Sesame Possum

sesame art courtesy of the obsessive, amazing Philip Brooker

I remember a time when I was a little girl, riding in the car somewhere with my parents. The car, I believe, was a Dodge Dart, and it seemed to go on for a city block, This was before the days of confining car seats and I was in my own vast world of the back seat while my hip, progressive parents sat in front, discussing someone. They described this person as obsessive-compulsive, which my little girl ear and brain translated as sesame possum.

I had seen this creature and I adored it. We used to have a plethora of possums in South Florida before they became road kill and I admired how they hung from trees by their tails, like ripe fruit. Their short, bristly fur could look as though composed of sesame seeds, and they have those sharp, seed-like teeth, which somehow never scared me. All I wanted to do was get to this sesame possum and play with it.

I popped up behind my parents. “Where?” I asked. “Where is the sesame possum?”

My parents laughed and from the front seat, one-armed hugged me for being the cute and clever kid I was. I’d say they affectionately mussed my hair, but it was Beatle-short in those days (why, Mom, why?) and unmussable.

In any case, the term became part of our family argot. Anyone stuck in some crazed brain loop, anyone fixated, anyone who’s your classic type A -- we call him a sesame possum.

I have a tendency towards being one myself, alas. I noodle, I stew (ah, two cooking terms, no wonder I write about food -- it sublimates my crazies). It isn't that I want to be obsessive. It's that I'm very, very good at it. And I’m an equal opportunity obsessor -- I can obsess over the state of the world or the health of a friend or what I’m going to make for dinner. In fact, I’d been noodling and stewing about how to create this very sesame possum blogpost, wondering how to frame it. Could I get away with a “Sesame Mucho” pun? No, no, no. What sesamesque recipe should I create for it? Maybe I’d make halvah. Does anyone like halvah but me? I could do an Asian sesame something or other. I fretted, I noodled, I stewed. Because, really, obsession is never done, and indeed, I could have gone on for a long time.

Literature came to the rescue, not for the first time.

I interviewed Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk in conjunction with his appearance at Miami Book Fair International. His new book The Museum of Innocence is narrated by Kemal, in love with Fusun, and when their affair goes south, he creates a museum of artifacts of their lost love. He collects her stray earrings, empty cologne bottles, her 4,213 cigarette stubs.

“I may not have ‘won’ the woman I loved so obsessively,” says Kemal, “but it cheered me to have broken off a piece of her, however small.”

I asked Pamuk in what ways he might be as obsessive as Kemal. A semi-playful softball question, I thought, assuming he’d go for a parallel between love and literature. Never assume.

“It’s not obsession,” he insisted. “It’s normal.”

Part of me thought, oh, really, Mr. Pamuk, because here in America, we call anyone who moons after someone for eight years, as Kemal does, obsessed, if not a bit of a stalker weirdo. And part of me felt accepted, absolved, relieved, grateful. Call it obsession, call it love, call it, as Pamuk does, normal, “It happens to so many people.”

So, what the hell, a little obsession isn’t so bad, it’s just the dark side of passion, and we need that. I do, anyway. I’d rather be passionate than perfect. Most of us would. For more on that, stay tuned for my next post, Weird Science, which features another author and (yay) another cooking metaphor. In the meantime, here’s

Obsessive Turkish Noodle Stew With Sesame

Sometimes obsession pays off, as with this recipe -- a 21st century version of guvech, a classic Turkish stew, an homage of sorts to Mr. Pamuk. You can bake this for an hour in a covered casserole. You can also throw everything in a generous soup pot, clap the lid on it and cook it over high-ish heat atop the stove for 25 minutes and be done with it. Both ways work. No need to obsess about it.

8 ounces noodles (whole grain fusilli holds the sauce rather nicely)

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 zucchini

1 onion

8 ounces mushrooms

2 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes (or 3 to 4 really gorgeous ripe tomatoes)

1/4 cup red wine or vegetable broth

1 handful fresh mint leaves

juice of 2 lemons

2 tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons harissa (Moroccan red pepper paste)*

1/4 cup sesame seeds

sea salt and ground pepper

To bake:

Preheat oven to 400.

Pour pasta into a large casserole. Slice zucchini, onion and mushrooms, and scatter on top. Drizzle olive oil over all. Top with mint leaves.

