Rustic Bean Soup and a Visit to the Apocalypse

When the decision was made to bring students back to campus this semester, despite the fact that classes would still be remote, the Campus Life group developed a program that would bring staff in for occasional "rounds" to encourage student adherence to the social contract guidelines (facial coverings, social distancing, not moving furniture, limited in person gatherings, etc.). Initially, I declined to sign up for the opt-in responsibilities, thinking that I'd see students on my own terms, when I was ready, and not visit what was likely to be a petri dish of COVID. Over time, though, I started to feel like maybe I should show up. After all, it had been months since I'd really been on campus for more than a minute or two. And at some point, I thought, I'd have to go back. Better to mentally prepare myself for that moment in small doses.

My first shift the other day was scheduled close on the heels of another meeting, so I figured I'd go to campus early, take my meeting in the office, and then show up for my shift afterwards. On paper, it looked easy.

What I didn't anticipate was just how hard it would feel to walk into that office, remember where the light switches were, and sit in a chair that wasn't mine (because mine was at home, where I brought it early in the pandemic), looking at a huge double monitor setup. It felt weirdly foreign, like a space I'd never inhabited before.

But there were also weird reminders of time that stopped in its tracks. Files from students that had graduated last year. Half-completed paperwork that ended up completed online. Ghosts of the year gone by. And perhaps most bizarre, my planner, open to the date last year when we all left campus, thinking we'd be gone for two weeks. It was like returning home after the apocalypse, digging through the debris alone, lights turned off, no one else in sight.

I left that day, after my meeting, realizing that it would take a long time to feel like this space was normal again.

Rustic Tuscan Bean Soup
This was a recipe I shared with some friends early in the pandemic when the "I'm out of meals, send your recipe to ten friends" chain letter was going around. I never forward those things, but I always respond to the sender. Sort of like a voice from the future, speaking into the past.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 medium zucchini, diced
1 yellow summer squash, diced
4 cloves garlic, pressed
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 quart vegetable (or chicken) broth
2 (14 ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14 ounce) can no-salt-added diced tomatoes with juices
3 cups chopped kale, ribs removed
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, and squash. Saute for 4 minutes.

Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, thyme and rosemary. Cook 30 seconds.

Stir in the broth, beans, and tomatoes. Bring the contents to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and add the chopped kale. Cover the pot and simmer for 15 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to partially puree the soup, leaving some chunks of beans vegetables for texture.

Add the salt, pepper, sugar, and vinegar. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

Serve topped with Parmesan or Dubliner cheese and a side of crusty bread.

 

Buy Nothing, and Korean Beef

A lot of us have been thinking about community this past year, and the importance of deep and authentic connections, beyond the transactional relationships we have more and more. I was struck by this post from the road less travelled about the ways that people lean on us from the communities we build, in the most unexpected moments.

A few weeks ago, my community started a Buy Nothing group on Facebook. Essentially, Buy Nothing groups are hyper-local gift economies where people can "gift" from abundance or loan things they have, "ask" for anything they might need, and offer "gratitude" for gifts in public ways. They believe that strong communities can lean on each other, and that the value of a gift is not just the thing itself but a human connection.

There was already a pretty active "free stuff" group in my township, where people posted all kinds of stuff. But it often felt like vultures circling, waiting for the kill. And by the time I was able to log on and see what was there, nothing was left; it was picked clean. On the giving side, I'd often leave things out for people who'd said "INTERESTED," only to have them go unclaimed for weeks. People seemed to feel no sense of responsibility and were super picky about said free items. It just left me feeling icky, even if it was sometimes a good place to get rid of stuff.

The new group had a fresh start, and some ground rules. We were encouraged to let things "simmer" so that people could have a chance at an item even if they weren't watching a page constantly. We were invited to offer gifts of time and service, rather than just stuff. It felt like a breath of fresh air.

I love decluttering, so I set to work posting things: clothing, shoes, toys, kitchenware, knick knacks. I made two Easter baskets ouf of some plastic baskets I had by adding some toys and lollipops. And I claimed stuff too: a new teakettle (which didn't require a potholder to pick it up), some new dishes (to replace the ones that have been breaking for years), some delicious biscotti, a Nespresso Vertuo coffee maker I'd been coveting (though now I have to figure out how to get cheap pods!). The other day someone arrived with a plate of Indian food as a thanks for the toy I gifted to her daughter. There's a tea round robin, circulating in an unwanted tin. A puzzle round robin is just starting.

But it's also been interesting to try to educate people about how the new group works, to remind them gently that this group is fundamentally about community. People are so stuck on the stuff. When someone says "interested" we remind them to tell us why. When posts start to speed up, we remind posters to simmer so that others have a chance. And some of us have been trying to model the kind of gifting we want to see start happening: gifting baked goods (to people who have to share with a neighbor), tutoring, offering plant cuttings, loaning out squirrel traps.

