Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Smoked Pig

A friend asked why I was making soup on a summer's day. This city is freezing me slowly with sweet salt breezes, is why. In any case, porky bean soup makes a nice meal for the winter, or late fall when the collard greens aren't snowed over yet, or a foggy day in July. The fellow behind the deli case didn't know what a ham hock was. I wiped a little honeysuckle tear from my firefly eyes and found a smoked shank for myself.

Also on the menu (for a successful Week Three of house meals at the TenderNob Flat): Padrón peppers, cornbread, and collard greens. I like my cornbread with cooked grits, and I liked my grits gritty -- not those little globules of cornstarch you find in the diner, but the whole-corn variety, more like polenta. I simmer the grits while the beans simmer.

Black-Eyed Pea Soup

Soak 2 cups black-eyed peas in a large bowlful of water overnight. Early in the afternoon, drain the peas and put them in a large pot with more than twice their volume of water. Bring to a simmer. While they simmer, chop and add an onion or two, a carrot, a stalk of celery and some leaves, a pint of canned tomatoes*, and a quarter-cup of honey.

When the beans have softened a bit, add a smoked bony chunk of pork, whatever part of the pig it might be, and a small palmful of salt. I often divide my chunk into two pieces and freeze the other half for later use. It really doesn't take much for a savory hamminess to creep into the beans.

Then keep simmering. By 7:00 the beans ought to be nice and velvety-soft, the meat fallen from the bone, and the tomatoes a reddish mush. Add water as necessary. Pull out the meat, chop, and throw back in the soup. Serve it up, nice and hot.

*I believe in canned tomatoes. Even boughten ones, if you don't have your own. They're usually picked and packed in season wherever they're from -- making them higher quality than expensive out-of-season tomatoes. They're condensed and sturdy, so they require less space when shipped, and needn't be refrigerated during the process, reducing oil use and emissions all around. But better yet, can your own when they're in season.

Chocolate Beet Cake

I prefer numbers that, like vegetable-laden cakes, have many factors. I dislike the significant, holy numbers like 3 and 7, and particularly loathe large prime numbers, which remind me of tax-evading misanthropes. So thank heavens that as of yesterday my age is no longer a middling-large prime number. I'm annoyed that 3 is still a factor, but there's nothing for it but to wait out the whole 8 years before I haven't any odd factors at all -- and make myself a birthday cake.

It's to be a fudgy beet chocolate cake, with a mixing method that's more brownie-inspired than not, and therefore quite simple. Confession: I'm winging it. Like dirty Mrs. Pigeon on the ledge across the alley.

Beet Chocolate Cake

Prepare 2 cups beet puree: boil three medium beets halfway covered in salted water till quite tender. Drain and let cool. Slide off their skins, chop them roughly, and toss them in your favorite pureeing device. I like the Foley food mill because it means I don't have to add water as I would in a wimpy blender.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9" round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment. Flour the sides.

Melt over medium heat:
1/2 lb butter
8 oz. unsweetened chocolate

Pour the chocolate mixture into a large bowl and beat well with:
4 eggs
2 cups sugar

In another bowl, whisk together:
1.5 cups ordinary flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Gradually fold the flour into the chocolate, alternating with the beet puree.

Pour into the baking pans, smooth the tops, and bake until risen in the center and a toothpick comes out clean, somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes depending on the material of your pans and whether or not you have a kitchen timepiece. Cool briefly before removing the cakes from the pan and letting them cool completely on a rack.

Frost with a (mint?) buttercream or cream cheese frosting. It occurred to me afterwards that some lovely dramatic results could be achieved by putting beet puree in the frosting, too. Gold beet puree! I can't wait to make it again. And you know what? Because of all the eggs, the top has a lovely sheen, which the beets turn maroon. You might even serve the cake plain with whipped cream, or do a minimal see-through drizzled glaze job on it. I didn't allow myself enough time to be inventive more than twice. I curdled the first batch of buttercream by trying to simultaneously add Greek yogurt and answer the door -- at which point I started brandishing my whisk with a mad glint in my eye and everybody scampered till the cake got itself under control.

Grilled Peach Salad

My sitcomly diverse housemates and I have instituted a house meal plan. Monday it's meat and potatoes, noodles dressed in soft eggs and bacon -- from the Croatian. Tuesday the Jewish pre-med hands us a platter of pasta and ketchup and tells us it was a delicacy back in Russia. Actually, he's fond of some fish and greens and things, too. Thursdays the Indian dishes up dal and curry and rice. Wednesdays the Mennonite girl spends all morning at work handling peaches, and winds up with a let's-put-yummy-things-together-and-call-it salad. Last week it was let's-put-yummy-things-together-and-call-it avgolemono.

(Oh, yes, I'm regularly employed now at a health-insurance-providing charming little market down in the Mission. I make cornucopiac cascading displays of peaches. And I get discounts at the creamery across the street).

In designing a menu for my housemates, I have to consider their capacities. The Russian says, "Back in Russia starvation was a delicacy," and chows down on plateful of food like he just did an Ironman in Siberia. Not so far from the truth. His favorite hobbies are going to the gym, running, and wishing he went more places icicle-free women also went. The Indian bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge to and from work every day. Add an extra 1200 calories to both of their portions. The Croatian is slender, rather like a daisy growing on a cloud. It's encouragement to limit my plate accordingly. My meal-planning tactic so far has been to make a regular supper and supplement it with vast quantities of good bread.

Rosemary-Thyme Aioli

Place two egg yolks in a bowl. With a fork, beat in one drop of olive oil. Beat in another. And another. Now a teaspoon. Beat. Now a splash. Beat. When it is stiff and glossy, add a sprinkle of salt, a tablespoon of minced rosemary, a tablespoon minced thyme, and the juice of half a lemon. It should be almost swizzle-able -- if not, thin with lemon juice or thicken with oil.

Grilled Peaches

Dip whole peaches in boiling water for a minute so you can easily slip off their skins. Or peel them. Cut them in half, remove the pit, and place them on a fairly hot grill or one of those skillets with raised lines. When nicely seared, rotate them 60 degrees to make pretty cross-hatching marks. When those marks are well-formed, flip them and repeat. Cover for a bit, then lift them carefully and leave somewhere they can cool.

Grilled Peach Salad

Arrange chunks of cooled grilled chicken legs, sliced grilled peaches, and soaked sunflower seeds or tomatoes or avocado or cheese, all on a pile of rinsed and dried lettuce. Serve with rosemary-thyme aioli.