Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Healdsburg, November 3, 2009—

DINING WITH FRIENDS tonight at their home. Becky doesn't eat meat, but she sure can cook, and Paul and Chezo turned to with some help, and the source was the bible: Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Now Deborah's an old friend, so I'm hardly objective about this: she's funny, intelligent, dedicated, and disciplined; she writes a neat blog, and she's a loyal friend, like Paul and Becky. Beyond all that, I think she's one hell of a writer, and we wouldn't be without her books — even though we're hardly what you'd call vegetarians. (Nor is Deborah, for that matter.) In fact I kidded Deborah after V C for E came out: she should have left the first word out of the title.
Becky, though, is a vegetarian, and she relies on Deb's book. She showed us her copy: the pages are spotted and wrinkiled, the wrapper's gone, the inside is detaching from the binding. This is a book that's seen service.

Dinner was first-rate. We began with some almonds and delicious little toasts with cheese and sautéed little peppers, piquant and full of flavor; then we went on to a pasta with lots of, well, vegetables; tomatoes, zucchini, winter squash, eggplant, onions, all long-cooked in olive oil. It took me back to Capalbio, where years ago we lunched with six or eight other people on a couple of field-lugs of fresh vegetables slowly cooked in a couple of gallons of olive oil.

After the salad, a remarkable pear upside-down cake, also from Deborah's book, I think, and a cup of Moroccan tea — a knowing, subtle combination. Love it.

Viogner, Souverain, 2007; Sirah Syrah, Preston Vineyards, 2006