The other night I took my oldest son to Momofuku. He’d been to Momofuku Ssam before, but not the original noodle bar. I couldn’t wait for him to try the ramen. See, I said, watching with a particular kind of pleasure as he tasted the food, as the look on his face changed with each bite.

Later I realized that I’d been doing this with him for twenty years. I still clearly see his high chair, his Beatrix Potter bowl, his spoon, like a tiny rubber-coated espresso spoon, his bibs, and remember the slow, patient feedings, spoon into porridge and across and into his mouth, and the wait to see how he would react: eating it sometimes, sometimes not, wanting more or spitting it out or grabbing my hand along the way. Then came the parade of new foods. We followed the standard allergy-drill for new parents, introducing them one at a time. We bought a baby food mill and I felt so proud to take a baked sweet potato, organic of course, something I’d made, absolutely brimming with vitaminic goodness, then puree it and feed to him. He ate it. I swelled with love. Next up: carrots. Now: pork belly with hoisin sauce.

Only twenty, he’s still eating new things all the time. But what about us? How often do we try something new? Two weeks ago I had my first whelk. It was on a seafood platter at a restaurant called the John Dory, nestled in ice among impeccable oysters and littlenecks and half a lobster. It had a minerally of-the-sea flavor and a pleasant, gelatinous texture. Tasty, but I ate it gingerly, chasing this foreign thing in my mouth with a piece of Parker House roll. I probably won’t be looking for whelks on my next trip to the fish market.

But then consider the case of something like collards. Collard greens are hardly new or exotic. I’ve had them over the years in restaurants, always with ribs, and where they were always dank and kind of greasy. So though I cook for a family that loves greens, down to an eleven-year-old who barely tolerates other vegetables, I’ve never given them a chance. They turn up in the CSA share, big, coarse, rubbery grey-green leaves banded together, and somehow I always forget to use them.

It’s not a matter of preference, not a white meat vs. dark meat thing. It’s not being picky. It’s not Eww, a whelk?! It’s a prejudice, really. It’s about stereotyping an ingredient, seeing it one way, and one way only, and never bothering to take a real look. So it might as well be new. And there’s the hidden upside—a kind of second chance, the opportunity to try something “new” and experience the flush of discovering that it is delicious. Very delicious.

I made them on a snowy Saturday afternoon to go with a dish of ginger-scallion noodles. Look for leaves that are vibrant, green, without yellowing or brown spots. Wash thoroughly, then cut out the tough center rib and they’re ready. I rolled the leaves and sliced them into wide ribbons, then steam-sauteed them with ginger, garlic, dried hot peppers, and a dash of soy sauce, making sure to let them overcook to get that delicious dry sear where greens begin to stick to the cast iron pan.

I invited my oldest son to join me for lunch. The two of us sat down with chopsticks. It was his first real taste of collards. Mine too.

We eat with our eyes first, the saying goes. But of course we also shop with our eyes. We reach for the vibrant orange bunch carrots, the satsuma with its glossy dark leaves attached, the exotic green zebra-striped tomatoes. Lately, as I’ve been photographing ingredients as well as cooking them, the beauty in food has become both more interesting, and, interestingly, more abundant.

If beauty is not on the surface, it may be on the inside. If not the fruit, them perhaps the stem, or the seed. Certain ingredients are born homely; think russet potato or the featureless jicama. At a glance fresh turmeric looks like a cat turd. The industrialization of agriculture hasn’t helped, either, with its drive to standardize, which results in a uniform blandness. But back to that potato: it may not be conventionally handsome, but in the right light is full of dignity. Up close, fresh turmeric has a fascinating pattern of scales, and just under the peel, its signature saffron tint.

But radicchio, member of the chicory family, is a star, beautiful both in front of the camera and on the table, particularly Treviso and some of the imported varieties. The leaf colors are deep and saturated, the ribs and veins pure white and sharply delineated. Slice a little head of radicchio in half and the moist colors swirl like the marbled endpapers of a Moroccan bound book. (Stealing a simile from an old Saveur—too perfect a description.)

