What We Eat When We Eat Alone Part 9

Betty Fussell, writer.

"Eating alone is a hard thing. It's hard to energize yourself to do it when it's just you."

Nick Ault, private eye.

There are people who go through life without a daily dining companion, those who never marry or form a partnership. Young people, just out in the world, working their first jobs or toiling on graduate degrees, frequently don't have partners other than roommates. Then there are slightly older singles who, maybe in their thirties or early forties, just haven't gotten around to finding someone to settle down with. The years after divorce but before a new marriage are a time when one returns to eating alone, and there are those years at the end of one's life when a partner is lost and one is alone again. In these cases, solo meals are not the fruit of those rare and welcomed spells when a spouse is out of town or the kids are away. This is when every night is likely to be an eat-alone night-unless something is done about it. A friend of ours, for example, made sure that after her husband died she had a reservation for herself and one of her many friends at a restaurant practically every night of the week. While people deal with these periods in their lives in very different ways, for many it is a challenge that is hard to meet. Others meet it with grace and style.

Laura Calder is a young woman who lives in Paris part of the year. She writes about food in France today, and she has a television show on French cooking in her native Canada. Cooking is a big part of her life.

"But the fact of the matter is, I don't cook much for myself," Laura writes, admitting that she is usually the queen of grilled cheese sandwiches when left in her own company. "Instead, I throw dinner parties and cook for other people. But lately I have been living in a place where you couldn't pay me to throw a dinner party, so I have found myself cooking for me.The other day I made a huge Swiss chard gratin and ate the whole thing (half for lunch, the other half for dinner). And tonight, like at least three other nights a week, I made a pan of roasted vegetables, grated over some Parmesan cheese, and gobbled them up. I change vegetable combinations all the time, just to keep life edgy: sometimes it's root vegetables (potatoes, beets), more often there are leeks involved, and lately I am obsessed with fennel and aubergine. The secret to great roasted vegetables, no matter what the combination, is to chuck in a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes. They're the ticket, because they really caramelize and get sticky and sweet and go great with whatever else you've got on the sheet."

Laura also has her favorite eat-alone sauce, blue cheese sauce. "While the pasta boils or the steak fries or whatever, you get a little saucepan, plop in a few spoonfuls of creme fraiche, then add tons of blue cheese and let it all melt together. Instant and delicious. Ugly as all h.e.l.l, however. But who's looking?"

What an appealing strategy, and how easy-quant.i.ties of vegetables, pasta, or a steak, simply cooked and then uplifted with rich blue-cheesy sauce. The sauce is also fabulous on polenta, especially if you use Gorgonzola cheese, but even if you don't, it's awfully good. Try it on steamed broccoli-you won't believe that broccoli can be so delicious.

Peggy Knickerbocker, our writer-cook friend in San Francisco, mentions some snacky solutions for some of her daily solo meals. "That is," she qualifies, "if I'm not making a green salad with seared tuna." But when she's eating a more snack-like meal, she might have popcorn with olive oil and sea salt, or, if she's on a sweet track, she'll go for frozen yogurt with angel food cake and a peach. But Peggy also tells us how she might make a farmers market salad, if she's not into snacking or searing tuna. "In this case," she says, waving her hand toward a half-dozen French bowls and fruit plates heaped with spring vegetables from the morning's trip to San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Market, "I'd make a salad of fresh shucked peas, shaved artichokes, fennel, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's so good. What else do you need?" she asks us, and we can't think of a thing, except maybe a gla.s.s of wine and a hunk of bread. Or maybe her salad is enough.

Laura and Peggy both cook for others frequently, and cook well for themselves, albeit simply, when eating alone. But more commonly, single people struggle with feeding themselves. A private eye named Nick Ault, who now works as a cop, is hardly alone in his predicament, which is having to wrestle a nasty schedule. He works three twelve-hour days in a row, followed by three days off, which creates a somewhat imbalanced schedule for cooking and eating. The days he's working, cooking is impossible.

"Those days it's hot dogs. A couple of dogs a day," Nick drawls, then shrugs and adds, "What can I do?"

But despite the dog-dog routine, Nick is pretty sophisticated about food. He's been exposed to a lot of good cooking, and he likes eating out, preferably at a restaurant's bar, where he can rustle up some conversation as well as dinner. Nick can also rustle up a steak for himself and serve it with a sliced tomato salad. But more impressive than a steak, and quite in contrast to his double-dog days, is his Bolognese sauce.

