Sunday, February 26, 2006

after dinner clean-up notes: palate cleansers

It’s an excuse: I often make granitas and call them palate cleansers but really I just like the way they taste. Like the shaved ice that they are, subtly touched by fruit.

But not today. Today my palate cleanser, served between portabella soup, the stuffed tomato with salmon and capers, the chicken rolled with apricots and mushrooms and the desserts, there it will be, a celery salad with nothing more than flat leaf parsley, bits of cheese and lemon vinaigrette added to it.

I am tired of the sweet upon sweet. I want fresh and crisp and pungent.

Yesterday morning I was asked if all my sadnesses, the ones that show up here and there, if they have one source these days. I said yes. There aren’t many times that I can answer with a yes because days can shake out any number of thorns and waspy moments.

Is the idea that if I deal with this one source, then I will coast? My own plate will be clean of sadnesses and I will bask?

In the meantime, I stuff myself with good and interesting foods. They possess me and I them and truthfully, they temper that which comes to the surface now and then.

But in addition, I can keep trying out palate cleansers until I strike gold and I will not then taste anything but the dessert that follows. In this case, the celery salad wipes out traces of everything that came before it, making room for lemon soufflés along with the pine nut tart.


Madison Feb 06 139
fresh and crisp


Madison Feb 06 142
delicate and dreamy

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful foods, and wonderful words. Now I'm thinking of metaphorical palate cleansers -- I think that's what I've been missing lately. Oh, and your flowers are delightful! Things worth dilly-dallying over. :)

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  2. Did you ever debate between culinary school and law school? Can one specialize in restaurant law?

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  3. I made some cranberry granita around Christmas...it was great shaken with ginger-infused vodka and orange juice!

    That celery salad looks disarmingly tasty. I usually avoid celery.

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  4. I used to work across the street from Ancora on King Street, and every summer afernoon, we'd say, "I needa Granita."
    I never thought one could make them!

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  5. I've never tried granita, but it can't be too different from sorbet, and I've made that -- a lovely blueberry sorbet with plum wine was the last. I doubt I'll ever top that.

    Lemon souffles! recipe, please?

    I can't wait to get back to my own kitchen and do some cooking! Now I'm hungry for lunch...

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  6. I like the idea of a palate cleanser during a meal -- something that wipes the slate clean and leaves you ready for the next course. I'd like to have something like that to help me adjust to the many transitions I experience in my personal life.

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