And, perhaps a surprise, it is as versatile as it is beautiful. Radicchios add color and contrast to salads; a favorite is tricolore, balancing sharp red radicchio, crunchy white Belgian endive, and peppery green wild arugula, preferably tossed in a shallot-infused sherry vinaigrette. Radicchios hold up well when cooked. They are wonderful grilled or roasted, succulent and slightly bitter-sweet, packing a lot of vegetable essence into each bite, which is so welcome in winter, radicchio’s season. They’re also great in risotto and pasta.

Whether because of its sexy Italian provenance (though most of our radicchio is now grown in California) or use as a sturdy red leaf in ubiquitous bagged “mesclun” mix, radicchio has become popular in the U.S. despite its bitterness, a taste we usually don’t like. What we generically call radicchio in the supermarket is rosa di Chioggia. It looks like a baby purple cabbage; heads should be firm and heavy for their size without any blemishes. Also available in good markets is Treviso, tapered like Belgian endive though larger, and with a deep wine color. In wintertime, other radicchios arrive from Italy, including the delicate, pale, speckled Castelfranco, pretty as a tousled rose, or Tardive, with its eerily curled leaves. Both have a more tender, sweeter profile. The names of these and other Italian varieties come from towns in the Veneto where, in the 1860s, modern radicchio came into being through the efforts of a Belgian agronomist.

Radicchio Risotto

Here’s an easy and soulful dish for a weekend lunch or light supper for two. The ingredients are basic, and you probably already have most of them: one large head of radicchio, cut into quarters, cored, and sliced lengthwise into ribbons; half an onion, finely chopped; one cup short grain Italian rice like Carnaroli, Nano Vialone, or Arborio; a few tablespoons of olive oil, quarter-cup of white wine or white vermouth, 2 TB butter, 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, and optional tablespoon of brandy. Notice there’s no broth—you could use it, but this is delicious with just water.

Here are the steps: bring eight to ten cups of lightly salted water to the boil (it should taste seasoned, but not salty). Meanwhile, in a four-quart or larger sauce pan with deep sides, heat the olive oil over medium-low until it simmers and add the chopped onion, season with salt, and cook slowly for ten minutes until the onion is softened but not browned. Turn up the heat to medium-high, add radicchio, stirring, then once the radicchio is wilted add the rice, stirring to toast the individual grains in the oil (add more olive oil if needed). Next come the liquids: turn heat to high, add the 1/4 cup white wine or vermouth and cook, stirring, until evaporated, then add 1 cup of the boiling water and cook, stirring, until the water is almost evaporated, and repeat for the next ten minutes. As the rice cooks, releasing its starch, the dish will start to look soupy and the radicchio will stain the rice maroon. Test the rice; it should start to soften. Continue cooking and stirring, now adding 1/2 cup of water at a time, until the rice is cooked but still a little al dente.

Finish by adding the cheese, butter, and optional brandy, and stir furiously as everything begins to fuse. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately in bowls, garnished with parsley and more grated cheese as desired. Enjoy at a table by a window, preferably with snow falling, or in front of the fire. If it’s lunch, have a glass of wine—you’ll feel like you’re on vacation.

We had Thanksgiving this year with friends, a lovely shared meal, and as we were packing up to leave I asked our host if he had any plans for the turkey carcass. It was a big one, originally an eighteen-pounder, most of the meat already carved off, and I had the feeling that it, like millions of other turkey carcasses that day in America, was heading for the trash. Like the ham bone in a ham and the fish bones in a fish, wasn’t its function primarily structural, with a little bit of flavor enhancement thrown in? But ham bones give split pea soup real guts, and a clever new trend in restaurants is to fillet your little fish at the table, whisk the skeleton away to the kitchen where it is deep-fried, and then return it as a crispy crackling delicacy, like an offering to a gourmet cat.

For years I also chucked the turkey carcass, but never without hearing the voice of a colleague of many years ago who said that it was the best part of Thanksgiving leftovers. She said made stock out of those already roasted bones and used it for pumpkin risotto. The fact that she’d previously worked in Saveur’s test kitchen gave her credibility, but it was the way she punctuated the word risotto with a sexy lipsmacking sound that made me remember it.