In a large bowl, stir together together tomatoes, wine or broth, lemon juice, tahini and harissa. Pour over noodles and vegetables. Cover with lid and bake for one hour.

Toast sesame seeds in oven (same temperature as guvech) for 4 minutes, or until just golden. Scatter sesame seeds over casserole, season with salt and pepper.

To do stovetop:

Pour olive oil into a large soup pot. Heat over medium-high heat.

Slice zucchini, onion and mushrooms. Add to pot, along with pasta, stirring to coat.

Pour in tomatoes, wine or broth, tahini and harissa. Bring mixture to boil. Stir well and place lid on pot. Reduce heat to medium and let cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until vegetables and pasta are just tender and have absorbed most of the sauce. Squeeze in lemon juice and add mint leaves. Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 400. Pour sesame seeds into a small heatproof bowl or ramekin. Toast for 4 minutes. .Sprinkle sesame seeds over pasta and vegetables and serve.

Serves 4.

*Should you find yourself harissaless, substitute a teaspoon red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon coriander and 1 teaspoon caraway seeds and hope for the best.

Smashing Pumpkins

Here, in all its splendor, is this year’s Halloween jack o’lantern, a tradition my father and I have practiced, oh, for decades (and yet our skill set has scarcely improved). I’m so happy I took the picture because as solid as it was when we carved it and as formidable as it looked Halloween night, blazing away on front porch step, the next morning it was black.

It is possible in northern climes to keep a pumpkin for weeks if not months. South Florida is different. The light in autumn is golden, the skies a cloudless blue. But call it global warming, call it what you will, it has been unseasonably warm. In a matter of hours, my jack o’lantern morphed into a real Halloween horror, with fuzz blooming from its eyes and mouth, as though afflicted with leprosy. It was, shall we say, pungent. I returned it to the soil, or at least the compost bin. It fell apart with one good clout from the spade.

As if I need further proof of how fleeting time is, we also returned to standard time over the weekend. Though the clock said afternoon, the sky said night. By 6:00 p.m., it was black, as though the sun had decided to call it quits forever and it was the end of the universe as we know it.

Darkness, decay, it’s a spooky time of year, with Halloween, then All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (November 2), also known as Day of the Dead. This is a time for the dead and the living to reach across the great divide and say hey to each other. It could make a girl kind of broody. It made me remember Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.” Yes, I know, it’s autumn (although it still feels like summer here). But the poem ends:

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

What indeed? I worry a lot about our world. I want to save it -- a tall order and serious character flaw. For ages, I wanted to run off and join Doctors Without Borders and help a third world nation. For a time -- and sometimes still -- the enormity of need paralyzes me. I have concluded there’s ample headache and heartache right here, where I can be of service without needing a visa or a battery of shots.

I do hands-on stuff, I join boards, I give money, I community serve. One small, doable way I can help is by cooking and eating vegan. It lets me make and share food aligned with what I believe in -- more compassion, less carbon. It lets me be the change I want to see in the world, to quote Gandhi (a vegetarian). It lets others, by eating what I cook, be that way, too.

I still want to change the world. But I can’t do it alone. So I do what I can. As Voltaire said, we must tend our own gardens. And mine, my husband points out, is a happy ecostystem, home to birds and butterflies, lizards, bees, frogs, one aged dog and a new pumpkin in the compost bin.

Smashing Pumpkin

This is a simple recipe, elemental, even. Also earthy, fabulous and one of my favorite ways to gourd. This is lovely even grapeless. Try with a sprinkle of turmeric, curry powder or ginger. Autumnal as hell.

As much pumpkin or winter squash as you’ve got on hand -- okay, a 2-1/4 pound pumpkin, or about 6 cups, cubed

1/4 cup walnuts

1-1/2 cups seedless red grapes

2 tablespoons walnut oil

1 sprig of fresh sage (do not attempt with dried sage. You will only be wasting your time).

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 425.

Chop pumpkin into cubes, about an inch or so. Dump cubed pumpkin into a large bowl. Add grapes, walnut oil and toss to coat.

Spread pumpkin and grapes on rimmed baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper and roast for half an hour.

Chop walnuts and sage coarsely. Add to pumpkin, giving everything a stir to prevent sticking, and continue roasting for another 10 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 4 to 6.