"The key to making a good Bolognese," he explains, "is taking your time with the mise en place, and enjoying the whole process. I take time to hand cut the vegetables, I get all the different kinds of ground meats the recipe requires, and I play a little opera-it adds to my enthusiasm. I use Pomi tomatoes and finish with a little cream. Then I eat off of it for several meals. I eat it on pasta or on polenta. It's really good."

When we ask Nick when he had last made his Bolognese sauce, he pauses, counts, then reveals it's probably been at least six months. Again, he shrugs. "Eating alone is a hard thing. Peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwiches with a bag of potato chips-that would be a meal. It's hard to energize yourself to do it when it's just you. So I guess I just get lazy."

It is hard for many of us to look forward to cooking a meal that's just for ourselves. It's not just laziness, but some feeling that it's not quite worth the effort when it's just for us. That we're not worth it! I hear this over and over. The hardest thing ever for me was writing cookbooks when I was unhappily single. It was so joyless to be cooking all this food, trying to really taste it, and then eat it or give it away. When people say they take the time to shop and cook well for themselves, that they don't stint when it comes to solo meals, or deny themselves good food and wine, there's something self-respectful and positive in that. But it's oddly rare. We seem to have little tolerance for such pleasures.

"I shop a lot," muses Nick's former wife, our friend and neighbor, "but I really don't cook a lot." Chase also knows a lot about cooking, having been professionally involved with food for many years. She always has a cold bottle of Tattinger in her fridge and is quick to offer a gla.s.s.

"Basically I end up making soups and stew with whatever I have," she says, "and I always have potatoes, onions, garlic, celery, and carrots on hand, so I can do that. Sometimes I plan ahead for certain vegetables, like parsnips or b.u.t.ternut squash, but no matter what, everything goes into one dish."

A universal stew. In fact, we call it Chase's Universal.

Along with the vegetables, Chase usually has ground beef on hand, and that goes in her stew, too. "If I add green pepper, that turns it into chili. Add oregano and it's suddenly a filling for tacos." She continues enumerating the little additions that push her dish in one direction or another. One time we had her stew in the form of pasta sauce, sort of a rough Bolognese, in fact. It was hearty and good. She served it with a crunchy salad of celery and olives, which she learned from an Italian friend. "But," she confesses, "I don't make that for myself alone." Instead she sticks with her one-pot meal and is happy with that.

One woman not in possession of such a simple approach to her dine-alone menu as Chase's Universal, described a three-tiered way of eating that reflects the obvious, that we're just not the same from day to day. "I always eat alone because I live alone," Lynn says, "but every night is different, depending on the day's events. The best, most desirable dinners start with an early arrival home and groceries in the fridge already. Or, time to shop. I grill a chop, make a salad, cook a favorite vegetable, or bake a potato. I'm in front of the TV in time for The Closer. In summer I watch the world outside my window. Sometimes when I'm hungry for both food and the act of cooking, I'll make something like short ribs, knowing that I'll eat very late. Those leftovers make a meal I can look forward to during the week."

For the second tier: "When I'm tired and sad, I make a fried egg sandwich with Pepperidge Farm's very thin white bread and watch reruns of Law and Order."

And the third tier: "I eat a pint of chocolate ice cream and watch whatever's on."

I once stood in Whole Foods on a Sat.u.r.day night and watched an obviously single woman order the inevitable skinless, boneless chicken breast from the butcher. It felt so sad that I immediately wanted to invite her home to eat with us instead, but of course I had no idea who she was and vice versa. Had I known her, I would have at least told her about Laura's blue cheese sauce, but that would undo the so-called virtuous bit about the breast being skinless. Curiously, despite the hundreds of times boneless, skinless chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s are glowingly described in women's magazines as the answer to the single girl's meal and weight-loss plan, not one woman we spoke with brought up this dispirited food as a culinary possibility.

Another better version, and one you can eat off of for a few meals, is the roasted bone-in chicken breast, with the skin attached. You can roast it as you would a whole bird, though in less time, then you can have half of it for dinner and carve the second half into slices for sandwiches or a salad. Being on the bone and with the skin, it has much more flavor.