There is, I think, or should be, a leftover spectrum. On the one end there are those who, call them Alphas, waste nothing, whittling away at the meal, day after day, until not a scrap is left. On the other hand there are the Omegas, who start scraping the plates into the garbage while still chewing last mouthfuls. Most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle, dutifully saving what looks savable; eating a percentage of it, maybe; and using the refrigerator as a holding station to “cure” the food and assuage our guilty consciences.

I think Alphas are born, not made. But I also think it’s possible to move closer to their end of the spectrum by consciously channeling the basic motives that make us cooks in the first place, whether it’s simple need, love for the process, the belief that homemade is better, the creativity and escape the kitchen offers, or just the old-fashioned virtues of economy, thrift, and DIY.

Which brings me back to that Thanksgiving turkey. This was the year. I asked, our host offered, so we went home with the carcass wrapped in tin foil, which seemed to tear at every sharp point. I put it in the refrigerator in the basement, promising myself not to leave it there until it was too old to use.

Grillers will tell you, rightly so, that there’s no more elemental act of cooking than meat over fire. But boiling bones has to come in second. It’s a different kind of primitive alchemy, slower, subtler. Grilling takes the edible and makes it delicious. Boiling bones takes the inedible, and coaxes out of it a new life of nourishment.

It’s a cold weather activity, perfect for this season of big meals, with its big birds and big roasts. And it hardly needs a recipe. What I did was hack the carcass into a more manageable form, so that it would fit in a roasting pan; roast it in a 350 degree oven for about twenty minutes, just to give it an extra browning; and then jam the pieces into a stock pot, bones, flaps of skin, cartilage and all, cover it with water, bring it to a boil, skim, and then simmer for between an hour and two hours. Every recipe will advise you to chill the just-cooked stock in an ice bath before refrigerating. I did: I strained it into a bowl that was nested in a larger bowl with ice and ice water. Then the next day I skimmed the layer of fat from the surface, tasted, seasoned, and froze the broth, measured as cups and quarts, in ziplock bags. It’s our own private stash of burnished liquid gold, filled with flavor and body. Our own act of Alpha-like waste-not.

And now, that turkey can truly rest in peace.

We started Sharing the Table—dinner parties for charity—at the end of last winter as a way to explore ingredients, cook for old and new friends, and do it all for a good cause: everyone who comes makes a donation to a food charity. This past weekend saw the seventh and last of our dinners for 2011. As so often happens before any big party, there came that moment when we were completely in the thick of last-minute cooking and cleaning, and took one look at each other and said, Why? But somehow all the dinners proved exactly why. There’s the money raised: over $1200 for Montclair’s Human Needs Food Pantry. But something else—the fellowship, the conversations, the jokes, the dancing (yes, one night), the “sharing the table.” This Saturday was no exception. Eight guests came, few of whom we knew and none of whom we’d ever socialized with before; the whole dinner was booked by a friend’s in-law who neither of us had met. But by the time dinner broke up, around 1:00 in the morning, we felt as if we’d found a whole new group of friends.

The week before, we’d received our end-of-the-season stock-up share from our CSA, around 25 pounds of late fall vegetables, plus a similar size share of fruit from Tree-licious. It inspired the menu:

Spicy Cheddar Cheese Crackers • Marinated Green Olives • Marcona Almonds • Tears of the Prophet Cocktail

Roasted Beet Salad with Red Onions and Orange Slices

Short Rib Ragu with Roasted Fall Vegetables over Baked Polenta

Fresh Ginger Cake with Cognac Ice Cream and Apple and Pear Compote

Dr. Henderson’s Remedy

The main course was meant to be straight short ribs, but the ribs themselves were of such varied sizes, and so fall-off-the-bone tender, that an improvised ragu seemed the better choice. And for the fourth or fifth time we made a dessert that incorporated an ice cream from a favorite among this year’s cookbooks, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home.

