An SOS meal that feeds the busy soul
Slowly, in little drops, Frances Boswell, a food writer for Cookie, is stealing my heart.
(I know, a champagne list is coming — but so many of you are writing about meal planning right now, I thought this was more important.) When I scan a magazine, I first check out the “rooms” sections, then the “crafts” and thirdly, the section that I pour over the longest, the “food” section. There, I expect to find the photos of mouth watering meals to inspire me to bravely head back to the kitchen with a sure-to-please meal that will calm my picky eaters, fill the tunnel in my never-satisfied pre-teen, and satisfy my own craving for anything special and delicious, and healthy. And I expect a list.
Frances Boswell, however, rarely writes a list. There is no step-by-step bulleted recipe with a list of ingredients for me to add to my weekly grocery list. Rather, Frances writes her recipes in prose. This takes more time to read. At first, I was a bit irritated by the extra time it takes to glean the article for the necessary facts I need to pull the meal together in my own busy time-frame.
To her, I believe, the list of ingredients is just one element in the entire culinary experience. The core of the recipe is not the 1 teaspoon of salt here, the tomatoes, or the organic chicken broth. She doesn’t seek to feed her family — she seeks to nurture her family. Food is her muse.
Frances is playful with the food she makes; she enjoys what she’s doing, and her lighthearted-food-attitude comes through in the recipes; sometimes this is a crucial ingredient missing from many meals. See if you can find one of the previous issues of Cookie, when she wrote about how her plan to make a slow-cooking tomato sauce was sidetracked with her daughter’s outbreak of the flu. Her hungry husband ended up eating cereal, and the sauce turned out even better the next night, paired with fish. I read this while waiting in a doctor’s office — this was before I realized how much I loved her writing. She has grown on me over time, as her words continue to echo in my mind, after I’ve read them. So, sorry I sadly don’t know the issue.
So now, with kitchens busy making cookies, parents busy decorating and buying presents, Frances offers an SOS meal, that doesn’t involve a phone call and a delivery of a cardboard box. Here, I offer it in the bullet form I still like best:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Scrub on potato per dinner.
- Pierce each one with fork, and cook for one hour.
- Build fort with children.
- Drop the same number of eggs into simmering water to poach them. (3-4 minutes.)
- Toss greens with olive oil and vinegar.
- Split potatoes and fill each half with eggs and greens.
- Salt to taste.
OH, and I’m also a little to try this Brussels Sprout Recipe.
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Nice. Kind of like MK Fisher.
I like it when people write their recipes in prose, but when I try to recreate it, I always seem to miss something. Bullets are nice, too.
Great meal idea to pass on. I may have to try it!
bullets are nice … the recipe sounds quick and delicious
Hey, she sounds great.
Mmmm. That sounds tasty. I’ll have to look up Frances Boswell for my Honey. He loves to cook and will probably consider her a kindred spirit.
Sprouts are probably my favourite green vegetable - but they have to be done properly! My family used to pressure cook them to death. Now I’m not happy unless they’re steamed and lightly steamed at that - love the garlic idea, though.