Nobody Here But Us Chickens

I was happy to see Susan Orlean had an article in a recent New Yorker. I had liked The Orchid Thief and The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, but her New Yorker article showed me a side of Ms. Orlean I had not known -- she is a liar.

In “The It Bird,” Ms. Orlean chronicles her adventures keeping chickens and how they have made her “the object of more pure envy than I have ever experienced in my life.” Okay, maybe she’s not a liar. Maybe she’s just deluded. As a former keeper of poultry, I know what I’m talking about.

You don’t just decide to take in chickens -- I didn’t, anyway. I just looked out one morning to see half a dozen of them parading though my back yard. I live in the city. The chickens hadn’t just wandered over from the neighbor’s farm. They were, I figured, Santeria escapees. I came outside to investigate.

The chickens saw me and knew me for what I am -- a soft touch. They clustered around me, fluffed their feathers and emitted sweet, gentle peeps. They followed me around and would have come inside had I not closed the door. From the window, I watched them eating bugs, scratching in the dirt.

The next morning, they were still there. I fed them what was on hand -- Rice Krispies. After a week, they were still hanging around, so I went to the pet store and bought a bag of Chicken Scratch. They loved it. They loved me. Perhaps Ms. Orleans is in this honeymoon phase of poultry harboring. It will not last.

The chickens quickly went from peeping to squawking and crowing -- just like on a farm. But these were not farmyard friends. These were tough urban fowl. They could not tell the street lights from sunlight, so they’d crow at three a.m. Four a.m. Five a.m. I’d expected they’d be better bred. I’d hoped they would reward my kindness by good chicken behavior. They burned through bags of Chicken Scratch and ringed my house with guano.

Speaking of chickenshit, my neighbors said nothing to me directly about the chickens. Clearly, though, they were aware of them. They ratted me out to the City of Miami zoning department, which assessed me a $500 fine. I was officially now a criminal.

I began a campaign to get rid of the chickens compassionately. The Humane Society laughed at me. The city’s animal control office said they were too busy, that I should catch them myself.

“How do I do that?”

“It helps to get them drunk,” said the animal control officer.

“So, do I say, ‘Let’s go to Tobacco Road, I’m buying?’”

The animal control officer hung up on me.

I exhausted legal avenues and stumbled onto those that were somewhat other. They’re out there, you just never know until you look. I came in contact with itinerant people who said they’d catch the chickens. We made arrangements. They never showed. Then I met one guy. He wouldn’t give me his name. Said it was better that way. Said he’d come around after dark. This was guy I could imagine would drink with chickens. He’d drink with anybody.

I asked how he’d catch the chickens.

"I’m not going to catch them," he said. "I’m going to kill them."

Okay, on the one hand, I was desperate. But I had reared these guys. I hadn’t chosen them, but they'd chosen me. Could I foresake them? They had become loud and nasty and a social and financial liability. But did I want blood on my hands? Even a chicken’s? What is a chicken’s lifespan, anyway? And if I kept them, what kind of quality of life could I offer them? I still had the City of Miami zoning department after me.

The chickens went to a better place. I do not mean they were killed. I mean I took them somewhere else. One night (after dark, as my potential chicken murderer would say), abetted by a friend who’d grown up on a farm, I rounded up the chickens. Actually, I chased and swore at them to no avail while she rounded them up, swiping them from the ground as though they were toys her kids had left behind. We loaded the chickens into a cardboard box and put the box in the trunk of my car. By the way, chickens do not sit calmy in a box. They do what they do best. They make noise and guano.

We took the chickens to Madonna’s house, dumped the box over the fence and set them free. Surely, Madonna had the means to provide better care for them. If she wanted to. I don’t know if she did. I don't know if she shot them, ate them, fed them, dressed them up in her love, had them strike a pose. I don’t know if they lived to tell.

I was never the preening poultry keeper Ms. Orlean is, was never envied by others. I had to spend an entire day in court (my case number: # 279) before the zoning department dropped my case. I’m clean. I don’t have a rap sheet. I count myself fortunate. But I know myself. I’ll always be inclined to take in strays who may repay me with sleepless nights and copious guano, metaphoric or otherwise.