There’s a link on the toolbar to Sharing the Table with entries about the previous dinners. The original idea was to start and maintain a separate blog within The Ingredients. Well, it’s difficult enough to keep up with The Ingredients…and as a knowledgeable guest said the other night, the average blog in this country has an average readership of one. Imagine that. So I thought perhaps it wasn’t wise to split my audience. There are also more photos of Saturday’s dinner here.

We’ll be announcing the next round of Sharing the Table at the beginning of January. If you’d like to join our email list, please get in touch via the contact link above.

Author and mother in a photo booth, in the mid 1950s.

Cervantes famously said: “Hunger is the best sauce.” So often what we bring to a meal, emotionally, physically, how we respond to the surroundings, is more important than what’s on the plate, as anyone who’s ever eaten cheese and apples during a fall hike knows. It’s why we love certain restaurants in spite of the food. It’s probably why some kids dislike eating at their friends’ houses.

The first Thanksgiving after my mother died was one of those meals. She died just a few days before Thanksgiving. It was like the keystone being pulled out of an arch, and like lost stones her three survivors—husband, sister, child— crashed and tumbled and just kept rolling. We were distraught, anxious, melancholy, giddy. We were like people on speed, who couldn’t stop talking and who couldn’t sleep. We felt exotic and strangely exhilarated, like travelers on a mysterious voyage, passing through a familiar world that no longer meant very much.

Edith Scott helped bring us back to earth. Edith was my aunt’s best friend, a tall, smart, blustery widow. She had money. Her bracelets jangled when she moved and she talked and laughed with a hoarse smoker’s voice. She loved my aunt, and us by extension, and decided the right thing was to make us Thanksgiving. It didn’t matter that she’d planned to spend the holiday with her grown children in Colorado, or that she’d just moved into a new house outside of town literally a week before. It was her gift to us.

I remember driving my father that afternoon, getting lost looking for Edith’s new house along empty country roads, the light already beginning to fail. It was still mostly farms then, fields covered in the stubble of corn stalks, the few village crossroads, with their gas station and grocery store and one tavern, shut down for the holiday. Hard to understand what she was doing out there. But then we found it, a large contemporary house standing alone in a bare field. We knew it because my aunt’s car was in the driveway. We stepped out of the car into that grey November stillness and went up the long gravel walk.

But when the door opened there was light and music and the smell of cooking. There was Edith, dressed up in an ivory silk blouse and flowing slacks, full of hugs and consolations. My aunt, beautiful again in makeup, already a little tipsy. And there was Shirley, Edith’s housekeeper who left her own family’s Thanksgiving to help make ours, stepping out from the kitchen to say hello in her apron and Keds. A blender was going, making creamy sweet drinks for the women, and Edith already had a scotch and soda in her hand for my father. It was the first time she’d seen us since my mother’s death and we stood for a few overwhelming moments in the hallway until my father burst into tears. Edith took him by the shoulders and, just as quickly, his moment of despair passed.

The thing about our family Thanksgivings was that my mother never made it the way other people did. She never cooked a turkey, or the usual array of side dishes. We never had pumpkin pie. That was all too pedestrian. And that was my mother. Where other people had cats, she had Siamese cats, and the rarer breeds too, chocolate points and blues. Where other families spent a week at the shore, she convinced my aunt, who married a savvy businessman, to fund trips to the Caribbean. She drove unpredictable foreign sports cars, MGs and Kharmann Ghias. Listened to Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald. She slept late in the morning, spent hours getting ready for the day, much of it on the phone with her sister. She redecorated continuously, learning to hang wallpaper and reupholster furniture. And once she started getting sick—she had significant cancers three times in her life—she had us move from house to house, sometimes as owners, sometimes as renters, always looking for something better. All my friends assumed that we were rich. What we were was in debt. But what a feeling of privilege to be inside the spell that my mother wove of her short, restless life. Our meals reflected it as well. She loved to cook, and so used Thanksgiving, like all our holidays, as an excuse to turn to her inspiration, Craig Claiborne, and prepare gourmet dishes like Beef Bourguignon and Paella and Chicken Cacciatore, Prime Rib and Fondue. The closest we came to traditional Thanksgiving flavor was a tart bready cranberry stuffing that she served with roast pork.

