Blue Cayenne

Who doesn’t need a fast spaghetti recipe that uses the ever-available cherry tomatoe?

This is that recipe. It makes a pretty presentation, too. 

Who to thank, though, for the yearlong availability of cherry tomatoes. It is a contentious question.

First, thanks go to the Incas and Aztecs. Food historians believe that cherry tomatoes are closely-related to the wild tomatoes of Mesoamerica and western South America. Those wild tomatoes, which grew like clusters of grapes, are believed to have provided the genetic foundation for all modern tomatoes. The indigenous people of Mesoamerica and western South America domesticated the wild tomatoes. The Aztecs called the little fruits xitomatl, the base for our modern word tomato.

In modern times and with modern cultivated and commercialized cherry tomatoes, there is argument. 

The European Union has recognized the Greek Tomataki Santorini as the original modern iteration of the fruit, giving the little tomatoes PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status in 2013. The tomatoes have been grown on Santorini island since at least the 1860s and, in the early 20th Century, paste made from the tomatoes was the primary export from the island.

But wait! The Israelis also claim to have originated the  modern cherry tomato in their labs in the 1970s, creating the shelf-stable, sweet and comercially viable little tomatoes we enjoy today. 

You pick the winner. 

Cherry tomatoes are a treasure in the vast wasteland of off-season blah tomatoes. In season, they are even better. 

This is a delicious recipe from Six Seasons Cookbook by Joshua McFadden. You can buy the book from your local bookstore or from Amazon here.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

My husband could talk incessantly about his love for home-grown figs. Seems there was a fig tree in the yard of the house he lived in in Berkeley while in college. So, for him, there were glorious memories of fresh figs galore—jams, pastries, au naturel.

Lucky him.

I’ve never had access to a bounty of figs. At most, it seems, I can occasionally find a carton of weary-looking figs at the farmers’ market.

So, when I found a decent basket of figs at Trader Joe’s the other day, I grabbed them. Trying them once I got home was, honestly, kind of a letdown. But, alas, I decided that baked into a cake the figs would caramelize and become a treat.

But I had to find a worthy recipe. I looked through a lot of cookbooks; I even consulted the site Eat Your Books  (https://www.eatyourbooks.com/) that catalogues thousands of cookbook recipes for paid searches. Then…there it was. Yossy Arefi.

I should have known. Yossy Arefi never lets me down. I treasure her cookbooks: Snacking Cakes, Snacking Bakes, and  Sweeter Off The Vine (the cookbook from which this recipe came). (All those cookbooks can be ordered through your local bookstore or through Amazon. Lately, I’ve found Thrift Books (thriftbooks.com) to be a good source for used books; You might try there if you are interested.)

Here is her recipe for Soft Chocolate and Fig Cake as I prepared it in my kitchen.

I’m a unashamed stone fruit devotee. I particularly love plums. This is my season!

There were perfectly ripe plums at my local farmers’ market this week. So, it being summer, I decided to make ice cream.

This is a David Lebovitz recipe from his cookbook The Perfect Scoop. The cookbook is available through your local bookstore. Lebovitz is a Paris-based cookbook author whose early career included a stint at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse.

This ice cream would be a perfect light end to an elegant meal. It is an intense plum pink color and, with the cup of cream, is just creamier than a sorbet. The plum flavor is intense.

Here is the ice cream as I prepared it in my kitchen.