And a whole roast chicken, another favorite for the constant solo diner, takes one even further. If you cook your own, you have the advantage of filling your house with good smells while it's in the oven. Peggy Markel, a good cook who mostly lives in Italy except for twice-yearly visits to her home in Colorado, says that when she's home she likes to roast a chicken, "because then I can eat it in different ways. I like it hot and moist, just when it comes out of the oven. I always eat a few bits while standing up. Then I put it on a plate with whatever else I have-roasted potatoes or salad. I eat the leftovers on a rye cracker with b.u.t.ter and a little lettuce on top." And then she makes a stock with whatever else is left and uses it to make a risotto.

The practical theme of having one big thing to eat from runs through many solutions to meal after meal alone. A pot of soup. Chase's Universal. A ton of Bolognese sauce. Then there's the "pot of something starchy" approach to solo eating, and usually it's rice. Indeed, the very blandness of rice makes it a gift. Of course it's better cooked fresh each time, but even leftovers can prove useful. My mother vigorously touts the virtues of having a pot of rice on hand at all times. "Cook two or more cups of brown (or white) rice," she suggests, "keep it covered in a bowl in the refrigerator and use it for the next two or three days. It's a wonderful backup, whether you want it with milk for breakfast, rice pudding for dessert, or as something to go with a Chinese recipe."

One of her favorite things to do with her waiting bowl of rice is to fry it up with tofu and green pepper, spinach, and perhaps a beaten egg to bind it all together. "And a dash of soy sauce," she adds. (Curiously, this is what I used to eat in college day after day, but it's nothing we ever ate as a family.) The idea of using rice to make a little rice pudding is a good one. Heat it with milk; add raisins, brown sugar, or maple syrup, and cinnamon; and you have a sweet, comforting dish that's reasonably good for you. Add a bit of b.u.t.ter, a glug of cream, or a dollop of creme fraiche and it's even better. A more exotic rice pudding can be made from basmati rice laced with honey, pistachios, and saffron. That's dinner and dessert in one. And leftover rice can also be turned into a soothing sort of congee, a savory rice porridge with bits of vegetables, tofu, or meat.

Among some of the youngish single people who really do like to cook for themselves is Maureen Callahan of the bulgur and shrimp salad. "I have a lot of single friends who hate to cook for just themselves," she says, "but not me. I love to cook and it doesn't matter if I'm the only audience. I find it relaxing to chop fresh vegetables and hang out in my kitchen, concocting a special meal for myself. I turn on some good music and I'm in heaven."

One of the things that does matter to Maureen are the ingredients she cooks with. "My sister just about pa.s.sed out at the total for my grocery bill when she went shopping with me, but I splurge on good ingredients. Cooking is fun when you're trying a new olive oil or vinegar, a new variety of heirloom vegetables. It's a voyage of discovery."

Some young people have told us that they prefer to eat out with their friends rather than cook, and Maureen did too when she lived in Boston. Looking back on her days in graduate school, she recalls, "An older friend of mine cooked at home all the time and was always turning down dinner invitations. Back then, I wanted to try all the hip new places and explore all the ethnic restaurants, so I didn't understand. Sarah was kind of a curmudgeon about dining out. If the restaurant wasn't exceptional, she didn't want to waste her money. And now I'm starting to feel the same way. I can cook a piece of fish a whole lot better than a lot of restaurants. Plus, I know exactly what's going into my meal in regards to nutrition and the environment. I like knowing where my food comes from and whom I'm supporting. I guess as I get older there's a lot more wrapped up in my cooking decisions."

A Santa Fe cook echoed Maureen's thoughts when she said that she finds restaurants are more and more disappointing. "I would rather prepare food myself, even if it does mean eating alone," says Marilyn Ferrell, who owned a Mexican restaurant for twenty years before retiring to Santa Fe. "I have been known to have my freshly made guacamole with organic blue-sesame corn chips and a drink, and that's dinner a couple of times a week," she confesses. "And since an avocado is never the same after it's opened and I must eat the whole thing, it leaves no room for anything else. But just think of all that pota.s.sium I am getting!"

But a few times a week Marilyn makes a more complete meal for herself. "A piece of broiled fish with a topping, a baked potato, and my favorite vegetables with garlic and olive oil. I make enough vegetables to last for a couple of meals. Or I make a pot of navy beans and ham, and eat standing up in the kitchen, savoring each bite."

