Living in an old house usually means you can come home and gaze smuggly up at your ten-foot high ceilings, rub your hands on the plaster walls, and feel pity for the little people in houses of dry wall and hollow doors, even if they live in better school districts and have more insulation.

And then there are the days when it means you live without heat. That’s what you get for feeling like you were somehow better than someone else. Yes, my friends, it’s happened, and just in time for the first snap of seasonally cold weather in our old bungalow. I come home to eat lunch, and it’s warmer sitting outside in the weak November sunshine than it is in the kitchen. We are crossing off the days on a calendar. It’s a long story, but one leaky, underground oil tank (yes, I, too, thought we had a Superfund site on our hands), many dirty-booted burly workmen tracking red North Carolina clay across our heart pine (ok, the dogs have given them a worn and “rustic” look), a minor basement flood, lots of cursing, lots of jumping up and down in anger (kind of like cartoon characters do), a few margaritas and some feel-sorry-for-ourselves queso fundido later…we are getting a new furnace. Damn. Home ownership. But it’s probably the best choice. It’s the sensible one, even though, say, that money that we don’t have any way would have better put to use going to visit our friend living in southern France.

Really, this house has been a good one, solid and dependable and a real beauty under all the vinyl siding we yanked off this spring…but not this week. But we are still coming to France in April, Tara! Come hell or high water or terrible dollar-euro exchange rate.

On the plus side, we may get the fireplace working! It’s now going to probably be cheaper to get gas logs (our new furnace will be gas) than get the chimney lined. What a damn shame it’s not safe to use now, when we could really use it.

As we go around the house, cooking and working and writing and watching America’s Next Top Model (OK, that’s just me), we drag around two little heaters. One of them was loaned to us by our dear friend Mary K. It’s cute - squat and oval-shaped, with an upright button that looks like a cocked ear - but one of our dogs has taken a dislike to it and throws a growl over her shoulder when she passes it.

To warm the place up, I made beef bourginon on Sunday night - it cooks for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, and fills the house with the kind of warmth oil and gas can’t create. Man and woman cannot live on braised beef and mushrooms and lots of Pinot Noir alone, though, and our vegetables were a a perfect contrast, cool, crunchy and racy. I made a version of this for a pair of clients last weekend, destined to nestle up next to warm slices of butternut squash, fontina, and carmelized onion galette. I dare say this sort of salad is a close contender for my Thanksgiving menu plans, and a crispy foil for any rich groaning table in the coming months. If you don’t have mache - which I didn’t when I took these photos - you can use any other sort of lettuce you prefer. For me, it was the perfect resting place for half a head of butter lettuce languishing in a refridgerator drawer, but I’ve also made this salad with just endive and radish. Then it takes on a very astringent and bracing quality, just the kind of redemption you need alongside a plate of the holidays.

Endive, Mache, and Radish Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette
Adapted from Epicurious
Serves 8

The dressing:
2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives

The salad:
1 1/2 lb Belgian endive (6 heads), cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces
8 oz mâche (lamb’s lettuce), trimmed (8 cups) or an equivalent amount of butter lettuce
1 bunch radishes (1/2 lb), very thinly sliced - paper thin, if you can do it, so use a sharp knife

Whisk together vinegar, shallot, mustard, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Add oil in a slow stream, whisking constantly until dressing is emulsified, then whisk in chives.

Toss together endive, mâche, and radishes in a large bowl, then drizzle with dressing and toss gently to coat. Serve immediately.

Happy Blog Action Day!

In honor of Earth, let me direct you to my local chapter of Slow Food, and one of my favorite local farms, Sanders Ridge Farm.

Through the Slow Food Piedmont Triad chapter, you can help plant muscadine grape vines or spore shiitake mushrooms, then join in a potluck.

Through Sanders Ridge, you can join a CSA and have Cindy Hinshaw deliver crates of her stunning eggs, baby bok choy, lettuces, and on and on. I am not a member of Cindy’s exclusive because I was a) late last year getting on the bandwagon and b) when a partial share opened up after someone moved away, my own little tomato plants were going gangbusters. But I enjoy her fabulously chatty e-mail updates about farm goings on, and more seriously, this year’s wretched drought. I have also come home from the farmers market with her produce, grinning like I just won a million bucks.

Thank you to both for preaching the bounty and the beauty of locally-grown foodstuffs.

Back in May, I did a double-take at a local branch of the state farmers’ market.