Buy Nothing is complicated; of course, it's limited by where people live, which, if you know anything about the long term effects of redlining, is racially and socioeconomically segregated. The folks who wrote the book about it do think a lot about social jusice, which gives me hope. It's the other side of the frustration I felt about so much during the pandemic. It's a small investment, I hope, in kindness.

Do you have a local Buy Nothing group?

Korean Beef

Among the "asks" on our Buy Nothing group was for easy recipes. This was, oddly enough posted by another member, and I connected with her because it's one that my daughter happened to find and like, too.

1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce*

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

cooking spray

1 pound 93% lean ground beef

1/4 cup chopped yellow onion

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger

3 cups cooked brown rice

1 small sliced cucumber, skin on

2 tablespoons Gochujang, or more if desired*

1/2 tablespoon sesame seeds, plus more for topping

2 sliced scallions, white and green parts

Combine the soy sauce, 2 T water, brown sugar, sesame oil and red pepper flakes in a small bowl.

Heat a large deep nonstick skillet over high heat, spray with oil and add the ground beef. Cook, breaking the meat up with a wooden spoon until cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook 1 minute.

Pour the sauce over the beef, cover and simmer on low heat 10 minutes.

To assemble the bowls, place 3/4 cup rice in each bowl, top with scant 2/3 cup beef, cucumbers, Gochujong, sesame seeds and scallions.

Vaccines, and Beans (Gigantes Plaki): On Investing in Kindness

Disclaimer: I know this is going to be controversial. Bear with me.

My FB feed has been full, lately, of people getting vaccinated.

This is a really good thing, because vaccines in arms are good for everyone, except my feeds are also full of people who are older, or immunocompromised, or are in some way more vulnerable to COVID-19, and can't get an appointment, or don't know how. 

The underlying deeply uncomfortable truth--which I tested by posting to FB innocently asking if I might be missing something or should I be ignoring the message to wait my turn, and was rewarded by people PMing me both to encourage me to cut in line and sending me tips for getting that elusive appointment--is that some currently non-eligible people are getting vaccine appointments before people who are more vulnerable, know this, and don't care. As someone responded to my post, "it's like the Hunger Games."

Some of this has to do with a lack of faith in the government to be effective (which, to be honest, it is NOT;  the patchwork systems in place to connect people with vaccines are a mess in NJ, to say the least). Some of it is just "every man for himself." All of this has gotten me thinking a lot about what I've observed about human behavior during the pandemic, from the hoarding of toilet paper to the refusal to wear masks to protect others to vaccine "hunting." (And yes, that's really what it's called.)

In the U.S., for better or worse, we invest in individuals; we reward competition, cunning, and greed. That's what gets people ahead. The first people in line get the most toilet paper. Honestly, it's been very tempting to game the system and schedule my appointment, even though I'm not eligible right now.

Where is the opportunity for us to cultivate and invest in kindness? In generosity? In gratitude? How do we build a culture that truly believes that there's enough for everyone, and where you don't have to be first? There are "angel" vaccination sites, people who are staying up until 4 a.m. to get vaccine appointments for people when they "drop," but even they are reporting that people are demanding appointments from them.

I used to bring this dish to our local community race and diversity potluck conversations, pre-pandemic. It doesn't cost much, it feeds a lot of people, and it's nutritious and easy to make. The cool thing about potlucks is that you almost always have more leftovers than you started with, even if people come without having brought anything. People like potlucks; you're bound to discover some tasty dish you didn't realize your neighbor had, and people like showing off their best recipes. What if we had approached this pandemic more like a potluck than a race? How much more toilet paper would there have been at the beginning, and how much more of everything would we all have right now?

Greek Gigantes

1 pound dry gigantes beans, soaked overnight

2 medium yellow onions, peeled and chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

2 (14.5-ounce) cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes

2 cups vegetarian chicken broth (or water)

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

fresh dill (optional)

Crusty bread, black pepper, and more olive oil for serving

Boil the beans for 10 minutes. (OK, I confess sometimes I skip even this step.)

Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of a large slow cooker. Cook for 4-6 hours on high, or 8-10 hours on low. Taste and add more salt as needed.

Serve with toasted crusty bread. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil, and with a sprinkle, on each bowl, of fresh dill.

Scars, and Green Minestrone

The sky was a flat grey during my early evening walk today, the sort of grey that precedes a snowstorm, interrupted--just overhead--by a row of dark grey and white streaks that reminded me, oddly, of scars.

One year ago today we began working remotely; I was two days out of surgery for my broken foot, and things were incredibly uncertain. Each day my family would track the spread of the virus on the Johns Hopkins site, wondering when we'd get to go back to "normal." If only we'd known. Then again, maybe it was better that we didn't know: the grey stretching out before us may have been too immense to fathom.

