Summer Greek-Style Pasta With Fresh Tomatoes, Feta, and Dill
On Saturday, when the sky was all kinds of bruised, I hurried to the Meatpacking District to attend a fashion show. In the fashion industry, the spring season is showcased in September of the previous year and the fall season is showcased in February, so it was a Spring/Summer 2013 show I was going to see. This can be disorienting. I mean, the clothes seen on runways won’t appear in stores for another half year or so. And by the time the clothes featured half a year ago hit the stores, they already seem outdated.
On the other hand, I’ve always been the kind to be stuck in the past. To bemoan how quickly time passes, to feel tugs of anxiety when I rip another page from my calendar, to cling to the smoldering embers of things that once were. I realized that last week, I seemed to have offhandedly written off summer, as if I was ready to move on and let it go. As if I’d gotten my fill of summer fruit and summer weather and long days with endless, golden light. As if I had renounced it for its cooler, crisper sibling, who wears tissue-thin black turtlenecks with A-line skirts and knee-highs and the most stylish tortoiseshell glasses imaginable.
I still want to eat all the peaches I can get my hands on, throw together caprese salads with those glorious in-season tomatoes, walk through farmer’s markets stocked with the most vibrant produce. I wish watermelon would last and last, and that livin’ was always easy. I realize a lot of people are in one camp or the other, but I’ve always been an indecisive person, so I want the best of both worlds. Is that possible?
This pasta recipe slinked (slunk?) onto the scene, begging to be made. It’s totally an end-of-summer dish: the sauce is uncooked, requiring the freshest tomatoes, herbs, and feta you can procure. But it’s pasta, which I’ve avoided up to this point, because it’s been the last thing I’ve felt like eating in 90+ degree, humid-as-hell weather.
This dish is light, it’s hearty, and it gently eases me into a more forward way of thinking. So while I may not be ready for Spring/Summer 2013, I can begin feeling excited about wearing long sleeves again
SUMMER GREEK-STYLE PASTA WITH FRESH TOMATOES, FETA, AND DILL
Adapted from Bon Appétit
Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 pound tomatoes, halved, chopped (I used cherry tomatoes)
1/2 cup chopped scallions (white and light green parts only)
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 Tbsp fresh dill, chopped
juice from 1 lemon
2 Tbsp EVOO
2 servings of pasta
Directions:
Mix the first 7 ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Make the pasta. When ready, reserve some of the pasta water if needed and drain. Add hot pasta to tomato mixture and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper and serve. Also good cold.
Note: This should be good with pitted Kalamata olives as well, but I don’t really like them so I didn’t use them. Let me know if you do!
Also, I failed to describe the show, didn’t I? For those of you who are interested, here are some pictures I took (I decided to omit the rated-R photos, haha).
Imitation of Christ Spring/Summer 2013
It was more of a non-show. It was more of a presentation. Like an installation, rife with social commentary (on appearance pressures? Vanity and narcissism? The disturbing effect that fashion can have on women?). There was no apparent clothes on display. But lots of women of various ages in various states of undress. It was bizarre.
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Ginger Peach Julep
Time feels so fleeting in the summer. I always feel like a kid trying to hold sand in my hands, cradling my palms to my chest to keep the days from spilling out. Which is funny, because when I was actually a kid, summers felt interminable, as if all there was were lazy days and golden-scorched hills and melted popsicles. It felt like life had always been one long summer reverie.
And then I grew up and started working and realized, being confined indoors for 45 hours a week and all, that it’s the one season I’d like to stretch out like a slinky, maybe taking bits from January and February and even a little of March (but not my birthday). I also realized that summer cocktails are a great way of enjoying both the weather and the bounty of produce.
My favorite part about going out for cocktails is reading the menu. I love drinks that incorporate fresh fruits and herbs, interesting spices, anything with a bit of a twist. I’m also envious of all the people who are able to invent their own concoctions at home—like this, this, and this(!). Given my total lack of knowledge of alcohol, however, no such creativity has ever graced this apartment.
So, in the making of this drink, I decided to play it safe and follow the instructions faithfully. First you make a ginger syrup infused with a little cardamom (kind of the reason why I got so excited about this recipe in the first place). Then you muddle fresh peach slices and mint. While they’re releasing the most wonderful smell ever, because what epitomizes summer more than those two scents, you add in some bourbon, lemon juice, and the ginger syrup. Finally, in goes the ice (cubed, in my case. Where does the home drinkmaker get crushed ice? Or do most people just smash up their cubes?), and a generous pour of ginger ale to top it off.
Afterward, you sip at it slowly while reading a book, something lowbrow and thrilling preferably, with the a/c blasting. That, my friends, is how I’m savoring my summer.
GINGER PEACH JULEP
From Bon Appetit
Makes 4 drinks
Ingredients:
For the ginger syrup:
1 1″-piece of ginger, thinly sliced
1 whole cardamom pod, cracked, or less than 1/4 tsp ground gardamom
1/4 cup sugar
2 ripe peaches, peeled and sliced
8 sprigs mint, plus more for garnish
8 oz. bourbon
4 oz. fresh lemon juice
12 oz. ginger beer (I used Reed’s)
Directions:
For the ginger syrup:
Bring the ginger, cardamom, sugar, and 1/4 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Let cool, then strain into a jar. Cover and chill.
For one drink:
Muddle 1/4 of the peach slices (1/2 a peach) and 2 mint sprigs in a glass. Add 2 oz. bourbon, 1 oz. lemon juice, and 1/2 oz. ginger syrup. Fill glass with ice, and add 2-3 oz. ginger beer. Garnish with a mint sprig.
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