{"id":1388,"date":"2017-07-13T15:15:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T19:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2017-07-19T11:54:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T15:54:31","slug":"summer-cooking-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/?p=1388","title":{"rendered":"Summer Cooking Is…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Summer cooking is… <\/em>Standing barefoot in the kitchen next to the screen door, stirring pieces of day-old bread and garlic cloves in a cast iron skillet, until the garlic cloves soften enough that you can smash them with the back of the wooden spoon. They let out a sweet, roasted smell and infuse the olive oil that slicks the bottom of the pan.<\/p>\n

Slow and steady, just don’t break a sweat. That’s the extent of any cooking I’m doing on this day in July, when the air is so full of humidity that it has got to spill any minute now- burst from air into water. \u00a0I don’t have any ideas, and there’s not much in the fridge. Theo’s home from camp for lunch.<\/p>\n

Lentils, thankfully cooked two nights ago, can be the substance of our meal. I lift them, ever so inefficiently, one spoonful at a time, from their cool cooking liquid with a slotted spoon because I am much too lazy to search the kitchen for the strainer. In a small bowl, I toss the lentils with a splash of vinegar, some salt and a bit of pungent vinaigrette from the whole grain mustard jar… lentils absorb- they can take on extra acid, extra salt, a little more olive oil. And a tip: always make dressing in your mustard jar, even if it’s just a way to eke out the dregs.<\/p>\n

On the counter I unwrap a wheel of goat cheese from its paper. \u00a0I brought it back from a recent trip up north; \u00a0I admired its blue ash coating at a stall in the march\u00e9 Jean Talon, Montreal. It is tender to touch and soft on the palate. The crunchy, garlicky croutons, still slightly warm, are ready and waiting to be tossed with a mixture of peppery salad greens in a bowl. Lunch can just be this.<\/p>\n

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Summer cooking is… Standing barefoot in the kitchen next to the screen door, stirring pieces of day-old bread and garlic cloves in a cast iron skillet, until the garlic cloves soften enough that you can smash them with the back … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[217,48,43,20,137,165,129,150,181,252,53,131,153],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ICYG-mo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}