Pretty Food
The trouble with buying food as decoration is that eventually it must be used or tossed. I am strangely and strongly opposed to throwing food away, so this usually means coming up with a wacky recipe on the fly to use up as much food as quickly as possible, or cooking several things in a row. For Thanksgiving, I bought organic and mostly local produce: apples, pomegranates, a Fuyu persimmon, a Meyer lemon, a blue hubbard squash, and a red kabocha squash. Yesterday it was clear that the apples, persimmon, and pomegranate couldn’t go one more moment. I cut and steamed the apples, then pureed them in the food mill, forgetting to save a few slices to freeze as teething treats for baby Guppy. The persimmon was so ripe that I simply cut it in half and put it through the food mill. It made a brilliant orange puree. The pomegranate was a giant pain, but I did finally extract all the ruby seeds. This morning I drizzled the persimmon over a bowl of sheep milk yogurt, then sprinkled the pomegranate seeds on top. It was gorgeous, and delicious. It reminded me of food I made for baby Guppy recently. I pureed asparagus, which was a rich, bright green, alongside a Liberty apple with deep red skin that produced a brilliant pink applesauce. Yes, it’s more of a pain to make food from scratch, but the look of of these foods enhances the flavors even further.