And if Marilyn wants a particular food that she doesn't eat often, she says, "Being alone would not stop me from preparing it, even if I give away some to another solo friend. Especially when it comes to a dessert I want to make. I make it, eat some, and give it away." And it's not a bad thing to be on the receiving end of one of Marilyn's desserts.

For older people especially, being alone often suddenly involves a new way of living, a life that's rudely jarring in its unfamiliarity. We have heard from so many older people who make do with a carton of yogurt, something tossed in a microwave, or a bowl of cereal, that it's disheartening. The light just seems to go out when food is no longer about shared meals and conversation. For many of us, eating is a very social act, one that thrives on company, even that of one other person.

"Very sad things happen to older people when they lose their partners," writes Marsha Weiner, thinking of her own grandparents. "Some just can't get a grip on feeding themselves well when suddenly alone. It's just too foreign."

But that's not always the case. After Rosalind c.u.mmins talked about her own cobbled together meals that she sometimes shares with her cat, Tiny, she sighed and added, "My dad used to make a real dinner for himself every night after my mom died, and I really admired him for that. He was a fabulous cook. There were many dishes he made from memory, but he also cooked out of the New York Times pretty often. I really miss his cooking. n.o.body makes Finnan Haddie for me anymore!"

I was moved by Judith Jones's thoughts in her book, The Tenth Muse, on cooking and eating alone after Evan, her husband of so many years and partner in so many adventurous meals, died. At first she doubted that she could cook again, but then found that enacting what had been for the two of them a daily ritual was actually a way of bringing Evan back into what had been their shared life-walking into the kitchen at the end of the day, turning on music, and conjuring up an enjoyable evening meal.

"When, at last, I sit down and light the candles," she writes, "the place across from me is not empty." These words strike me as an eloquent defense of the value that comes of cooking and enjoying the pleasures of the table.

"I actually enjoy preparing my simple meals," my ninety-year-old mother says. "They must be working out well because I feel great most of the time. And I'm so glad that the nutritionists have decided that coffee is very good for you and that you should drink a lot of it, because coffee is my preferred drink."

My mother has been eating alone for a great many years except when she invites friends over to dinner, which is often. A soup enthusiast, she reminds me about a saying of her mother's, which was "two and two make five," meaning a soup can be taken a long way from what you start with. You can change it over the three or four days it's around, having it chunky one night, pureed the next, adding cream a third night, croutons and garnishes a fourth. And that's exactly what a lot of solo eaters do because when you want to eat but don't want to think about cooking, soup is that dish. It's extremely accommodating, mostly agreeing to improve with age. But then, the soup my mother turns to over and over again is not one of these mathematical soups, but a salmon chowder, which hearkens back to her Rhode Island roots.

For a year I took care of an elderly woman who was recovering from an illness. Her spotless, all-white apartment offered an expansive view of San Francis...o...b..y and the ships slowly going in and out all day long. She took her simple meals at her highly polished table, eating with silver designed by her architect husband. Every day I made her well-balanced little dishes, but what she craved every afternoon was a warm froth of egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala-Zabaglione. She claimed that it gave her strength. I can't imagine a more delicious and delicate way to gain strength, and when I'm her age, I plan to do exactly the same thing.

Certainly cooking for oneself day in and day out is very different than the occasional night at home alone if for no other reason than it endures. And not every person likes her own company at the table on an ongoing basis. Still, sustained solo eating does have its enthusiasts.

"I eat alone about two hundred nights a year," says Sylvia Thompson, who then goes on to list a far-reaching range of foods that she cooks, from elaborate pastas to all kinds of salads and vegetables, occasional soups, and frequent frittatas. "But," she writes, "there are the nights when I just have bread and cheese, eaten out of hand standing in the kitchen." Certainly there has to be a certain amount of pleasure present to be able and willing to deploy so many means of feeding oneself.

"I eat alone all the time in this my seventy-ninth year, and I love to eat alone!" says another writer, Betty Fussell. "n.o.body to please but myself."

Here's how her solo cooking and dining goes.

