Lamb Chops in the Spring: A Kitchen Reverie
I would like to think that there is someone out there, bored and lonely, who is scrolling through Medium looking for a read. I imagine this reader as someone who enjoys reading about food. If that is you, welcome. May you find company here. I invite you to enjoy my lamb inspired verbal meanderings.
Today in Southern California, it feels like Spring. The air is warmer, the sky blue, and the birds are singing. This morning I felt Spring within me, almost as if it were an aether like substance that curled in beneath the door frames and permeated the entire house, entering my pores as I slept sweetly in my bed. Feeling the Spring, I had an immediate desire to connect with it in a practical, material way. As a matter of course, I cook seasonally to connect more intimately with the natural world, to be a part of nature rather than apart from it, which is no small feat considering how most of us live. Although I had a bit of a hangover from my two glasses of wine the night before, I roused myself with a plan.
My plan was to forget all my troubles and become swept away into a Spring time kitchen reverie if but for just a little while. I turned to Smitten Kitchen’s weekly email for my recipe and selected the lamb chops with pistachio tapenade. Now, when hungover, I admit that a simple steak is a go to, but the lamb chops looked tasty, and I have been routinely learning new recipes after sixteen years of being a vegetarian. As a vegetarian, I ate a lot of lentils, spinach, rice, and processed wheat meat, which I later found I was allergic to. I’ve been eating meat a few years now, but since I spent my teenage years eating tofu, I never learned how to make any traditional meat dishes. Luckily, my sister loves cooking, so she’s been helping me catch up. The lamb chops seemed sort of fancy, but the recipe didn’t seem too complicated. The recipe includes a pistachio tapenade with oregano, parsley, green Cerignola olives, garlic, and capers. The green hue of the tapenade reminded me of the blooming I have been seeing all around me as Spring kisses the earth. It seemed like the right recipe for the moment.
As I cooked, I thought of my grandmother. She was always cooking homemade food for me. She would spend all day making bone broths and chopping vegetables for the soups she would feed me. She’s primarily of Spanish Costa Rican ancestry, so she would make other foods with those types of tastes, like rice pudding with brandy, arroz con pollo, which is chicken and rice with capers and raisins, and/or a simple pot of beans with broth. When I was little, I was always so happy to visit her. I loved her cooking compared to the processed food my parents always ate. It’s due to her influence that I cook so much today. When I put on my apron and start cooking, I always think of her, just like I did today. I missed out on her teaching me to make a lot of things when I was a crazy teenage punk rocker, and she got so old that she doesn’t have the patience for the kitchen now. I am learning now anyway and hope that one day people enjoy my cooking as much as everyone likes hers, even if I do rely on recipes rather than memory when cooking.
My thoughts do visit the past sometimes in the kitchen, but more often than not, I enter something like a meditation when I am scrubbing, seasoning, chopping, and mixing. The pistachio tapenade was easy to make. Its flavors reminded me of some of the Spanish food my grandmother would make, with the olives and oregano. The lamb isn’t something either side of my family really ate, but I’ve taken a liking to it more recently. I salted and peppered the lamb chops and let them sit for about fifteen minutes. Then, in cast iron, I browned them according to the recipe. Afterwards, each chop gets a spoonful of tapenade and is cooked for four to five minutes in the oven, for a medium rare finish.
The recipe would be perfect for Easter, but I just ate the lamb chops by themselves for lunch. They were incredibly flavorful and juicy. I didn’t have much appetite today, but if you were really hungry, they would be good with some boiled new potatoes and herbs or some garlic rice. Steamed asparagus with lemon would work well with it too if you like that type of thing. If not, a nice green salad would be a perfect accompaniment to the meal. Although I am gluten intolerant, I did eat bread for a long time and love sourdough. I can imagine that eating the lamb chops with a piece of sourdough toast and butter would be nice. I don’t have the endurance for consistent drinking, but if I did, I would have a cool glass of Zinfandel or Chardonnay with the meat.
There are so many recipes online, but if you are perusing the free ones like me, you probably have already noticed how many pop-ups and ads there are as well as directions that don’t make sense; I urge you to check out the Smitten Kitchen blog for recipes instead of messing with those annoying recipe websites. Smitten Kitchen’s recipes are well written, and I haven’t tried a bad one yet. All of the ones I have tried are delicious. Deb Perelman, the lady behind Smitten Kitchen, also has two cookbooks: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and Smitten Kitchen Everyday. Even though there are tons of recipes on her website, it’s nice to have actual print cookbooks if you are trying to dodge digital waves or just don’t want to mess with your phone while cooking. I own The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and have plans to get her other cookbook. She does have gluten free recipes, but for those of you who do eat wheat, you can find those too. She has recipes that will please everyone, even your foodie friends. Check out her site if you haven’t already (recipe linked below):
Lamb Chops with Pistachio Tapenade
Photo update 3/12/22
