work those cravings like nobody’s business and in order to do great scads of business.

3) The notion of what “healthy cooking” is that was largely being used in that room makes me sad. It was more nutritionally driven than taste driven, more about what is in food than how we experience food. From what I have pieced together, unless people are really in touch with the experience of their food and how it affects them, switching how they eat is an uphill battle of deprivation and backsliding.

Then the discussion turned to class and I went from bored to wanting to pull my hair out strand by strand. That the worst food is the cheapest and that people with less money therefore tend to in general eat more of it is a question of federal policy (see “Farm Bill”) as much as anything and no matter how many articles I write about how delicious greens are, we subsidize high fructose corn syrup and not chard and discussing it as a question of nutritional education is insulting to everyone involved. Political education, perhaps. It certainly ain’t an issue that is going to be solved by lifestyle magazines.

Then – please, stay with me, I’ll get to the delicious salmon soon – the discussion turned to the children. Annoyance turned to hopelessness as the room took as unquestioned truth the notion of kids food. The need for healthy kids food. The challenge of kids food. Sneaking spinach into smoothies (and not telling the kids what made it green – “magic” was suggested as an explanation). The importance of kids menus offering carrot stick “dippers” instead of French fries.

Look, children tend to be pickier about food than adults. They don’t necessarily want to eat everything we eat. They also don’t know much. That’s why we need to teach them.

Just as we teach kids how to read and how to brush their teeth, we need to teach them how to eat. If we slough it off by handing them snack packs throughout the day, that is how they will learn to eat – constantly, with their hands, processed food. We can’t teach them in an afternoon when they’re in fourth grade – it’s a process. A long, slow process of offering different foods and explaining again and again and being consistent and letting them make choices when and where appropriate and laying down the law when that’s appropriate too. It’s like every other aspect of parenting. And, like all the other aspects, they watch more what we do than listen to what we say.

(I don’t think I ever got a dirtier look than the one I got from a group of parents at the park at 11:30 one morning when my son was three and I told him as he looked at the other kids constantly pawing through bags of Goldfish crackers and Pirates’ Booty that no, I didn’t have a snack because he’s already eaten it. Plus, I said, we’re going home soon as we were having lunch in half an hour and that it was okay to be a little bit hungry before a meal. To me it seemed like a teachable moment. Their faces told me they thought it was closer to abuse.)

Annoyance, hopelessness, and frustration with the world melted away when I got home and was met by a family that was super psyched to have me throw a salmon fillet on the grill and help me pick the last of the mustard greens from our completely over-grown garden and eat them tossed with a bit of rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and mirin. When my son made a play for the charred and crispy skin from my piece of salmon, I gave it to him with glee.

What? It’s not salmon season yet? Why no, it’s not. This fillet is part of a group-buy from a fisherman up in Washington state a friend put together. It was wild-caught Pacific salmon caught last season, bled and iced on the boat, cleaned and frozen the same day. We bought so much directly from the fisherman that he shipped it freight and the whole of it cost way less than retail. It makes me grateful not only for the family that eats it with joy and but also for the deep freeze that came with our house. Now I’m waiting for this year’s salmon season to start up so I can get some from the Copper River fishermen I met last summer.

Frozen salmon on the grill

The best thing I learned while up in Alaska last summer learning about Copper River salmon was that you can throw frozen salmon directly on the grill. It takes a few more minutes to cook, and works like a charm. Brilliant.

Salmon fillet, skin on – fresh, frozen, or defrosted

Oil

Salt

Pepper (optional)

Lemon (optional)

Clean the cooking grate on your grill – no need to go crazy, but scrape off any bits clinging to it. Rub the grate with oil. Now heat the grill. Get it nice and hot, but not crazy hot – you should be able to hold your hand about an inch above the cooking grate for a minute or two.

Rub the skin with oil and set salmon, skin-side down, on the grill. Sprinkle the flesh side with salt. Sprinkle pepper on too, if you like. Cover and cook until desired doneness. I find a fresh fillet that is about an inch thick is ready in 10 -12 minutes, but I like my salmon actually cooked in the middle. If you want that bit of raw, cook it less. A frozen fillet the same size seems to take an extra 5 minutes on the grill.

Notice I have not instructed you to flip or turn or move the fish in any way. The skin protects the down side, the cover helps cook the top side.

Use a wide spatula to lift the whole fillet off the grill and slide it onto a baking sheet or platter. Hold the platter over the grill and next to the fish when you do this so the fillet spends as little time as possible hanging off the spatula on either end.

Serve hot or at least warm with a spritz of lemon juice, if you like, or whatever sauce or condiment floats your salmon boat.

It ends up that yes, you can freeze tomatoes. Not tomato sauce, not tomato paste, not tomato puree (although all those things freeze just fine, too), but actual tomatoes.

I learned this indirectly from my aunt. Indirectly because she was not talking to me, but rather had left instructions with my cousin (her son) while she was out of town to pick the tomatoes from their ample garden as they ripened and put them in the bag already started in the freezer that she kept for all the tomatoes they couldn’t keep up with.

