Hungry for Love

Late September 1998

The spouse can read me like a book. What I'm reading clues him in directly to my moods.

A fairly sure sign of depression: the romance novel at my bedside. Not the bloated bodice-rippers — I'm as fond of ogling Fabio as any well-vitamined woman, but fat historicals take too darn long for quick and ready satisfaction. Give me the Harlequins, the Silhouettes, the Loveswepts, 189 pages of easily digested, formulaic puff plot, with a cheerily sugary happy ending on top.

My favorite recipe for romance novelettes has changed over the years, of course. No, although I was born in the '50s, I was never captivated by the imperiled Pauline, swept off her feet or the railroad track. Back in my early 20s, when my mother first introduced me to the genre, I fell for heroines with a purpose whose talents stunned rich and noble swains into submission.

Here's a book I gobbled up with passion before I signed myself away to the spouse 19 1/2 years ago: Hungry for Love, by — I blush to tell — Barbara Cartland. A wastrel brother who gambles his family into deep debt doesn't get young Araminta down! She is determined to win back the enormous sum lost in cards to the sneering hero, by using her amazing powers of cookery! She can put the famous chef Careme to shame!

I had no taste for the wonders this pretty young thing could produce — pigeons stuffed with foie gras, chestnuts and olives; young mutton with cockles and herrings; kidneys cooked in vintage champagne; or filets of sole folded over a sauce made of ortolans and quails. But I wanted to be mistress of such manifest gifts, magic to turn men's hearts into quivering jelly.

Two decades older, I have no such hopes — I am what I am, alas. And, on the rare occasion I need heavy cheering up, I seek out a different romantic formula. Our heroine isn't supremely talented, perhaps, but she's loyal, long-suffering and self-sacrificing, not to mention grossly misjudged. The snarling hero treats her with open contempt despite his hopeless lust. When he learns, to his horror, what a swine he's been, he crawls back abjectly, begging forgiveness.

But I have yet to find the perfect formula romance. The once-savage beast is now thoroughly domesticated, a "Captive of Love" in the kitchen! He takes on all the labors of cooking and cleaning, creating a paradise for his precious mistress. Now that's a recipe for happy dreams.

***********************************
With all this talk of foie gras and ortolans, perhaps you are already salivating, in the foolish hope that I'll trot out an elegant, eye-popping creation. Get real.

Maybe as the season slips toward the big holidays, I'll become more feeling, more generous, more ambitious. Maybe then I'll drag out the pastry bag for decoration and the fancy little cutters for true flair, and bring forth a dish guaranteed to send socks into the next county or two. Heck! Let's go past the Arkansas state line! No, let's try another direction, right into Tennessee. But not now, my friends.

Right now, I'm lucky just to make it through each day; applause is not an option. All you get is a lowly casserole to help you welcome the beginning of fall. Julia Child I ain't.

LENTIL-PASTA DELIGHT
3/4 cup green/brown lentils, picked over and washed
salt
1 1/3 cups smallish pasta shells (or corkscrew pasta, or elbow macaroni, or whatever)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 big carrots, sliced fairly thin
2 stalks of celery, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped parsley
freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces of feta cheese, crumbled or grated
1/3 cup bread crumbs

1. Put lentils in a pot with water to cover generously. Bring to boil, then simmer for about 40 minutes, or until tender. Near the end of cooking, season with a half-teaspoon of salt. Drain fairly well, but save liquid in case needed.
2. Meanwhile, bring lots of water to boil in a big pasta pot. Add a tablespoon of salt and the pasta. Cook until just tender, but not very — the cooking will continue in the oven. Drain, and combine with lentils.
3. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a big pot or skillet and toss in veggies and garlic. Coat nicely with oil, then cover and simmer until fairly tender, 10 minutes or so. Uncover, add oregano, and heat for about a minute. Stir in tomato paste, parsley and several grindings of pepper. If needed, add some lentil stock.
4. Add veggies to pasta and lentils, and stir in half of the feta. Taste and correct seasoning, then place in a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish. Cover with the other half of the feta, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
5. Put dish in a preheated 400-degree oven, and bake about 30 minutes.

Note: I'm very proud of myself. Every time I put a bunch of parsely through the food processor, I duly freeze the excess, and I duly throw it out a year later, when I find it again in the back of the freezer, a sickly pale yellow and encrusted with ice crystals. But this time, I remembered my flat pouch of parsley and put it to use before it was too late! We shall overcome.