Thursday, January 6, 2011

happy new year, tomato bread

"Recipes!" Rachel said. "Recipes!"

My life the last few months has been all ideas, all the time. Not even concrete ideas, dreamer-schemer ideas ("a talking doormat", someone at Burning Man replied. I guess "what's your big idea?" is kind of a trick question, especially when someone is on drugs). Nebulous ideas. International Klein Blue ideas.



Yesterday I sat with an old woman in her study and she was burning cedar wood and it was hot and dark and fragrant and she said: "here is what I have noticed about your work. You have a brilliant mind but you need to focus." I was struck by two things: she has read fifteen pages of my writing. I have heard this before... always from people that don't know me that well. What is it about my carriage or gestures or hair or teeth that says "nutty professor"? I guess I have been playing this part, in which genuine excitement and curiosity get acted out as fake spaciness, for so long that I have become genuinely scattered. Enter: recipes. It is good to cling to something simple and real like food without thinking too hard about it.

Anyway, Rachel, here is a recipe that is unexpected, delicious, and impossible to overthink.

PA AMB TOMAQUET
(adios, Barcelona, it was great)

--Classy European bread, sliced (horizontally, if you have a baguette) and toasted almost to the point of charring
--A clove of garlic
--Olive oil
--A tomato

+ Rub the cut clove of garlic over the rough toasted bread (which is why you need a sturdy toast, and also a bread with a not-too-open crumb) until it gets worn down.

+ Cut the tomato in half and rub that over the bread too.

+ Drizzle some olive oil on top and salt, if you want.

+ Resolve to drink better coffee and eat better cheese (not really, but this bread + manchego cheese are the tapas of champions). Also to rewatch The Passenger.

1 comment:

Emily Kelting said...

Yes, it was great! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Love,
Mom