It’s been a great tip – especially since my dashing husband overestimates even his impressive tomato-eating ability when tomatoes are ripe and plentiful and cheap at the market. Once frozen, the tomatoes won’t work as fresh tomatoes – you wouldn’t want to make caprese salad with these, for example – but if you’re going to cook them anyway, it’s perfect. If you were going to peel them in the process then freezing has the bonus prize of making the tomatoes extremely easy to peel without the usual step of blanching them first.

So when I found a bag of Early Girl tomatoes from last summer in the freezer the other day, I decided to pretend it was summer (I needed a distraction from these gray days we’ve been having on the West Coast), if just a little bit. I smeared petrale sole with a paste of ginger and mint (notice all the mint on my table lately? That’s because mint grows like an invasive weed in Northern California, especially when it rains) and baked them, cooked a pot of rice, and peeled a few frozen tomatoes and then gently heated them up in a spicy yogurt sauce. I know it sounds a bit weird, but it is an unbelievably delicious flavor combination. The delicate fish – rice – tomato in spicy yogurt sauce combo was sublime.

Tomatoes in spicy yogurt sauce

I developed this recipe when I was working at Sunset and can never get over how good it is, or how tasty that sauce is on rice. I can now add to its many wonders how delightfully it makes use of frozen tomatoes.

8 ripe but firm tomatoes

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

2 Tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 small hot green chiles, seeded and minced

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain whole milk yogurt (low-fat or fat-free versions will curdle)

If you’re using fresh rather than frozen tomatoes, blanch tomatoes to make peeling them easier: bring a large pot of water to a boil and prepare a large bowl of ice water, cut a small “x” in the bottom of each tomato, dip tomatoes in the boiling water for about 30 seconds and then use a slotted spoon to transfer the tomatoes to the ice water, drain tomatoes and pat them dry.

If you’re using frozen tomatoes, just take them out of the freezer. In any case, the next step is to use a paring knife to gently peel off the tomato skins and set tomatoes aside, whole or at least as whole as possible.
In a large frying pan, heat vegetable oil over medium high heat. Add cumin seeds and mustard seeds and cover. The seeds will start popping within about a minute. Cook until the popping slows down, about 2 minutes total.
Remove the lid and add the butter. When the butter has melted, add turmeric and cayenne. Stir and cook until brightly fragrant, about 1 minute. Add garlic, chiles, and salt. Cook, stirring, for about a minute. Reduce heat to low and add yogurt. Stir to combine.
Add tomatoes to yogurt mixture, Gently stir to coat the tomatoes with the sauce. Cook over low heat until tomatoes are just warmed through, about 5 minutes. Serve warm.

As in love as I am with this Terrine cookbook, it is not for the feint of heart. Not only are many of the recipes for rillettes and patés and other creations that not everyone wants to see made, much less make themselves, but it is also clear that tested though the recipes may have been in the gram/milliliter measurements, the American measurements were not. Lots of details are missing, too – things like what size pan to use.

Don’t get me wrong: this terrine was delicioso. Mucho so. It just doesn’t look a thing like the picture in the book, which was cut into neat slices and had a whiter overall color. Granted, I used smoked black cod instead of smoked haddock, less black radish because I don’t see how three would have fit into the mix, and added some extra horseradish because that root rocks the house, but none of that fully accounts for the softer, less set texture. Nor does it account for the giant chunks of fish in the picture when the recipe calls for one to “thinly slice” the fish (me thinks a stylist took some liberties). As for the color, I’m assuming my fancy-pants, orange-yolked eggs from free-ranging, active birds who scratch for weeds and bugs might have given the custard its decidedly golden tinge.

I would make it again to fix the texture and report to you about it then. I’m tempted, I really am. It was a hit with the whole family. But look at that list of ingredients – it’s not exactly the kind of thing I feel like eating everyday. Plus, the book is filled with layered creations I want to try. I’m looking forward, not backwards. So it will be awhile before I make it again. Here’s what I did. If anyone out there wants to firm it up, experiment on my behalf, would you, and report back?

Winter terrine of smoked black cod, horseradish, black radish

This is a lovely, gentle, rich creation. Equally good warm after unmolding and cold out of the fridge the next morning.

1 medium black radish (a.k.a. Spanish radish)

8 oz. smoked fish, I used black cod, haddock or halibut are mentioned in the original

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

5 eggs

1 Tablespoon freshly grated horseradish

2 shallots, as finely chopped as you can manage

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper

Heat oven to 350. Line a small (8-inch) loaf pan with plastic wrap, letting it overhang over the edges by several inches.

Scrub the radish clean (don’t peel it, you want that black skin to show) and then cut in slices as thin as you can – a mandoline is useful if you have one.

Remove any skin or bones from the fish. Cut or pull into bite-size pieces.

Whisk cream, eggs, horseradish, shallots, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Pour a thin layer of cream mixture in the pan. Lay down a layer of radish, cover with egg mixture, layer in some fish, cover with egg mixture, and continue layering until all ingredients are in the pan.

Bring the edges of the plastic wrap over the top of the terrine to seal in.

Set the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with boiling water – it should go at least half-way up the outside of the terrine pan, three-quarters of the way up is even better.

Bake until terrine is set, about 45 minutes. Remove from water bath and let cool to warm before unmolding the terrine onto a serving platter or cutting board.