What am I Going to do With This Shit?

Hello. My name is Martin. I’m an addict. I buy beautiful produce in the market without any idea of what I’m going to do with it.

I suppose, on the scale of things, it beats my other addictions (which for various reasons we won’t mention, thank you Rufus Wainwright). It is, more or less, a daily thing. I go to the market, armed with my list of what I need to get and I always come home with something I hadn’t planned for: Slender spears of asparagus in season; bio-strawberries, peppers (always some types of peppers), seasonal mushrooms. And really: I have no fucking earthly idea what I’m gonna do with these things.

Fortunately, I’ve created space on my menu for my addiction. I have various “Chef’s Choice” items — a soup, a vegan main course, a non-vegan dish — each of which I cook a la minute. My guest doesn’t know what s/he is getting. And frankly, up until crunch time, neither do I. It’s the time in the kitchen I most enjoy, as if — and I don’t want to get overly spiritual here about it — the item itself is telling me what it wants to evolve into.

Sometimes that’s true, sometimes not. In this case of the gorgeous fennel bulbs pictured here, I knew fennel was looking particularly amazing this week and I wanted to try a braise, perhaps paired with? Hmm. haven’t decided that yet. Grilled fish would be great, but this is for a vegan guest, so need another direction.

I suppose — and I’m no expert on this at all — that is the healthy upside of an addiction: Accepting it and then channeling it in another direction. Of course, I may be simply delusional.