Chickenless Chicken Scratch

So -- what recipe to make for this post? Tough one. I thought of a Madonna tie-in. You can find anything on the internet, so I did a quick Google search -- typing in Madonna’s favorite food. Someone responded, “The tears of small children.” I like this a lot, but it does not lend itself to a recipe. Someone else responded, “Salmon.” Gosh, no thanks. I went back to thinking chickens, Chicken Scratch, Rice Krispies. Eureka. What follows is a very easy and healthier-than-usual version of bhel puri, the classic Indian snack, made with puffed rice and veggies.

3 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoons turmeric

2 tablespoons unsweetened dried coconut

1/2 cabbage, or about 4 cups, shredded

1 onion

3 carrots, or about 2-1/2 cups, shredded

1 red pepper

1 jalapeno

1 large tomato

2 cups puffed rice (available at Indian markets)

1/2 cup roasted peanuts

2 tablespoons tamarind chutney

1 bunch fresh coriander, chopped

juice of 1 lemon

sea salt to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add mustard seeds. Cover with lid and cook until the mustard seeds pop, about a minute. Remove lid, lower the heat to medium and add cumin and turmeric and dried coconut, stirring for another minute, or until mixture becomes fragrant.

Using a food processer, shred onion, cabbage and carrots as if you were making cole slaw. Add confetti of vegetables to skillet and stir together over medium heat. Mince jalapeno and slice red pepper into skinny strips. Dice tomato. Add peppers and tomato to skillet and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender. Remove from heat.

Squeeze in lemon juice, gently fold in chutney, puffed rice, peanuts and chopped coriander. Salt to taste.

Serves 6.

Charmed, I'm Sure

photo illustrative magic courtesy of Philip Brooker

I have always been a hard sell when it comes to magic. Back when I toggled my first loose baby tooth, my parents explained about the Tooth Fairy -- your tooth falls out and the Tooth Fairy appears while you sleep, takes the tooth and pays you for it (your original Cash for Clunkers concept). I looked at them, smiled coolly and nodded. I didn’t believe a minute of it. I was over magic by the time I was five. Kind of too bad, but that’s the way I’m made. I didn’t burst my parents’ bubble. The idea of the Tooth Fairy seemed to make them so happy, and I didn’t object to handing over my teeth in exchange for the coins my father left by my bed.

Several years later, my adult teeth affixed firmly in my head, I’m beginning to believe magic isn’t such a bad thing and might, even, in fact, exist. Paul Bowles defined magic as “a straight connection between the world of nature and the consciousness of man, a hidden but direct passage that bypasses the word.” I might add it bypasses the eye, too, unfolding within its own damn time frame which is not necessarily ours. Perhaps that’s why we say a watched pot never boils, because though there’s science behind cooking, if the end result is any good, there’s magic’s involved, too.

It may also be why with Joe Meno’s otherwise excellent novel The Great Perhaps and with the film Henry Poole Is Here, two works about belief, magic, transformation, the whole shebang, the pivotal moment, the sea change, felt false or even forced to me. As with the Tooth Fairy, I wanted to believe, but I didn’t. Magic is not interested in proving itself to you, it just happens. I mean good magic, white magic. The other stuff -- when the roof leaks or your honey dumps you or the doctor says pathology, that to me isn’t magic. That’s life doing its best to bleed magic right out of you. Magic can happen despite that stuff, but you can’t set your watch by it. Like H1N1, it comes, it goes.

Maybe magic is Blake’s energy, eternal delight. I see magic with P, who makes art, and with S, who makes bread. Sometimes I’m even capable of magic myself -- more often, my husband says, than I realize. I certainly wasn’t capable of it at three this morning, in a knot of insomnia-induced dread (see previous post). Magic does not come on demand. It cannot be forced -- God knows I’ve tried. It can sometimes, however, be coaxed.

Ritual helps -- you know, indulging in the notion that something you do or say or wear can affect change. This is known as magical thinking, a rather sparkling term made famous by Joan Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. Magical thinking is probably a mild form of delusion. I see nothing wrong with this. Magic comes with surrender, with infatuation with possibility, with being loose and giddy right up in life’s ugly little face.

And if magic is being coy or annoyingly elusive, the next best thing is to appreciate it and be grateful for it when it comes. This is what I tell myself, anyway. Then I curse and make dinner.

Magical Moroccan Tagine

Most Moroccan tagines take hours. The transformation that comes from slow-cooking is part of their magic. You can make this one, with very few ingredients, in minutes and you don’t even need a tagine. That is its own kind of magic. Freewheelingly adapted to the point of being unrecognizable, its origins can be traced back to a recipe by the oh-so-magical Paula Wolfert.