There. They. Were. Local tomatoes. In May, mid-May, mind you. Local tomatoes in time for Mother’s Day. I made fresh salsa to go with the green chile frittata we gobbled down for brunch that day, and I felt as if I had conjured up a bowl of rubies to sprinkle over the eggs.

North Carolina farmers have gotten sneaky, and brilliant. They’re growing tomatoes in dirt, as usual, but sticking them in greenhouses, where they get warm and tall waaaayyy earlier than the typical tomato season. Now, I had my doubts, but hell, these tomatoes taste good and they come from farms right around the corner. I’ve run into a mushy one or two, but overall, I’m convinced. Let the Cherokee Purples and German Johnsons come in the spring. I’ll just eat more of them.

Sunday dinner this week featured some of these puppies. Never mind that my own tomatoes are still hanging on their plants, a tangly backyard jungle of scratchy leaves and hard, green knobs. The wonderful people who made the food for our wedding introduced me pulled a similar trick. We got married last June - early June, mind you - and amid all the guests I was very happy to see local tomatoes, these greenhouse tricksters, accompanied by generous drizzles of olive oil, fresh chevre and cool circles of cucumber, a reinvented, earthier, more summery insalata caprese.

We sat on our front porch, the day falling around us, plates in our laps and margaritas at our feet, sopping up the pink juices with stray grains of orzo, toasted almonds, roasted red peppers and grilled lamb. Happy summer, and happy tomato time.

Tomato, Cucumber, Avocado and Chevre Salad inspired by Celebrity Dairy

As with other simple, spare recipes, it’s important here to use the best ingredients you can find. To me, this salad is highly addictive during the summer, when it’s too hot to think about my oven, as avocado green as it is..

Serves about four

1 to 2 fresh, local and ripe tomatoes, heirloom varieties if you can find them and if it suits you
1 avocado
1/2 cucumber
young, fresh chevre, crumbled and sliced to your taste. I’ll leave the amount up to you, but be generous to yourself.
good quality extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground pepper
sea salt
finely chopped fresh basil, to your taste

Slice all the vegetables. Arrange in layers on a plate, alternating tomato slices with cucumbers and avocado. Crumble chevre over the salad. Drizzle oil and basil over the salad, then season with salt and pepper.

Any minute now, summer will continue with its regularly scheduled programming. The sunny, sweaty 95-plus days will dawn like clockwork Sunday through Saturday, interrupted by the occasional afternoon thunderstorm for variety’s sake.

But this past week, North Carolina has been positively gloomy. A heavy, fog-colored blanket settled over the sky sometime on Monday. It’s been punctuated by an hour here or there of roaring thunderstorms, or quiet, persistent drizzles. We’re living without gutters right now as we work on the outside of the house. With the windows and the heavens open, it sounds like a monsoon.

Finally - a full week later - I think it’s lifting. There is definitely a patch of blue larger than a pair of pants hovering somewhere to the south. I haven’t been complaining, though. We needed the rain - things vegetable, animal and mineral needed it, to be precise - and this cool, rainy week has felt like a long, easy drink of water. In mid-June, in the South, this is an unexpected gift. Man, it still feels like May around here, and when the heavens open up, you could swear it was April.

Even during a summertime diet of Greek yogurt and strawberries and wildflower honey, tomatoes, chevre, basil and olive oil, and the occasional splurge on sockeye, there are times among all the heat and the bounty that just cry for a cozy bowl of comfort food.

Kelly first made this pasta for me in the winter, and I swore he had performed some sort of black magic over the saute pan. I don’t know what my dear boy thought his first Christmas with my mom and sisters, a day when he was bombarded with food-related gifts (except for the tequila-related gifts, dotted with a few poker-related gifts. We are just all about sin, we are). He received not one, but two cookbooks - Rick Bayless’ Mexico - One Plate At a Time and Patricia Wells’ Trattoria.

We’ve used both quite a bit, splashing them with salsas and oils, but if I had to favor one, I may admit to leaning toward Patricia. This recipe is reflective of her style and the entire book - food made with humble ingredients that meld into something more than the sum of their parts. Blame it on the amount of oil olive this time. It means the eggplant takes on this quality that is suspiciously carnivorous, almost wickedly meat-like. The fresh mozzarella goes in at the absolute last minute, so that the cheese is just on this side of melting.

It’s a dish that will only get better as summer moves on, and as the eggplants and tomatoes explode into their annual abundance. And guess what? It’s damn good cold, too.

