Sockeye salmon with sweet corn relish

This one's a quickie, because I'm supposed to be working from home right now, and I actually have a fair amount to get done. But writing grant proposals is not as interesting as writing about the awesome wild sockeye salmon I had last night.

Now, anything that has "sockeye" as part of its name is a winner in my book. But what made this dinner truly delicious was the sweet corn relish with purple basil, and for that I need to give a long-deserved shout out to my CSA, Farm Fresh To You.

We've been getting a produce box from FFTY for nearly two and a half years now. We started off getting a box every other week, but about 6 months ago we switched to every week in an effort to eat less meat and more vegetables. The funny thing is, we get a regular-sized box. I think households of two usually get a small box, but clearly we are not a typical set of two.

Every week I take it as a personal challenge to use all of the produce. This has led to many good and a few dubious dishes. I find winter produce tougher to be creative with; for months we were getting loads of cabbage and kale, and after awhile all I could manage was sauteing it dully in olive oil and garlic, or throwing it into yet another soup. But in the summer, all the produce feels like a treat, and all of it seems to go together effortlessly. Last night's warm corn relish consisted of sweet white corn, red onion, orange lipstick peppers (really!), and purple basil cooked in butter. It took about 10 minutes and made a sunny little bed for the sockeye salmon, which is a stunning shade somewhere between watermelon and cantaloupe. Summer on a plate!

Eating less meat will continue to be a struggle for me; I can't quite reconcile my omnivorous self with my soft-hearted, animal-loving self, but having beautiful, seasonal produce delivered to my door is a step in the right direction.

Pork chops, inspired by the Evergreen Dinette

My mother, though born and raised for much of her young life in South America, learned to cook in a teeny town in Michigan, where her parents eventually moved and owned a restaurant, the Evergreen Dinette. My poor mother spent many evenings of her high school years not only waiting tables but cooking at the old Evergreen, making her share of burgers, pork chops, and meat loaf. No wonder it sent her running for Manhattan, then Europe, and then finally San Francisco.

During my childhood, my parents split the cooking, which I now realize was pretty unusual for a 1970's household. The truth was, my dad liked to cook, and he got home earlier than my mom did, so it increasingly made sense for him to do the bulk of the cooking during the week. He made mostly Chinese food for a long time, but later branched out into Italian, Indian, and Japanese.

My mother did more of the weekend cooking. The food I associate with her is decidedly 1950's American: baked ham, beef stroganoff, salads with iceberg lettuce and bottled French dressing. No doubt these were some of the dishes she dutifully churned out from the Evergeen's cramped and steamy kitchen. Later, she got adventurous, and whipped out chicken kiev, homemade gnocchi, and a heartbreaking dish called Crying Leg of Lamb, in which the meat is roasted over the potatoes, which makes them salty and crispy and unarguably lamby. As much as I loved it, I felt terrible eating that dish, because all I could think of was the weeping baby lamb as I dipped each forkful into cool green mint jelly.

But what I associate most with my mother's cooking is pork chops. Pork chops weren't chic the way they can be now; at the time, they were probably cheap, which is why we had them a lot. She would pan-fry them and serve them with mushrooms and a creamy sauce.

I still love pork chops. They are as malleable as chicken, and super quick. I make them the way my mother made them, but I also make them with a speedy tomato sauce, or with marsala, or with apples. This weekend, I decided to go with plums, since we had a lot to use up. I threw together a plum compote, with red onion for bite, brown sugar for sweetness, and a cinnamon stick for warmth. I let it cook briefly, as I didn't want the plums to lose their shape or color.

It turned out tangy and spicy and a little bit sweet. Not a far cry from the pork chops and applesauce the patrons ate the Evergreen Dinette probably ate--maybe just a bit brighter and fresher. I guess you could call it an updated classic.

Summer squash soup with fresh herbs

Sometimes, at the end, or near-end, of a long week, all you can do is make a simple soup.

First of all, the husband and I have basically been sick for a week. Then, as you know, I've been selected for jury duty. You'd think in a city of more than 800,000 people, the odds of me being selected three times in about six years would be slim to none. A fellow juror remarked after I told her this, "Well, you have a good face for it." I'm not sure if my face reads "wise" or "chump" but here I am, serving on a criminal trial.

It's been more interesting than the previous civil trials I've served on. This one has spurred some emotions. There are four charges, two of which are throwaways, and two of which are important. In deliberations, which began yesterday, I've gone from feeling proud of the great weight with which we all seem to carry our duty-- to frustration with some jurors who seem practically goofy--to impressed with the rigorous minds of some of my peers--to shocked at how people can see evidence so differently. It's been eye-opening.

We've been serving some half days and some full days. As luck would have it, my office isn't far from the courthouse, so it hasn't been too much of a hassle to check in in the morning and sometimes at lunch. But, it's still made for a lot of running around.

Last night when I got home, the husband was already there, stretched out on the couch, watching baseball. I sank into the couch next to him and let the day roll off me. We were at the start of a long weekend, which is a good thing, but both of us felt exhausted.

"Soup tonight," I said to the husband, and he nodded.

My basic recipe is from Mark Bittman, though I doubt he came up with it either. Saute onions or shallots in butter and oil, add whatever vegetable you have, along with some potato to thicken it, cook for a bit, add stock and seasoning, simmer. Puree. Add cream or not.

What I had vegetable-wise was a ton of gorgeous little yellow summer squash. I softened a diced purple onion, added the squash and banana fingerling potatoes, some garlic, and let it go. After blending it with my handy-dandy immersion blender, I added the final touches--a bit of cream, and grated nutmeg. Hunting through the fridge, I unearthed some chives and basil, which I snipped and chiffonaded respectively.

Served in shallow white bowls, the soup was a mild, buttery yellow, brightened by the fresh herbs. Slabs of levain on the side for dipping, glasses of wine. A soft finish to a bit of a rough week.