I recently wrote an essay called “Comfort Food” for my creative nonfiction writing class. In it, I talked about sugar cookies and fried chicken and “cheese toast” - you know, toasted, crusty bread with a bubbly slice of cheese slip-sliding across the nooks and crannies? That’s one sort of comfort food.

Here’s another kind: I’m sorry if I’ve been absent, but in my real life I have had to think, write, read and talk about the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech, a lot. I came home every night last night very numb and very sad, and so it was hard to blog about anything. Instead, I fed us macaroni and cheese laced with Appenzeller and Parmigiano-Reggiano and Romano. I threw in some spinach for good measure, because we needed our strength. I folded red cabbage into raw white onion, threw some catfish in a bath of cilantro, garlic, pepper, salt and lime, and made fish tacos. Sunday, we ate roast chicken, then a rhubarb tart. Friday, the first grilled hot dogs of the season, in the backyard, at dusk, without plates or napkins. Mary K. brought vodka infused with cucumber from her bungalow across the street. The sun went down. The ice in our cocktails clicked and melted in our glasses. The dogs held relay races back and forth across the long green grass that we so badly need to mow. And I started to feel better.

I’ve also been planting like a mad Mother Earth - lavender, a pink peony bush, mint, dill, tarragon, irises, columbine, another kind of rosemary. A man at the farmers’ market sold me on a bag of hairy tuberose bulbs. “Step away from the California poppy seeds,” I told myself at Whole Foods. I visit my gardens every evening like a doctor making rounds. There’s a front garden and the back vegetable garden and some hosta from this amazing place keeping company with ferns on the east side, a rose bush on the west. I went to the Reynolda Gardens annual tomato sale whispering to myself, “Just a few, just a few,” and walked out with eight baby tomato plants, including some of my favorites - German Pinks, German Johnsons, Cherokee Purples - with some heirlooms varieties I have never, ever heard of. How can you resist a name like “Big Rainbow,” or “Mortgage Lifter”? A plant that promises to produce orange tomatoes made it into the mix. Only three months until we get to eat them.

I’m unstoppable, now that I have my own patch of earth. And recently, it sure has felt good to have my hands in the dirt, soil under my fingernails, the sun beating down on my shoulders, sowing hope for the future, or at least for the next 90 days.

April 16th, 2007 Fish Tacos

Serves 2 to 4

I didn’t go to the grocery store that night, because I just couldn’t. I wanted to get home, as soon as possible, and be in my kitchen with the dogs underfoot. I planned to make these, but I hadn’t planned very well - I forgot the corn I like to use in the slaw, and decided to add sliced avocado at the last minute - but like some of the best cooking, these are largely improvisational. Except for the fundemental trio of cabbage-fish-creamy white sauce, these aren’t at all like the famous fried fish tacoes of Baja California, that craggy finger of Mexico that points the way to the Equator (best eaten on your honeymoon, stealing bites from your honey, overlooking La Bufadora). But these are still excellent.

about 1 pound fish, any will do, but I have luck with catfish. Flounder would also be good. Grilled salmon is fantastic.

The marinade
1-2 cups fresh cilantro, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, sliced very thin
about one lime’s worth of juice
red pepper flakes
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil

The slaw
1 ear of sweet corn, cooked briefly in boiling water and scraped from the cob
3-4 cups thinly sliced red cabbage
1/2 white onion, finely chopped
1 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
splash cider or white vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

The sauce
Mix equal parts mayonnaise and plain yogurt, season with loads of chipotle powder

For serving
lime wedges
small flour tortillas, warm, soft and floppy

Mix up the marinade and pour over the fish. Let rest in fridge for about an hour. In the meantime, chop the raw white onion and run under cold water (this is a Rick Bayless trick and helps cut down on the raw onion’s bite). Drain. Mix with cabbage, cilantro, corn and olive oil. Season to taste. Set aside.

Whisk the mayonnaise and yogurt for the sauce, season with chipotle powder. Refrigerate.

Crank up your oven’s broiler. Set the fish (the marinade can come, too, if you want it, but you may want to remove the garlic because it can burn) in a glass dish when the oven is hot, then broil for 5-10 minutes (watch the fish so it doesn’t overcook - you want it moist). Or grill.

Warm tortillas in the microwave between two sheets of wet paper towels.

