smitten kitchen

High on my list of things I’ve always wanted to do but finances, scheduling or partner interest always got in the way was going to some small town for a rustic fall weekend, even though it risked cementing my unconditionally yuppie status. I mentioned this to my delightful husband a month ago, in a “maybe we could pull it off this year” kind of way and a day later, he had the whole thing booked. Cue: swoon.

And a leaf-peeping — in a borrowed Jetta, no less — we went! Alex and I headed up to Hadley, New York on Friday evening, to stay at an adorable 1885 mansion converted into a yellow, orange and aqua-exterior and rose-filled interior B&B in the early 80s. It’s now owned by a gay couple, formerly of the Upper West Side, one who cooks and paints awesome Hopper-like light-shaped oils and the other who keeps the place up. Needless to say, I immediately decided I wanted a B&B, if only so I could get up early and bake everyone scones and just-picked apple compotes.

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I find it funny now — what with my obvious fascination with stirring up soups aplenty — that a couple years ago I didn’t care for them at all. Everything about the taste of vegetables boiled in flavored water until their structures compromised made my stomach turn and to this day, even the liveliest minestrone invokes a bad memory of flavor-sapped herbs and formless noodles. Even those that came close to passing muster were so laden with salt, I’d find myself aching for a glass of water after a bowl of something that was supposed to be soothing.

I think the turning point came with the Cuisinart Immersion Blender gift from our wedding registry. Nobody better describes my affection for it than Julie Powell: “Have I mentioned to you that I love love love my handy-dandy cuisinart wand? I love it the way other women love their vibrators.”

In one minute flat, it converts everything in the pot into a velvety consommé, bridging the disparity between ingredients (”No! I don’t want to hang out with the icky squash!” whines the orange-fleshed potato) like a mother insisting her children play nicely together. No more alarming boiled vegetable flavor, no more awkward, thin spaces between ingredients, with each spoonful the same as the last, I find these soups contemplative; a calm brought on by the knowledge that every spoonful will taste the same as the one before.

The pistou, which I was as skeptical of as I had been of the lettuce pesto, really brightened up the fall flavor and color with some spring, kind of like eating an orange soup on an 80-degree September day.

To also note, with two carrots, a sweet potato and onions cooked in butter, this soup lends itself towards the sweet side of the palate and I seasoned it a lot more than the recipe suggests to balance it. I also threw an extra scallion in the pistou to brighten it up. Finally, but not intentionally, I (ahem) browned the butter before sautéing the onions but you know what? That nutty taste was awesome, and stayed with the soup ’til the end. Dreamy, indeed.

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Look, I’m not going to call Friday night’s dinner a disaster. For one, my husband would jump its undeserving defense and hey, nobody went to bed hungry, did they? But, I hated it. It was a tremendous amount of labor for a just shy of average outcome, none of the dishes lived up to my taste bud’s anticipation of them and even looking at the photos as well as the ample leftovers the next morning, ugh, I just wanted it all to go away. We can’t be great cooks every night, can we? I suppose some disappointing baigan bharta, oily cauliflower with onions and tomatoes and lackluster naan are small prices to pay for lucking out round one with garlic soups and sable cookies.

Because I’m just not the kind of person who handles disappointment well, or without immediately seeking out karmic retribution, on a bleary, rainy Saturday night when after a day of running exhausting errands, my husband and I lacked motivation to do anything but take in some back-episodes of The Wire, I cooked some foods that never fail me.

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Today exhausted me. A Thursday 5 p.m. deadline inexplicably became a Wednesday 2 p.m., and somehow, on what is supposed to be the deadest (inventive language like this is what I get paid the big bucks, folks) news week of the year, I was under an avalanche of it. Plus, there were other insults to injury: I had my first warm latte of the cooler season and spilled a good sum of it on my pink shirt, I stepped in a puddle and my surprisingly absorbent sandals remained damp and cold all day and I realized that flame-tinted leaf I’d seen this weekend and considered sort of a fluke, might not have been. Don’t get me wrong — I love fall — just not in August.

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