It's been years since I have tasted a harvest supper in the Willow Valley, and it is a damn shame. Pushing my grocery cart through the crowded produce aisles in Portland, I jostle for position in front of a tower of tuscan kale. Stuffing a slender bunch of the dinosaur-skinned greens into a plastic bag, I wobble over to a basket of shallots. I fill a paper bag with those and move on to the next pyramid of produce. Mentally checking off the items on my list, I am soon swinging into the refrigerated section and beyond. Weaving my way along the linoleum path, until my cart is full enough to feed my family of five for the next week. At the check out, our family's diet parades, unceremoniously down the rubber mat, into the hands of a cashier. I have been shopping at this store for over two years and we still don't know each other's names, and she even has a name tag on. Sometimes there is banter, but mostly we share a congenial silence based on the fact that neither of us really wants to be there.
Later, I call my Ma and ask her for that recipe. The one she made the last time she was here. It was part of an amazing meal that we shared in the backyard with our neighbors. A Labor Day supper, that coincided with the end of my parents' visit, as well as the end of my son's summer vacation. Two eventualities that could have merited a can of beans and a fork, for the melancholy that accompanies them, but we decided to celebrate instead. Happy to be exempt from my kitchen duties, I watched as Ma sliced potatoes, thin and precise, then plopped the rounds into a cold water bath. A few days earlier, we had gone to Portland's big downtown farmer's market and stocked the larder. The potatoes were still dusty with dirt when we bought them from the farmer. My Pop chose the ones he knew would delight his grandchilden. The purple, pink and yellow fleshed tubers, were layered inside a casserole dish with heavy cream and butter, salt and pepper. We also bought lamb chops from a tent with bunches of fat shallots hanging from its poles. I stood off to the side and watched my parents haggle knowingly with the rancher, while wondering how many customers he had served that day. Compared to the vegetable stands, he had only a couple small coolers. Pop asked for enough to feed four big heads and two little ones, and walked away with enough meat to feed many more than that. A market slight that Ma may still be stewing about to this very day. As luck should have it, however, that lamb fed six big heads and two little ones, our entire Labor Day party. Sitting inside the twilight of new September, we picked up the bones with our fingers and enjoyed one of summertime's last improprieties. And then there was the kale. We had begun to tire of the crowded booths and our bags were full, so we headed toward the train that would take us home. When suddenly, my mother remembered that she wanted to make a dish with kale. She slipped into the crowd one more time and came out holding a bouquet of tuscan kale as big as my seven-month-old son. At home, she cooked it just as stealthily as she procured it. Come suppertime, each plate was awarded a pile of the dark green ribbons, topped with slivers of sizzled salami and shallot. That particular dish disappeared long before any of us had had our fill and I was ready to make it again.
The recipe is given with a chef's attention to detail and I stay with her until she starts talking about the dressing. I know how to make dressing, she already taught me that. Instead I start to imagine where she is, on the other end of the long telephone line. It is two hours later there and the sun is setting, the garden paths are slick with dew. Both of my parents have been working elsewhere all day, but now they are home and hungry. Pop gets sent out with a basket and a harvest list. Ma pulls a handful of shallots from the pantry. The stove is tucked into a dark corner of the kitchen, but soon it is humming with fire and light. The basket comes back from the garden dripping wet from the hose and laden with tuscan kale, peppers, beets, beans and basil. Always more than she bargained for, but perhaps she'll still send him back for something else. The kale gets julienned and blanched and set aside, then she fries the shallot in olive oil, followed by the salami. Pop sets down two place settings, while Ma transforms the drippings into dressing with honey and sherry vinegar. She will find a beautiful bowl. I can almost hear the chairs sliding across the wooden floor as they sit down to eat. The forks scraping across the plates and the harvest moon hanging low in the valley.
