moi je suis le paysan


Not a bad start to the year. This morning we had baked beans on toast; tonight we had French lentil soup along with a loaf of bread I made last night. We were pretty ragged from travel, having just come back from ABQ the day before, and with nothing terribly thrilling on offer for New Year's Eve, we decided to stay in. I started a loaf of that no-knead bread of yore (18 hours in the laundry room), made sweet potatoes, kale and barbecue seitan for dinner, and got drunk off blood-orange-and-prosecco cocktails -- which were bitter, like my 2009. Today I baked the loaf, went on a bike ride, started a company and got halfway to patching a hole in our bedroom wall. And then, tonight, French lentil soup.



Easiest thing you ever did on a stove: 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 garlic clove, 1 bay leaf, 1 cup of lentils and some thyme, plus 6 cups of stock or water and some salt & pepper; veggies are your classic country-boy chop. Everything but the onion and garlic go into a pot, bring to a boil, let it simmer for 30 minutes. Meantime fry up the onions and garlic til soft; once the lentils are done, add onion mix to the pot. Et voilĂ !

Part of my parents' Christmas gift to us was a stock-up trip to Trader Joe's. The bulk of our haul was cheap booze, but also onions and boxes of stock and a slab of prosciutto for me. For my soup, I added a little parsley chop and a half slice of prosciutto all torn up. Serve with five-dollar TJ pinot noir, and life is beautiful. No, it's nothing fancy, but tomorrow you'll wake up in time to feed the truffle-hunting swine, clean your Chapuis rifle and recherches tes temps perdu.

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