Enjoy over whole grain couscous or quinoa. Also very nice stuffed in a pita.

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 cloves garlic
1 head of broccoli

1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

a pinch of red pepper flakes or, even better, Aleppo pepper

sea salt to taste

1 large handful cilantro

In a large (14-inch or so) skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.

Mince garlic and add, stirring, just for a minute or two.

Chop broccoli into bite-sized pieces, both florets and chunks of stem. Yes, you are using the entire broccoli. Magic does not appreciate waste. Neither do I.

Add broccoli to skillet, along with tomatoes, paprika and pepper flakes. Stir together. Reduce heat slightly, so tomatoes are still on the boil. Stir constantly. The tomatoes will (magically) thicken and turn jammy and the broccoli will become tender, in less than 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Chop cilantro. Add to broccoli. Season with salt. Enjoy the magic.

Serves 4.

Next up: Fowl play.

To Sleep, Perchance

“Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!”

Oh, jeez, Macbeth, you, too? Even those of us who haven’t killed a king have insomnia issues. There's not one, but two types of insomnia, both of them bite. There's your not-being-able-to-fall-asleep-at-all, bad enough, but the other is the really diabolical one. Falling asleep’s no problem, but then shortly after, you wake with a sense of panic and the knowledge you have ruined your life.

There is no redemption, no hope and let’s not even talk about going back to sleep. You just lie there rigid and brood or turn over and over like a rotisserie chicken. Your overwhelming sense of dread may fade with the coming of dawn, but it does not, let us say, make for a good night. In insomnia parlance, this is known as fragmented sleep.

I’ve been there. Often. Most of the people I hang with have, too. We talk melatonin, tryptophan, serotonin. We talk warm milk, scotch, Ambien. We have lots of time for talk, because we’re not sleeping.

There’s a reason sleep deprivation is used as torture, or as we call it these days, enhanced interrogation. Lack of sleep breaks you down, it produces serious cracks in your personality and dents in your reasoning. It also screws with your brain chemistry, including interrupting the flow of leptin, the neurotransmitter that lets you know when you’re full. Lose enough sleep and you overeat, don’t eat anything or eat crap.

If it’s any comfort for those similarly afflicted (and it’s probably not), this complaint is not new. It is not a byproduct of the terrible modern life we lead. According to my excellent friend, a former seminarian, the "Lucernarium," a Matins liturgy dating back to the Middle Ages. contains the line, "Éripe nos de timóre noctúrno." Translation: Deliver us from the terror of the night. Through the miracle of modern science, we now understand that terror as the chemical imbalance occuring around 3:00 AM, when your serotonin levels have tanked and you feel vulnerable to just about anything.

So how do you avoid insomnia? Good question. My friends and I pass on the latest tips and very little seems to do any good. Among the advice handed out by smiling experts:

No coffee (doh).

No booze.

Keep your bedroom dark and cool.

Keep regular hours, going to sleep at the same time every night.

Don’t succumb to afternoon naps (except for those who say, go ahead, succumb, nap -- it’s enough to keep a girl up nights).

Drink chamomile tea.

Chamomile tea, if you recall your Beatrix Potter, is the little toddy old Mrs. Rabbit (why old? Because she had four kids?) gave naughty Peter after his misadventures in Farmer McGregor’s garden. “One teaspoon to be taken at bedtime.”

When you ask for herbal tea at a restaurant, chamomile is always the one they have. Why chamomile? It is a medically proven soother of nerves and a digestive. But it tastes to me of dust and just makes me anxious. This I do not need.

The other thing experts say just might lure you to sleep is to eat a light snack an hour or so before bedtime. Not just any snack, one that doses you with a little tryptophan, making you happy, relaxed and deliciously drowsy. That means a cocktail of complex carbs and protein. Bananas and apricots are a particularly good source, also nuts, both of which are, happily, vegan.

I came up with these apricot squares with an almond crust, a little nursery food for grownups, heady, gratifying and made with low-glycemic agave, so it won’t cause your blood sugar to spike just as you’re getting cozy beneath the covers. They taste pretty decadent for your healthier-than-average cookie. I’m not guaranteeing they’ll produce zzzzzs. But they won’t be among all the things you’re rueing while you’re lying wide awake at 3:00 AM.

