The Earth Births the Vegetables

I often sing the praises of fruits and vegetables. It isn’t because I’m a vegan… I’d be a vegan no matter what it tasted like really. Separately and as passionately, I love food. I’d love a roasted onion over a new pair of shoes, prefer a perfectly ripened tomato over a twinkling ruby. Ok, that may be a slight exaggeration but you get my point. Patchouli, Birkenstocks and essential oils aside, I want to take a bite out of the Earth; I need to take it all in. My senses, especially taste, are my best friends. And I make these romantic rationalizations constantly to justify my irrational whims of fancy and unyielding appetite, yes, but this is in direct relation to my very reasonable and responsible existence. So an onion, to me, is more than an onion. It’s a part of how I experience the world. I think too much and eat too much.

I cut some thick slices of yellow onion today. I was inspired by the fresh sliced tomato and onion appetizer I had last weekend (which was inspired by Peter Luger’s Steakhouse). Raw onion is a bit intense however. I roasted it with some olive oil and numerous grinding twists of sea salt and peppercorn. Heavenly onion. Speaking of, did you know that the Ancient Egyptians worshipped the onion, believing its shape and rings meant eternal life?  I’d join that movement.

Tomatoes are my favorite, uh, fruit for roasting. I haven’t bought a tomato that didn’t wind up roasted ever I think. Make sense of that double-negative! It’s a no-fail. Cut the tomato and put in the oven. I want to tell you something spectacular about the tomato… the scientific name for tomato translates to “wolf peach”. It totally is a wolf peach! I can just see wolf fangs piercing that taunt red skin.

I made that bread a few days back, the spiced potato and onion bread. It is very unfortunate but I am a terrible slicer of bread. My diagonal attempts look more like door stops than slices of bread. But! I’ve found that these clumsy slices are perfect for hearty open-face sandwich pizza-type snacks. Like below, quite possibly the tastiest thing I’ve eaten in my apartment in months: a toasted wedge of my spiced potato and onion bread smeared with my fresh-made basil sunflower seed pesto and topped with those roasted tomatoes and onion. I can’t wait till I am hungry again so I can eat another.