It was 88 or 90 degrees or so today. Saturday, we were wiping our brows as we ate cake at an outdoor wedding in the southeastern Pennsylvania countryside. But I am determined to make fall happen. Tomatoes, I loved you deeply, but your time has come. One of the joys of is eating seasonally is that is it delicious at the all the right times and places - usually. Last week, it felt right to be eating butternut squash, roasted and wrapped in pasta ribbons, sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts and Fontina and shallots. We had the air conditioning on last night as we ate supper, a lusty, creamy red lentil soup shot through with the loud clear voices of fresh ginger and curry. It’s an experiment for a client, and I have to say - humbly, quietly, of course - that it turned out well. There isn’t a drop of cream or milk here, and you’d never know it. This is a soup that is far more than the sum of its humble parts, a soup that would muscle out lobster bisque and she-crab concoctions, I dare say, and wipe their bowls out with a slice of homey bread or even better, sunset-colored sweet potato yeast rolls.

I’ve had a hard time deciding which recipe to give to you folks, and so it is - you get two.

I almost was able to ignore the tell-tale tickling in my throat that forecasts another sign of cooler weather. The Cold came on sneakily, as Kelly and I watched The Office (in our office! on our computer!) between the soup and a few gingersnaps for dessert. Maybe it’s this squirrely weather that’s causing a disturbance in the force. All I know is that I am chugging down Emergency C and Throat Coat. And at lunch today, I could temporarily breath deeply and even smell. A miracle. A panacea. A balm in Gilead. Curry will clear things right up, and ginger too. I can feel this bugger on his way out of here.

Holiday-time Sweet Potato Yeast Rolls

These are the rolls with which my family sops up Thanksgiving gravy. Once baked, they freeze beautifully and fall apart in pretty little triangles.

Yields 18 rolls

3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 ounce package active dry yeast
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
½ stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus additional melted butter for brushing the rolls
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup mashed roasted sweet potatoes
1 ½ cups all purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

In a small bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 cup warm water, sprinkle yeast over the mixture and let proof about 5 minutes or until foamy.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, milk, butter, salt, sweet potatoes and the yeast mixture until combined well. Stir in 3 cups of flour, 1 at a time and turn dough out onto floured surface.

Knead dough, incorporating as much of the remaining 1 cup flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking for about 8 to 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Form dough into ball and put in well-buttered large bowl and turn it to coat with butter. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour, or until it is double in size.

Turn dough out onto floured surface. Cut off pieces about the size of a walnut and form into balls. Place three balls into each of 18 muffin tins and brush the tops with melted butter. Let rolls rise, covered loosely, in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes, or until they are almost double in size. Bake rolls in pre-heated 400F oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until they are golden.

Lusty Curried Red Lentil Soup

Yield: Three to four servings

It is important that you get the ginger very finely ground, almost into a paste, because it is incorporated into the soup late and any chunks will not cook down. I like to use a mini food processor that came with my husband’s dowery. I used to laugh at it, and flash a big knife. No more. It saves a lot of chopping time when I’m cooking for clients and using ginger or garlic.

1 ½ to 2 cups dry red lentils
4 ½ cups vegetable stock
2 cups water
½ red onion, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced
1 stalk of celery, minced

a dollop of plain yogurt (non, low-fat or full fat) per bowl

Thai red curry paste, onion powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and fresh, very finely grated ginger to your liking. (I used about two teaspoons of ginger, and a generous dollop of curry)

Melt ½ tablespoon butter in a medium-sized stockpot over medium heat. Add onion, and when it turns translucent add carrot and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and soft, about ten minutes. Add vegetable stock, water and lentils. Cook for about 30 minutes until lentils are very soft. Puree in blender or puree in pot with immersion blender. Return to pot, then season with curry, onion powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and ginger.

Before serving, add yogurt.

This soup gets even better the next day, but you may want to add some water as you warm it up to thin it out.