Yet here we were, in a generic ranch house that still smelled of cement and lumber, the furnishings haphazardly arrayed, wall-to-wall carpet with its factory sheen, about to sit down to an all-American, decidedly pedestrian meal. It was the real thing: roast turkey, Pennsylvania Dutch mashed potato stuffing, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, creamed corn, jellied cranberry sauce in a can, gravy, the works.

And god, it was delicious. After helping bring everything to the table Shirley left and the four of us sat down and ate, and some of us ate more than we had in weeks. I discovered the intense pleasure of a turkey drumstick. The heavenly matrix of savory and sweet, that spot on the plate where stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn and cranberry sauce all merge. The harmonizing principle of real gravy. My aunt, at just five feet, was pound for pound the heartiest eater I’ve ever known, and always joked that we were a family of trencherman. Truth is we were, and for that night, at least, we were back.

After dinner, the memories fade. Edith’s boyfriend, Matthew, came over for dessert. Someone put on the TV for my father. There was pie. More cigarettes, more wine, a lot of laughter. Then it was time to go. Edith, who was leaving for Boulder the next morning, wrapped all the leftovers, pressed them into my hands. A parting gift.

The next morning I was returning to New York. The sad strange hiatus was over. So was my childhood. Before I left I bought a bag of soft seeded rolls from the local bakery and slapped together a few turkey sandwiches for the road. I remember eating them on the turnpike. They were just a little dry.

Portrait of the author as an extremely young man, with, from left to right, his mother, father, and aunt.

It’s such a treat to find fruit growing in the wild. Blueberries on the banks of a pond in the Berkshires. Raspberries and blackberries, glowing like jewels in the bramble. And grapes, especially grapes, with their dangling clusters of purple and green-gold fruit. It’s a primal pleasure, the fruit so colorful, the urge to pick and eat it older than our oldest ancestor.

When the Vikings sailed across the north Atlantic a thousand years ago they named the land they discovered Vineland, after the profusion of wild grapes growing there. Those vines belonged to our native species, Vitus lambrusca. You can still find them, fox grapes, entangled with other trees and plants or half-fallen fences, growing at the edge between woods and fields. We had the experience a few years ago of apple-picking in the Catskills, weaving our way through the orchard rows that laddered up the side of a mountain, dutifully filling our wagon but most excited about the hot cider donuts waiting at the check out, when I discovered a cache of ripe wild grapes on the other side of a stone wall. Such a clear memory: their mouth-puckering sweet-sour taste, the sticky juice, chewy skin and intensely tannic seeds; and the yellow jackets gorging drunkenly on rotting berries that had dropped to the ground.

The most famous V. lambrusca cultivar is the Concord, developed in the mid-1800s by a New Englander who named it after the town in Massachusetts where he had his farm. It’s the grape whose candy-like flavor is etched into the sense memories of generations of American kids. It’s the taste of grape juice and grape jelly, grape candy and grape bubblegum. And for some, the first taste of communion, thanks to a Dr. Thomas Welch (yes, that Welch) who figured out that pasteurizing Concord grape juice would prevent it from fermenting, making it an acceptable non-alcoholic choice for his church’s sacrament.

Concord grapes are grown by the ton to fill PB&Js and juice boxes, but are rarely served as table grapes. The slipskin is nice; the pulpy fruit just pops out. But those damned seeds. Still, it’s worth trying them while they’re still in local markets. Not unlike a pomegranate, Concord grapes take a little work but are fun to eat. And if you also happen to be in the mood for a rewarding cooking project, bake this classic Italian harvest focaccia. Made with our native grapes, it’s full of intriguing spicy-sweetness.