"I open the door of the fridge and look inside. It's always exciting, so many little things forgotten at the back of shelves. What can I put together for this improvised, unrepeatable, once-in-a-lifetime meal? Ah, there's half a lemon, here's a wrinkled poblano chile, there's a barely used container of heavy cream. With any luck there'll be a few sprigs of coriander in a plastic sandwich bag. Could use some tomatillos, but don't see any. Drat. However, I know there're some pumpkin seeds in a bag in the freezer. There's always garlic and onion in a basket on the counter. Doesn't take long to char the poblano, toast the seeds, saute the garlic, and throw everything in the blender with some chicken bouillon if the stuff is too thick. Taste and taste again for seasoning. A little Mexican oregano? Okay. I've got a dried pack in the fridge. Balance salt with lemon and black pepper. Yeah, that's coming along. Check the TV page. What's on TCM? Time the heating of my cream of poblano soup with Showtime. Take soup on tray with a nice cold Sancerre. Prop up the pillows on the bed. Click on the remote. Any night can be the Sat.u.r.day movie matinee of my childhood-except that I get to have Real Food at the same time instead of making a melting Mars bar last for an hour and a half."

Three-Minute Tuna with Salsa Verde It's got to be rare, or tuna will be dry and unappealing. The sparkly green salsa verde brightens the tuna. Set your steak on a bed of interesting greens that drift toward the peppery end of the spectrum-small red mustard leaves, watercress, land cress, arugula-and repeat the oil and lemon theme in the dressing. They do what a dab of wasabi does, which is to wake up your nose and make the delicate tuna better by contrast.

SALSA VERDE WITH LEMON AND CAPERS.

1 TUNA STEAK.

OLIVE OIL.

SALT AND PEPPER.

2 HANDFULS SPICY SALAD GREENS.

1 LEMON.

1. Make the salsa verde first. Coat the tuna on both sides with olive oil, then season well with salt and freshly ground pepper. Wash and dry your greens and have them ready to dress with olive oil and lemon.

2. Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until it feels hot when you hold your hand over it. Add olive oil to coat, then the steak. Cook for 1-12 minutes, then turn and cook 1-12 minutes on the other side. This should be enough, but look at the tuna itself from the side. When done, you should see a thin white line where the fish met the pan and a large pink area in the middle bordered by another white line.

3. During that last minute, dress your salad, tossing it with a pinch of salt, olive oil to coat lightly, and a squeeze of lemon. Put the salad on your plate, lay the tuna steak on top, and spoon the salsa verde over it.

Leftover Tuna You can use any leftovers from three-minute tuna to make a tuna salad. Flake a chunk of the tuna with your fingers, season it with a little salt, then dress it with more salsa verde, mayonnaise, or a lemon vinaigrette. Add something crisp-such as finely diced celery. Pile it on a mound of lettuce or, for a change, a bed of shaved fennel. You can also use leftover tuna to make the tuna spread.

Salsa Verde with Lemon and Capers Use a wedge of lemon instead of just the zest and juice to make a bright lemony sauce to use over seared tuna, under scallops, and in a million other places you can think of, from sandwiches to soups. A sweet Meyer lemon is ideal. If using the more acidic Eureka lemon, you might want to correct its tartness by adding a little more oil at the end.

14 CUP FINELY CHOPPED PARSLEY OR CHERVIL 2 SCALLIONS, INCLUDING A LITTLE OF THE GREEN, FINELY CHOPPED, OR ONE SHALLOT, FINELY DICED.

18 LEMON, PREFERABLY A MEYER LEMON, FINELY SLICED 2 TEASPOONS CAPERS, RINSED.

2 TO 3 TABLESPOONS EXTRA-VIRGIN OLIVE OIL.

SALT.

Combine all the ingredients except the salt in a bowl. Stir them together, add salt to taste and more olive oil to loosen the herbs, if needed.

A Farmers Market Salad More elaborate than other salads you might make from a farmers market, such as sliced tomatoes with basil, this recipe takes artichokes, new potatoes, a bulb of fennel, and a fresh farm egg and turns them into a meal. Because there's only one of you to cook for, it really doesn't take all that long, plus you can overlap the different steps. To me, these vegetables cry for tarragon, chervil, or another licorice-flavored herb.

The Vegetables 4 FINGERLING POTATOES, SCRUBBED.

SALT AND PEPPER.

4 BABY ARTICHOKES.

1 LEMON.

1 FRESH EGG.

1 SMALL FENNEL BULB.

The Lemon-Herb Dressing GRATED ZEST AND 2 TO 3 TEASPOONS JUICE OF 1 LEMON.

