Inside My Table #86 | Excerpt
Editor’s Letter—Thursday Dinner
By Teresa Byrne-Dodge
After our terribly dry spring, Houston has had a nice soggy spell. As I write this at the end of the first week of July, the afternoon thunderstorms continue sporadically. This is a fine thing for the garden and the trees — in fact, the vitex in the front garden is flowering all over again — as well as the wildflowers that will bloom along the highways next March and April. But it does provide some unexpected challenges when it comes to dinner.
The other morning, feeling a little limp from the heat, I thought a chilled cream-enriched vichyssoise would be just the thing for dinner. I began by scraping and coarsely chopping three potatoes and a carrot and putting them into a pot of homemade chicken stock along with three large leeks. I set these to simmer. But before they were finished, it began to rain … hard. The outside temperature dropped by 20 degrees, and the street quickly filled with run-off from the neighborhood.
Sitting in the kitchen and watching the rain, the last thing I felt like eating was cold soup. There’s something about a dark sky and pelting rain that says, “Meatloaf!” or maybe “Beef and barley soup” or even “King Ranch chicken.”
Luckily, this was an easy save. When the vegetables were soft, I removed them with a slotted spoon, cut them again into smaller pieces and returned them to the pot with some diced chicken from the bird that had provided the chicken stock earlier in the week.
At dinner time, I reheated the soup gently and stirred in a bit of cream, a pinch of sea salt and a couple grinds of black pepper. Some bruschetta topped with Oven-Candied Summer Tomatoes (see the recipe just below on the home page), which is great for using up your tomato harvest) rounded out this simple meal. I didn’t even bother with a salad.
It was a “winter” dinner for a summer day. And after months of chilled seafood salads, gazpacho and other “hot weather food,” it was particularly satisfying. The kids, of course, didn’t question the menu. Only mom worries about whether to cook to the season or the weather.