Schiacciata con L’uva

This is a recipe adapted from David Tanis. The dough is almost no-knead, relying on an overnight rise for its deep flavor and chew. Pour 1/2 cup warm water in a mixing bowl and add a TB of active dry yeast and 3 TB flour. Stir and allow to come to a bubble, about five minutes. Next add another cup of water, 3 cups of all-purpose flour minus the 3 TB already used, 2 tsp fine sea salt, and a 1/2 cup olive oil. Stir until the mixture comes together in a rough, sticky mass, knead in the bowl for a minute or two, then turn out onto a table of work surface and knead for another minute. Oil a bowl and turn the dough into it, cover the bowl and put in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, pat the dough onto a well-oiled 10 x 15 inch baking sheet, and allow to rise again in a warm place for about an hour, covered with plastic wrap. Pre-heat oven to 400. Then prepare the topping, which basically consists of seeding a few cups of Concord grapes—there’s no easy way to do this, though I found slitting the grape with a paring knife helps get things started more quickly. An essential addition is fresh rosemary, and pine nuts and caramelized red onions are also good. Just before the focaccia is ready to bake, poke the grapes into the dough, evenly cover with the rosemary, and pine nuts or onions if using, and sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the focaccia is brown on top and the scents of warm grape and rosemary waft through the kitchen.

Yes, the Concord grape, all grown up. Serve this anytime, warm or at room temperature, with coffee in the morning, or as a snack, or, best, with a glass of real grape juice—i.e., wine—before dinner.

Frederick Franck was a Dutch artist and author who wrote dozens of books about drawing, seeing, Zen, all subjects that interest me. He was also a dental surgeon who worked for a time with Albert Schweitzer in Africa; he was ever guided, like Schweitzer, by a deep reverence for life.

This morning I came across this quote from one of his books, Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing: 

When I draw a tree I am faced with a mystery. I must enter into this mystery or fail. Whatever I draw confronts me with the mystery of Being.

I don’t know how Franck felt about food, but I thought it would be interesting to substitute “cook” for “draw,” and, say, “egg” for “tree.” As in:

When I cook an egg I am faced with a mystery. I must enter into this mystery or fail. Whatever I cook confronts me with the mystery of Being.

The fact is, it’s so easy to cook on autopilot, especially something as ordinary as an egg. It’s a bit of a paradox. Like any other art or skill, successful cooking depends on repetition. But then how do you find awareness in the midst of routine—and avoid a mediocre egg? To take it one step more Zen, how do you enter into the mystery of your ingredient—your egg?

One way is to slow down, focus, and savor the moment. Another is to shake things up. A few years ago I read a comment by the British chef, Marco Pierre White, about scrambling eggs. It inspired a new way, for me, of thinking about cooking eggs. No more mixing them in a separate bowl, stirring in a splash of milk or cream or water. Instead, combine everything into one flowing act.

Scrambled Eggs a la Marco Pierre White

So simple the word recipe doesn’t belong: Warm a cast iron pan over low heat, add a tablespoon or two of sweet butter, crack two eggs directly into the pan, and slowly, very slowly, whisk yolk and white together, never taking your eyes off the eggs, until they reach a creamy perfection. Only then, season with salt and pepper. Here’s all you need:

What is the sound of two eggs scrambling? Something to savor, in the cooking as well as the eating.

Not every food we eat gets “improved.” The quince, available in the market for a few brief weeks in October, draws a line directly back to the moment Paris offered the golden apple of the Hesperides to Aphrodite, sealing Troy’s fate; this golden apple was, in all likelihood, a quince.

It’s a golden or greenish-golden fruit, pear-shaped or round, covered in soft, grey down and, when cut, fragrant of its first cousins, the apple and pear, but with an added perfume of pineapple or something else tropical. Unfortunately, it’s also a fruit impossible to eat raw, at least the varieties available here. It’s hard, bitter, and mouth-puckeringly astringent. Cooked, however, and it is delicious.

Love, fertility, marriage, these were its realm. The quince appears, translated as apple, in the Song of Solomon. Ancient Athenians tossed quinces into passing bridal chariots, much as we shower the just-married with handfuls of rice. It thrived for thousands of years, through Rome, the Middle Ages, Renaissance England, across to America. It was an offering, in the form of the French paste, cotignac, to Joan of Arc as she lifted the siege of Orleans; a requested import by members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Then somehow we lost our taste for it. So many other fruits have surpassed the quince, especially its close cousin, the apple, progressively cultivated to be sweeter and sweeter. The major commercial use of quince today is as rootstock for pears; it helps keep the pear tree at a pickable height.