Assemble tacos (fish, cut into bit-sized pieces, slaw, sauce). Eat, repeat.

I know, I know, I’ve been on hiatus. A busy, busy bee. And not cooking as much as I’d like. But I think things are on the upswing.

This weekend, for starters, was a Very Good Food Weekend. The supper club met again on Saturday, in honor of some New York City guests. We stuffed them with Southern things - fried chicken, fried pickles, sweet potato casserole with cornflakes and marshmallows (considerately arranged in diagonal stripes, so you could avoid the marshmallow if that’s just not your thing), collards for vegetarians and collards very much not for vegetarians, refrigerator pickles, mac and cheese. A certain New Yorker showed us up a bit. He made 72 - 72! that’s three dozen eggs! - deviled eggs. Then, he made the best banana pudding I’ve ever had. Ever. It was revelatory. I didn’t know banana pudding could be this way. It was run quickly under the broiler, I think, capped with an airy meringue blanket, tanned and crunchy.

All of this was washed down by copious amounts of red wine, and apparently a lot more than I knew. Kelly warned me, but I didn’t hear, or I pretended not to hear - I was sticking to red wine only and I thought I was fine. I thought I only get in trouble when I mix and match. No sir, not any more. I paid for it dearly the next morning. Oh, yes. Those Easter bells from the church around the block sounded as if they were clanging inside my head. But though eating was the last thing I felt like doing, I dragged myself out of bed and into the car. “Put on your sunglasses,” Kelly said. “You can sleep an hour until we get to your mom’s house.” Sixty minutes later, when the dogs started whining, I knew we were close (the dogs get very spoiled at their grandmother’s house).

Easter dinner has always been a wonderful part of my springs. Easter’s a low-pressure holiday to start with. It’s like a Thanksgiving at the other end of long, cold winter, and if it’s situated at just the right time in April, oh, do we have things to be thankful for. Asparagus, grown in the same county, not at the other end of the country, grilled, then showered with slivers of salty, intense Serrano ham. A leg of lamb, raised on a farm one county over, then marinated in pomegranate juice, garlic and rosemary and grilled medium rare. Baby carrots, and butter, and herbs. Arugula and roasted beets and paper-thin fennel. My mom’s pound cake, laced with sour cream, and dribbled with an early batch of North Carolina strawberries and Meyer lemon curd the color of a sunset. Oh, thank you!

But lest you think us fancy people, our favorite part of Easter dinner has much more humble, Midwestern roots. It’s sweet, but its background is about as salt-of-the-earth as you can get. A quivering, ruby-red rectangle of strawberries and crushed pineapple, bound with Jello, isn’t retro just for the sake of it. Easter at my mom’s house honestly, truly isn’t the same without this. Truth be told, this Jello salad never went out of fashion.

I know what you’re thinking. But this isn’t lime Jello. I don’t have any cottage cheese up my sleeve, I promise.

So lamb marinated in pomegranate juice is…well, really good. The asparagus with the Spanish ham…even better. Can any of them now make the same claim as The Strawberry Jello Salad, Hangover Balm? I think not.

Strawberry Jello Salad
When I called up my mom last night to ask her for this recipe, she said “The Jello salad doesn’t have a recipe.” Then she made one up on the spot, so it’s fair to call it a reasonable approximation. It’s important not to make the Jello the way the package tells you to. It calls for too much water, and this salad’s joy is in its intenseness. I like a lot of fruit, and not much Jello, and sliced into two layers sandwiching a tangy, cool smear of sour cream. It’s traditionally served at Easter dinners where there are Midwesterners present, and First Communions, and my uncle says Thanksgiving, too.

Serves about 10

1 small package strawberry Jello
1 box frozen strawberries
1 small can of crushed pineapple (about the size of a can of tuna)
1 cup boiling water
sour cream or cream cheese, enough to make about a 1/4 inch thick layer on a loaf pan

Mix the Jello with the boiling water. Drain the pineapple, save the juice. Add strawberries (don’t drain). Add pineapple and juice.

Pour half the Jello into a bread loaf pan, or a pretty mold. Put in freezer and let set. Take out when set and smear about 1/4 inch sour cream or cream cheese on top to create a second layer. Put back in freezer until cold. Take out and pour the rest of the Jello to create the third and final layer. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve. Use a wet knife to coax the Jello out of the pan or mold, and invert onto a plate for serving.