Ratatouille in Half an Hour

 

Yes, it’s in the oven, and I’ve got a strict deadline.

Why ratatouille? Because we were walking the aisles at Trader Joe’s this morning, gathering ingredients for our upcoming pesto-making day, and I spotted some bulbous purple eggplants sitting in a bushel-basket alongside a produce gondola otherwise cluttered with onions and potatoes.

“We’ve got to make ratatouille at least once this summer,” I said.

“I’m not that keen on it… but why not?” Hilary said graciously.

So after she left for her knitting group, I got to work.

I made an error immediately, choosing a Brazilian album to listen to as I minced the garlic. That wasn’t right. I switched to a CD of music for wind instruments by Darius Milhaud.

This might seem an even more inappropriate choice. Milhaud’s music tends to be buoyant, open, casual, and spring-like, and these selections are no exception. The frequent harmonic clashes are meant to be rambunctious and exuberant rather than distressing in the serial Germanic style. If memory serves, Milhaud even did the soundtrack for Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), one of Jean Renoir’s more frothy and frivolous films.  

Yet we’re just now entering into that luscious season of late summer, when the air gets cooler, darkness comes earlier, there’s often dew on the ground in the morning, and a touch of welcome melancholy begins to seep into our thoughts.

On the other hand, Milhaud hailed from Aix en Provence. We went to a wonderful concert at the Milhaud Institute there in 1989. Didn’t understand a word anyone said—many of the songs were performed in Russian, in fact—but the vibe was more than friendly. Ah, those were the days.

And ratatouille is a Provençal dish, after all, and eggplant is just now coming into season. The first piece on the CD is “La Cheminée du Roi René.” The "chimney" of Good King René of Provence, that is. For whatever reason, the pairing was perfect.

Years ago I made a “home cookbook” containing recipes we make often. I do a reprint maybe once a year, adding new things and sometimes taking things out that we no longer make. That ratatouille recipe has been hanging by a thread for a few years, but now I’m glad we kept it. The dish turned out well.

One bittersweet element signaling the approach of fall is the growing irascibility of our backyard hummingbirds. A female or a juvenile will arrive and alight on the feeder, only to be chased off immediately by a ruby-throated male, who doesn’t linger but disappears into the woods himself. What’s the point of that?

As we were out on the deck enjoying our dinner, I got up for a minute and stepped over to the edge to survey the back yard. Just then, a hummingbird flew right up to my face, hovering no more than a foot away. He moved to the left, then to the right, always facing me, as if he (or she) wanted to get a good look at this strange creature from every angle.

They say hummingbirds can be curious. I didn’t get a good look at it because I was reluctant to open my eyes fully so close to such a fast-moving and potentially aggressive creature, but I didn't flinch, either, and the sound of beating wings (fifty times per second) was loud.

As it flew off into the woods, I felt strangely blessed.