But quince does make marvelous jam—the word marmalade comes from marmelo, the Portuguese word for quince—and a delicious paste
(membrillo in Spanish, cotignac in French, cotognatain Italian). Try it with a sharp sheep’s cheese. And quince slices, cooked in syrup until they turn a pretty pink, marry beautifully with apples in an apple pie. In Persian and Turkish and other cuisines, quince is paired with meats like mutton, the fruity sourness a foil for the fat. But no need to get so exotic to enjoy the quince. Instead, pick up a half dozen and delight yourself with making an almost foolproof jam. Or enjoy quince as is, not to eat, but as decoration, piled in a bowl, their perfume subtly filling the room.

Quince Marmalade

Not only delicious in its own right, but the perfect place to start if you’ve never made jam. Scrub, peel, and quarter half a dozen quinces. Core the wedges, reserving the cores and wrapping them in cheesecloth. Then cut the quarters into three or four thin slices. In a medium size, heavy-bottomed pot, add six cups of sugar—or one cup per medium fruit used—and four cups of water, and heat slowly until the sugar dissolves. Add the quince slices and the cheesecloth with the cores, and simmer, stirring occasionally, for up to 45 minutes, or until the slices are tender and pink. (You can stop here and allow the fruit to cool in own syrup, and serve over ice cream or with thick Greek yogurt.)

To continue with the marmalade, remove excess syrup, leaving the fruit just covered in liquid, then cook over medium-high heat, stirring, for about 30 minutes, until the quince slices are very soft and most of the syrup has boiled away. Mash until the fruit is chunky, then check: if the fruit seems too thick, add a bit more syrup, if too thin, boil for a few more minutes. But know that the jam will thicken when cooled—and that it will be delicious either way and you’ll have made marmalade! Ladle into clean jars and store in the refrigerator.

I still remember a mystifying conversation with a friend, a boy maybe eight or nine and one of the middle children of a large Catholic family, about his not being allowed to eat a hot dog on a Friday, and what would happen to him if he did. And remember equally mystifying Friday lunch menus, like fishcakes and spaghetti. In the same way that Christmas and Easter were part of the fabric of our public school, so was “fish on Friday.”

Which may be why we so often default to linguine with clam sauce when nothing else is doing on a Friday night, and all you want, after a long week, is to sip a cocktail while whipping up something quick, tasty, a little different and a little—just a little—decadent. Save the fancy stuff for Saturday. Friday is for collapsing, and there’s nothing like pasta for pure comfort.

Pound for pound, littlenecks offer a lot more clam than cockles. But cockles bring a special briny sweetness to the sauce, and isn’t it about the sauce?

Traditionally, a cockle is a heart-shaped bivalve, eaten raw or cooked—and sold on the street corner of Dublin’s fair city by Molly Malone, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh.” But the cockle most commonly available at our seafood counters is a smallish, ridged member of a different family, from New Zealand. It has a green tinge on the outside shell, purple within, and holds a tiny prize: a sweet and succulent morsel of a meat no bigger than your thumbnail.

Though not traditional, in the Italian sense, and certainly forbidden if you abstain from fish on Friday, cockles, like all clams, marry well with pork, particularly pork fat. We use pancetta. Treat cockles as you would any other shellfish: buy from a source that you trust. If choosing yourself, look for cockles that are tightly closed. Whisk home, preferably kept in a cool bag. Store loosely covered in the refrigerator, over ice if keeping for more than a day (though do not put directly on ice; use a towel or something else between the cockles and the ice). Scrub scrupulously. And toss any open shells that don’t close when rapped or knocked together.