1 SHALLOT, FINELY DICED.

A FEW PINCHES SALT.

3 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL.

1 TEASPOON FINELY CHOPPED PARSLEY.

1 TEASPOON FINELY CHOPPED TARRAGON.

1. Put the potatoes in a pot, cover them with cold water, add 12 teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cook until tender when pierced with a knife, about 20 minutes, depending on their size. When they're done, remove them, but keep the water in the pot.

2. While the potatoes are cooking, snap off the outer leaves of the artichokes until you get to the pale green soft-looking ones. Trim the base and the stem, cut off the top third of the leaves, then slice the artichokes lengthwise in thirds. As you work, put them in a bowl of water with the lemon juice. When all are ready, place them in the potato water and boil gently until tender when pierced with a knife, 12 to 15 minutes. They should be evenly colored when done, not blotchy. Drain and set aside.

3. Put the egg in a small pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, and boil for 1 minute. Cover the pot and let stand for 6 minutes more, then drain. Rinse, then peel, the egg.

4. Make the lemon-herb dressing by combining the lemon zest and juice, shallot, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk in the oil, then add the herbs. Taste and adjust, adding more oil or lemon as needed to get the right balance.

5. To compose the salad, grate the fennel on a box grater into paper-thin slices and scatter them on a plate. Drizzle a little of the dressing over the fennel and season it with a few pinches of salt. Separately dress the artichokes and potatoes, then scatter them over the fennel. Quarter the egg and tuck the pieces in among the vegetables. Have with a good piece of bread and, perhaps, some cheese from your farmers market.

Roast Bone-In, Skin-On Chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s with Herb b.u.t.ter Both the bone and skin add flavor, and the skin provides a nifty little pocket in which you can tuck herbs, spices, and flavorings of all sorts. If you can only find a split breast, then use that. Roast some diced summer or winter vegetables at the same time; have them with the chicken.

1 WHOLE BONE-IN CHICKEN BREAST, ABOUT 1-12 POUNDS 1-12 TABLESPOONS b.u.t.tER, AT ROOM TEMPERATURE SALT AND PEPPER.

GRATED ZEST OF 1 LEMON.

2 TEASPOONS FINELY CHOPPED ROSEMARY OR SAGE.

1 GARLIC CLOVE, MINCED.

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Pat the chicken dry, then gently loosen the skin with your hands.

2. Mix the b.u.t.ter with 14 teaspoon salt, pepper, lemon zest, rosemary or sage, and garlic. Spread it under the skin and over the meat.

3. Season the whole breast well with salt and freshly ground pepper, then set the breast, skin side up, on a foil-lined sheet pan or in a baking dish. Roast for 35 minutes, or until the meat thermometer registers 160 degrees at the thickest part of the breast. Take it out of the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then carve off as much as you wish to eat. Wrap and refrigerate the rest for your next dish.

Guacamole for One Given that this guacamole, along with some blue corn chips or a warm tortilla, might be your dinner, it has more tomato than normal, making it a bit more salady.

1 HEAPING TABLESPOON FINELY DICED WHITE ONION.

2 TABLESPOONS CHOPPED CILANTRO.

1 SCANT TEASPOON FINELY DICED JALAPEnO CHILE.

SALT.

1 AVOCADO.

1 TOMATO, SEEDED AND DICED.

1 TEASPOON LIME JUICE, TO TASTE.

Chop the onion, cilantro, and chile with 14 teaspoon salt to make a rough paste. Pit, peel, and mash the avocado with a fork, keeping it chunky. Add the onion mixture and tomatoes, season with half the lime juice, then taste and add more, if needed.

Roasted Summer Vegetables Summer vegetables, including freshly dug potatoes and carrots, have more moisture than winter's roots, so chances are they'll cook much faster. Just be sure to give them lots of room so that they don't crowd each other. Here are some amounts to get you started, but they're hardly absolute and certainly varieties can be mixed-yellow, green, and black zucchini or pattypans; cipollini, torpedo, or regular old yellow onions, and so forth. There's enough here for more than one meal. Leftovers make a great room-temperature salad.

1 MEDIUM-SIZE EGGPLANT, CUT INTO WEDGES OR CUBES.