Setting up a business, of course, is a lot of hard work. I planned on the meeting with Important People, such as accountants and small business experts and the like. I planned on Regulations and Rules, a Logo and Marketing, though I’m still no expert on these things and learning as I fumble along. What I hadn’t planned for is all the recipe testing. I know how to cook, I scoffed. That will be the easy part.

Wrong. First, I can safely say that until two week ago I had never had the occasional to sear sea scallops, then stow them in the fridge for a quick dip in the cool air, then gingerly re-heat them in the microwave. I repeat, I have never done that to scallops. Who would? What kind of crazy person does that?

Me. I’ve also further tortured them by searing them, then freezing them. That explains why - like a pregnant mother-to-be obsessed with thought of watermelon in January - I sent my honey running to Whole Foods before they closed to procure a single, lonely sea scallop (at $2.34 no less - yikes!). If I was a sea scallop, sweet and dainty and delicate, I’d stay far, far away.

A side note: Kelly and I don’t usually eat this way, with this planning, storing and freezing, all this stowing things to eat away for the winter, or just a rough day when we both land, with a thud, on the back door at 8 p.m. I want to hire myself now. I’m not just saying that. I’ve heard of personal chefs who end the day doing what they’ve saved the rest of the world from - calling in take out. Oh no. I’m not going into business to end up like that every day.

But you know what? Most things have turned out okay, much to my surprise, even that sea scallop. It turns out you can freeze a lof of things just fine without compromising much. Which is good, because while I am going to be cooking and stowing away food in the freezer and fridge for my clients, I do not want to become a Casserole Queen. It’s too nice to eat sea scallops.

My chef coat came today, crisp and crackling out of its plastic shell, with “The Good Fork” embroidered in cloudy gray script on the left breast pocket (Daniel, my neighbor, asked if I was in school when I came galloping up to his front door to show off…sort of!). My clogs arrived last week. Friday night, I’ll pack my knives and my pans, and Saturday morning I’ll head to the market and then cook for my first client. Gasp! Egads!

In between, there has been a wedding and a float down a lazy, low brown river with cans of cheap beer, rollercoasters and corn on the cob, and roasted pork, and ice cream sandwiches and wheat beers with orange slices and vodka tonics infused with rosemary, and a few trashy movies. Now we’re moving into a season of caramel apples and smarty-pants foreign films on weekday evenings. We are moving into a season of homework, folks.

I like mine, though. I am so excited about cooking for people the way I love to eat. I am so excited to take care of them and feed them well. Hopefully I can keep doing the same for myself.

Luckily, I’m pretty easy to please. Sure, I like purple potatoes and fancy cured meats and zucchini blossoms, fava beans and cornichons and mussels and lots of oysters on the half shell, but at the end of the day, our at home summer supper is sort of an endless variation on a theme.

So here is it is, the September-late August rendition of a tomato salad, inspired and pirated from the witty, wonderful pastry cheftress Dorie Greenspan, which was in turn lifted from Dan Barber, the chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The last of my backyard tomatoes, still sweet and juicy, paired with silky peaches, basil, sea salt, pepper and just a slick of good olive oil. Maybe a slice of proscuitto, if it is on hand, just for some more salty contrast. Lord. We slurped down our third plate of this in the last few weeks this evening, with deep bowls of corn chowder on the side.

I feel silly giving you all a recipe…but protocol requires it, I suppose…

Take one largish tomato, slice thinly and arrange on a plate. Do the same with a ripe peach or two (no excuses this time of year if you live in most of the United States. I just know you can track down a localish peach and have the patience to let it ripen for two or three days on the kitchen counter. The same for Herr Tomato). Chiffonade a few basil leaves. Sprinkle on the peaches and tomato. Drizzle very lightly with good olive oil, dust lightly with sea salt and pepper and a few thin slivers of proscuitto, if it happens to be around. Don’t put too much effort into this salad, even though the calendar says it’s back to school time and all that. We can still hang on for a few weeks.

I’ll tell you why…

The Good Fork

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