comfort food

it is feeling like the start of autumn. today was a bit rainy and definitely cooler: a perfect day for reading my book and writing my favourite parts in my journal. my eyes popped when i read this ... i laughed and laughed, cos our family is "the very same" (obscure movie line), minus the scuppernongs and pecans:

We poured so much energy into the kitchen because a dominant gene in my family is the cooking gene. No matter what occasion, what crisis, the women I grew up among could flat out hold forth in the kitchen from delicate timbales and pressed chicken to steaming cauldrons of Brunswick stew. In summer, my mother and our cook, Willie Bell, went into marathons of putting up tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, stirring vats of scuppernongs for jelly. By early December they had made brandied cakes and shelled mountains of pecans for roasting. Never was our kitchen without tins of brownies and icebox cookies...
At one meal we already were talking about the next.

and i've discovered a recipe here for delish caramelised onions on bruschetta, which i have been searching for ever since nik made it for one of our get-togethers a few months ago (and while copying it down i have been practising saying "brouss-kettah" properly). so simple.

Red Peppers (or Onions) Melted With Balsamic Vinegar:

Seed and slice 4 peppers thinly and cook slowly in a little olive oil and a quarter of a cup of balsamic vinegar until very soft, about an hour. Stir occasionally; peppers should almost "melt". Season with salt and pepper. Add oil and balsamic vinegar once or twice if they look dry. Run under the grill about 25 rounds of bread sprinkled with olive oil. Rub a clove of garlic over each piece. Spoon peppers onto bread and serve warm. Try the same method with thinly sliced onions, adding a teaspoon of brown sugar to the balsamic and letting the onions slowly caramelise. Both versions of this are rich accompaniments for roast chicken. Leftovers are good on pasta or polenta with cheese- or grilled eggplant, very savoury sandwiches can be made quickly.

buono appetito.