I had to drive a lot for work this week, once to the mountains, and once the other direction toward our state capital, and always, always in a thunderstorm. On Monday, I skidded into the kitchen yowling like a wet cat, soaked from head to toe and clutching a melting paper bag of groceries. Luckily, supper was ready. Oh, honey, you’re so nice to come home to.

Penne alla Siciliana, or Penne with Eggplant, Tomatoes and Mozzarella adapted from Patricia Wells’ Trattoria

Serves about six

Though the original recipe calls for using rigatoni, Patricia Wells prefers gemelli, those tiny twists of pasta twirled into doll-sized braids. You can also use ziti, fusilli, or what we always seem to have in our pantry, penne.

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
sea salt
one 28-ounce can peeled plum tomatoes in juice or one 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes in puree
1 firm medium eggplant, cubed and not peeled
1 pound dried pasta such as gemelli or penne
2 cups fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes
dash of red pepper

In an unheated skillet large enough to hold the pasta later on, combine 1/4 cup of the oil, the onion, garlic, and a pinch of salt, stirring to coast with the oil. Cook over moderate heat just until the garlic turns golden but does not brown, about 2 to 3 minutes. If using whole canned tomatoes, place a food mill over the skillet and puree the tomatoes directly into it. Crushed tomatoes can be added directly from the can. Add the red pepper, and stir in to blend, and simmer, uncovered, until the sauce begins to thicken, about 15 minutes. Taste for seasoning.

In another larger skillet, cook the eggplant: heat the remaining 1/2 cup oil over moderately high heat. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the eggplant and cook until lightly colored, about 5 minutes. The eggplant will soak up the oil immediately, but allow it to cook without added oil, keeping the pan moving to avoid scorching. Season generously with salt.

Add the eggplant to the tomato sauce and keep warm over very low heat so that the eggplant has a chance to absorb some of the tomato sauce. In a large pot, bring 6 quarts of water to a roiling boil. Add 3 tablespoons salt and the pasta, stirring to prevent it from sticking. Cook until al dente, tender but firm to the bite. Drain.

Add the drained pasta to the tomato sauce. Toss. Cover and let rest off the heat for a minute or two. Transfer the pasta to warmed bowls and sprinkle each serving with the mozzarella, tossing it a bit to combine and encouraging it to melt. Serve at once.

We’ll be New Orleans-bound in a few days, and I’m trying to use up what we have in the fridge. Well, and the garden.

I’ve been quite fussy about my mesclun, giving it a long, cold drink of water every evening. This is my first shot at growing delicate leafy greens. A few weeks ago, they were a palm full of speckish seeds. Trouble is, this North Carolina spring has been fickle - chilly, then blazing hot, then freezing. We turned the heat off, giddily, only to have to crank it up again the first week of May. Now, it’s off for good. I hope. The weather this week has stayed solidly in the 70s, sunny and dry. But I have this gut feeling that the mercury will creep up while we’re gone next week. My pretty ruffle of green will deflate like an ironed shirt on an August day. There’ll go our salads.

In the fridge I found the remains of last Saturday’s farmers’ market haul: some young radishes, small, with the just a hint of heat in their crispy white flesh, and half of a tangy white goat cheese crotin from Goat Lady Dairy . I snipped some greens from the garden (for very tiny salads; microgreens, how chic are we), grabbed some sea salt, olive oil and a shallot from the pantry, and some good butter from the fridge, et voila, ten minutes later - supper. Radishes with butter and salt, salad, cheese, bread. Waste not, want not.

This is one of my favorite vinaigrettes. It’s snappy and tart, but also one of the quickest if you have shallots and champagne vinegar already on hand - and you really should. They’re indispensable friends to salads, and this time of year, you’ve got to treat your salad right.

Shallot vinaigrette makes enough for two good-sized salads, maybe more

About two tablespoons minced fresh shallot
2-4 tablespoons of good olive oil
4-5 tablespoons of champagne vinegar (depending on your taste)
Salt, pepper and brown sugar, to taste. Mix vigorously with a whisk to combine.

On another note…if you’ll have any recommendations for your beloved beignet, or your crawfish crush, let me know. We’re also heading toward Mobile, taking a swing at oysters on the Gulf Coast, then zipping over to Louisiana’s southwest corner for cracklin’ and boudin. Memphis (dry-rubbed ribs) and perhaps Oxford will come a little later in the week.