Wishing you sweet dreams. Eripe nos de timóre noctúrno.

Macbeth hath murdered sleep. I have probably massacred the Latin for

Dolcia Somnia Quadruus (Sweet Dreams Squares)

1 cup water or herbal tea (chamomile if you must)

1 cup dried apricots

1 cinnamon stick

2-1/2 cups almond meal, also known as almond flour, or 2-1/2 cups blanched almonds, ground fine

4 tablespoons coconut oil

4 tablespoons agave

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamon

grated zest of 1 lemon

Pour tea or water into a medium-sized saucepan. Add apricots and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for half an hour.

Preheat oven to 350.

For the crust: In a bowl, blender or food processor, mix together almond flour, coconut oil, 3 tablespoons of the agave and almond extract just until it forms crumbs. Then add 1 tablespoon of the apricot poaching liquid and mix until everything starts to come together into dough.

Set aside 1 cup of the dough and press the remainder into an 8X8 pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

While crust bakes, prepare the apricot filling:

Pulse apricots, remaining tablespoon agave, cinnamon and cardamon and grated lemon zest in a blender or food processor until mixture is coarsely blended, not fussily pureed.

Remove crumb crust from oven, spread apricot filling on top and sprinkle remaining cup of crumbs on top. Bake for 15 minutes.

Cool and cut into squares.

Makes 16.

The (Spaghetti) Wrestler

While in New York last week, I discovered spaghetti wrestling. Silly me, at first I thought they were two separate entities -- spaghetti, as in something you eat and wrestling, as in something you do. Spaghetti wrestling offers both.

You are, no doubt, more worldly than I and already know this sport of sorts involves inflating a kiddie pool, filling it with pasta, sauce and two wrestlers dressed in provocative undergarments. They then wrestle and tumble amongst the pasta. Mirth ensues.

I found out about spaghetti wrestling not at a city biker bar (though bikers are big fans), but at a local fair in upstate New York where it’s billed as your basic family entertainment.

I went cross-eyed with wonder over issues including:

-- Quantity

A pound of spaghetti amply serves four. Kiddie pools range from a capacity of 100 to 200 gallons. So how many pounds of spaghetti does it take to fill it? The answer? Until it’s full.

-- Safety

The spaghetti and sauce are not hot. This is done more for the sake of preventing plastic pool melt and leakage than protecting the wrestlers from burns.

-- Sauce

The preferred kind of sauce varies from your classic marinara to Wesson oil, which seems lazy. If you’re going to grind fistfuls of spaghetti into someone, you might as well go the distance, so to speak, with a true sauce.

-- Noodle

When I asked which made for the better performance, whole grain spaghetti or the standard semolina pasta, people stepped away from me. Asking whether spaghetti had the edge over linguini or fettuccini seemed out of the question.

-- Marketing

Who. Came. Up. With. This? And why? And why do people think it’s fun? And if I don’t, what does that mean?

-- Morality

Forget kink, it’s an egregious waste of food that could feed the hungry. This is the sort of high-minded thinking that makes one unpopular at parties.

No spaghetti was hurt -- or wasted -- in the production of the above image. Photography occurred post-meal and involved a handful of leftovers. Recipe below.

TKO Spaghetti

1 fennel bulb

2 onion

2 zucchini

4 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup dry white wine, or more to taste

2 dozen kalamata olives, pitted

sea salt and fresh pepper

4 ounces whole wheat spaghetti

juice and zest of one lemon

handfuls of fresh herbs including parsley, tarragon, basil, thyme, whatever you like

Preheat oven to 425.

Chop up your fennel, onion and zucchini into bite-sized pieces. Spread out into generous-sized roaster, so the vegetables aren't crowded and have space. Mince garlic and stir into vegetables. Stir in one tablespoon of olive oil, 1/4 cup white wine and olives.

Roast vegetables for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, so they roast evenly.

In a large pot, cook spaghetti until just al dente, even a little chewy. Drain well. Return pasta to pot, along with vegetables and any accumulated juices. Grate in lemon zest and squeeze in juice. Chop herbs fine and stir in, along with remaining 1/4 cup of white wine and the last tablespoon of olive oil

Heat over medium-high heat, stirring, until just heated through, about five minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4.