With What You Have | 70
In a late-winter world that's alternately white, then brown, then white again, you find your eyes inexstricably diving headlong into any available pool of green, gulping its color deeply. Even if that pool happens to be a handful of fresh parsley in a hobnail juice glass on your kitchen counter.
Purchased for a mere 69¢ from the market as a necessary ingredient for our Valentine's shrimp scampi lunch, the large remaining portion had no destiny, no plan for any particular thing. Rather than re-wrap the bunch and toss it into the crisper drawer where it was bound to be forgotten, I decided to keep that lovely green counter-side. I clipped the stem ends cleanly and placed them in a drink of water as if they were a bundle of flowers. Then I remembered the exquisite words about parsley by author Tamar Adler in An Everlasting Meal, and the next two weeks became a beautiful experience between parsley and eggs, parsley and soup, parsley and salad.
She writes:
“I recommend buying a bunch of parsley whenever you can. Then, once you have it, act as children do when handed hammers and suddenly everything needs pounding.
Whether because it is plain, or because it is aged, or because it is there and you want to enhance it, everything needs parsley. New-born as spring, a poached egg needs parsley. Hot white rice, freshly boiled potatoes, pasta with butter and cheese all need parsley by the handful. So does leftover rice, the last of yesterday’s boiled potatoes, a frittata of Monday’s pasta with butter and cheese.
They need parsley to make them all brighter and more present, and because you will feel more present when you eat them. Our mouths love plenty, but so do our eyes. An abundance of fresh parsley may only be of parsley, but it’s an abundance.”
Could there be better words? Could there be anything better sitting fresh, there on your counter?
A bunch of parsley to awaken days and dishes alike.
Do what you can with what you have.
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