Cups that runneth over

This morning’s San Francisco Chronicle, which always has excellent food coverage, had an article on really good home cooks. Of course, it caught my eye, since I really want to count myself as one of them. A read through validates: we work with what the good stuff that comes our way (or is in the fridge), we cook a lot (and subject our families to plenty of mistakes along the way), we taste as we go, and we read cookbooks (but we don’t slavishly follow the recipes in them).

So I guess I am one of them, just not in a California sort of way. Ever since the apples started falling from our front yard tree (I admit I favor this Gravenstein tree over the eating apples and Asian pears in the backyard), I have been dreaming about pork chops. I absolutely adore the pairing of apples and pork, and last night was the night. I found some lovely pork chops at the co-op, and decided to top it with butter-sautéed apples, together with fresh cauliflower from the Redmond Saturday Market and some brown rice from the larder. A salad (also from the market: the head was so big it’s given us two dinner salads and two lunches) would round things out, topped with Trader Joe’s new sweet & salty crunchy nuts. I threw in a tomato from the market for color.

As I was deglazing the chops with some of the hard raspberry apple cider I was drinking, in walked Darling Husband with his ample hands full of tomatoes. Seems the neighbor was out in her garden when he walked by on his way home, and unloaded some of their bounty on him. With a silly grin, he handed them to me, because he knew what was coming: these beauties were going to be our entrée. The new bottle of balsamic vinegar beckoned, and I immediately started a vinaigrette (today’s jar of French mustard sports cartoons of “Le monde de Narnia”). I pulled a knife from the block and cut into the biggest tomato, purply-red and lobed, clearly a heritage fruit. Its flesh was still warm from the sun, and I could smell the sweetness. Three others joined the plate, Number One picked some parsley from the garden (too shady for basil here), and Little One helped set the table.

It may not be Tuscany, but we did have our little moment of late summer bliss, sitting outside under the grape arbor, eating tomates vinaigrette, followed by a dinner starring cider-glazed pork chops and buttery apples. I must remember to drop a jar or two of plum jam at the neighbors today.