Linguine with Cockles

Here’s a pretty basic recipe, serving two to four depending on appetite. The ingredients: two pounds fresh cockles; one pound lingine fini; 4-6 cloves garlic (or more); 1/4 pound pancetta; 4 TB extra virgin olive oil; crushed red pepper; a few ounces of white wine; salt and pepper to taste. The steps: Bring a large pot of water to the boil, and salt generously. In the meantime, scrub the cockles well, discarding those that are open and won’t close. Mince the garlic. Slice the pancetta into 1/4-inch batons (I use less than the 1/4 pound). Mince the parlsey. Now that everything is prepped, heat 1 TB of the olive oil in a deep 14 inch skillet that has a lid, and saute the pancetta until browned. Remove pancetta, discard some of the rendered fat, to taste, then—timed for when the pasta water comes to a boil— add rest of olive oil to pan and, when hot, add garlic. Start to cook the garlic and add up to a TB of crushed pepper, and toss in a 1/4 cup of white wine or white vermouth. Reduce wine a bit, then you’re ready: Put up to the full pound of pasta into the boiling water, then add clams to the pan, raise the heat, put on the lid, and cook the clams, shaking the pan occasionally, while the pasta cooks. The clams and pasta should finish almost simultaneously—the pasta al dente, the clams uniformly opened. Drain pasta, and add to the pan of clams, water still clinging to the noodles. Toss in minced parsley and reserved pancetta, stir, and check for seasoning. Serve immediately. Don’t forget an empty bowl for the shells.

Take a good look:

Not too scary, right? Kind of cute even. And packed with molybdenum! Who knew?

Or maybe you still secretly believe that lima beans are a crime against childhood, and reflexively want to brush them off your plate into the waiting napkin on your lap. If so, there’s still time to reconsider, with fresh beans still in the market:

One interesting fact: lima beans really are named after Lima, Peru. Archeology places them as far back as 7,000 years. They migrated north through Mexico and the Caribbean, and slave traders spread them further to tropical Africa and ultimately Asia, where they’ve become a staple. Some wild and tropical varieties are known to release toxic levels of cyanide when the pod is ruptured, which is destroyed by cooking. This has been bred out of commercial varieties, but still, no reason to eat them raw.

Fresh limas—smaller “baby lima beans” and larger, tastier Fordhooks—show up in farmer’s markets in the summer through the fall, ready to marry with the season’s corn in classic succotash (substitute limas for the edamame in the recipe). Look for curved, tight pods with a bright green color. Once shelled, the beans should be plump with a smooth green or greenish skin, and have a creamy, vegetal goodness. Goodness, indeed: lima beans are a high-protein, high-fiber, low GI carb. In other words, eat ‘em to your heart’s content.

Fresh Corn & Lima Bean Chowder

We made this with our last batch—kind of winging it, but very tasty. Ingredients: 4-6 ears of corn; 1 qt fresh lima beans; half-dozen boiling potatoes; 1/4 pound bacon, optional; half a large onion; half a large red pepper; sprig or two fresh thyme; milk and/or heavy cream; butter; salt and pepper. Step 1: prep everything, shucking the corn then scraping the kernels off the cob, shelling the beans, cutting the potatoes into small cubes, dicing the onion and red pepper, cutting the bacon into half-inch pieces if using. Step 2: place corn cobs in 3 cups of water, bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium, add the beans, and cook until crisp-tender, about 15 minutes (check after five, as bean cooking time will vary), then strain, saving both the beans and reserving the cooking liquid . Step 3: slowly cook the bacon in a large saucepan until browned, discard most but not all the fat and reserve bacon, or skip and go to: Step 4: melt a knob of butter in the same pan, add onion and cook until starting to soften, then add red pepper and cook until both onion and pepper are soft, then add the corn cooking liquid, thyme, and the potatoes, bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender. If you have an immersion blender, remove thyme sprigs then give the soup a few spins to half-puree the vegetables and thicken the soup. Step 5: add corn and a cup or so of milk to the soup, simmer until the corn is crisp-tender, then add the beans, the bacon if using, half a cup or more of cream, and season generously with salt and pepper, heat through and serve. Optional: Garnish with a chiffonade of fresh basil. Sweet and chunky.