How a big handful of herbs can save us all from the pandemic cooking blues
Five months into The Great Confinement, it is, by all reports, getting difficult for a lot of people to manage the whole cooking thing. Probably it is the most difficult for parents of school-age kids. After bravely home-schooling all spring till summer vacation — while keeping everyone fed — there was, in all likelihood no summer vacation, just more feeding and caretaking, and looking forward to school starting, for a bit of relief. But lots of folks, as it turns out, will need to continue home-schooling, or supervising — in any case, continuing to faithfully put three meals a day on the table.
The thought of people with those kinds of pressures making sourdough bread, or figuring out dumplings, or learning to make pasta — all those aspirational pandemic projects — is just Fantasy Land. They need simple, and quick. And so do lots of other folks.
But that doesn’t have to mean boring or bland. Our latest trick, when we need to pull something together pronto but still want to feel just a wee bit transported (get me outta here!!) is to grab a big handful of herbs from our kitchen windowsill garden and garnish the hell out whatever simple food we’re about to wolf down.
In the beginning, I was doing it unconsciously. I put tons of herbs on top of a green gazpacho.
And on a super-simple potato salad.
And then I saw the trick underlined, boldly, in José Andrés’ latest book, Vegetables Unleashed — in which he actually named a recipe Grilled Zucchini with Lots of Herbs.
Grilled Zucchini with Lots of Herbs
Now these are all super-simple dishes, things you don’t even need a recipe for. The next time I made tomato-burrata salad, which I make like 9,000 times every summer, instead of strewing a few leaves of basil on top as usual, I let loose with all kinds of herbs — parsley, dill, basil, tarragon and mint. So much life in that little plate, so much vitality! I have to tell you, it was life-changing: I will not be going back to plain old basil if I have all those other players around. (Reason number 577 for growing pots of herbs!).
All this strewing of herbs made me wonder why I was doing in, and what its roots are — and I wound up writing a story about it.
You can do it to something as simple as hummus from the grocery store. Or avocado toast. The possibilities are endless — and the emotional uplift a real pandemic-changer.
RECIPE: Grilled Zucchini with Lots of Herbs