The last time I wrote in this space was also the morning before I concussed myself, walking at night through a particularly dark section of town, tripping on god only knows what, and hitting my head on a mailbox or a telephone pole or something that has left me, five months later, with a series of lasting symptoms: ringing in my ears, vision that is not quite right, sleeplessness, sinuses that don't seem to want to quit running. The palpitations and the dizziness are gone, but I find myself frustrated by what remains, and wonder how long it will take to heal. Some scars, like the one on my foot, are visible; others, like the one in my brain, are not.

The scars in the sky tonight made me think of the visible and invisible scars left by the pandemic, one year later. Unimaginable losses of life, of jobs. Anxiety. Depression. Lasting illness. But our scars make us who we are. They interrupt the flat expanse of grey with something else, reminders of something deeper, reminders that we are more than what we see on the surface.

I've made more soups than I can count this past year, some for us, some for others. I hope they have made the scars a little easier to bear.

Green Minestrone

2 t. olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 celery stalks, diced

2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. fresh thyme (1/2 t. dry)

1 bay leaf

6 c. vegetable or chicken broth

1 lb. waxy red potatoes (4 to 5 small potatoes), cut into bite-sized pieces

1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces

1 lb. small-shaped pasta, like shells or elbow macaroni

6 ounces greens, like spinach, kale, or chard, cut into ribbons

1 (15-ounce) can white beans, like Great Northern, drained and rinsed

Salt and pepper to taste

Grated Parmesan cheese, optional, to serve

In a large soup pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and 1/4 t. of salt, and cook until the onion and celery are soft and translucent, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic, thyme, and bay leaf, and cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the chicken broth, potatoes, and 1 t. of salt to the pan. Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer the soup for 5 minutes. Add the green beans and simmer for another 5 to 10 minuets, until both the potatoes and the green beans are tender.

While the soup is simmering, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta to al dente. Drain and set aside.

When the vegetables are tender, stir the greens and the white beans into the soup. Simmer until the greens are wilted and tender, 1 to 3 minutes. Taste and add additional salt and pepper if needed.

To serve, add a scoop of pasta to each bowl and ladle the soup over top. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese over top, if using. Store pasta and soup leftovers separately; they will keep refrigerated for 1 week.

Fragile (with comfort food: Arroz con Pollo)

Early in quarantine (maybe April, maybe May ... time had already started to flex and stretch) I was talking with a friend of mine about motivation to get out of bed when it felt like groundhog day over and over. She owns a relatively new shop in town, one that sells American handcrafted goods and art, largely women and folks of color. Her shop had shuttered its doors temporarily, due to state executive orders, and she didn't have an online shop; there wasn't time, and she only has a few of everything ... there are all kinds of unique things there (she now DOES have an online presence and it's neat to browse).

I suggested that because I was up and getting ready for work and had my coffee then, anyway, she should text me a photo of her coffee every morning at 8am. No conversation, no zoom presence required, no judgment for missed days or late texts, no getting dressed. Just coffee, which we should share together, in solidarity and silence.

The first day, I texted her my photo just after 8. She came back with hers closer to 8:30, and apologies. I reassured her that this was a no judgment zone. The second day, she texted me hers at 8am sharp. And so it went, her text, my text, day by day. A series of coffee cups. Sometimes these were interspersed by snippets of conversation, but more often, just the coffee, and a reaction. A heart. A hug.

After a month or so, I finally commented on the mugs. As someone who sells gifts and art, and whose mom also had a store that sold gifts and art when she was a child, my friend has a beautiful collection of handmade pottery mugs. I'm a sucker for pottery, in case that wasn't obvious from my years of posting food photos. In fact, I'd been coveting a beautiful large tumbler from her shop windows -- the kind with a drip blue and white glaze pattern over a brown base -- and told myself it was too expensive, that it was too much to spend on myself. Weirdly, I didn't ever really drink from either of my two small handmade mugs. I rarely ate from my handmade bowls, except when company came, and even then, we mostly used them for serving bowls. So my photos of coffee were a series of pictures of a plastic United Way tumbler.

My friend told me that she always drinks from her pottery mugs, because handmade pottery is meant to be used, and because it's a way of celebrating the ordinary, by elevating the ordinary to something special.

I loved this idea. But I still couldn't bring myself to buy the tumbler from her shop window.

One morning, in August, my friend invited me to her back yard for socially distant coffee at 8am. The shop had been open, and things were as back to normal as they can be, at least for now, and she thought it would be fun to catch up before she headed in to work. She was waiting for me, our chairs set up before I'd arrived, and at mine, a gift bag, from her shop. 

It was the tumbler.

A thanks, she said, for getting her up during those first hard days.

I nearly wept.

And so I've been using it ever since, every morning, making my coffee in this beautiful tumbler, appreciating the colors, the shape, the feel, the warmth, the sweet of the honey I add, making the ordinary feel special.

Until on Saturday, my daughter was drinking the dregs of my coffee and milk foam, and knocked the tumbler over on the counter. Which, of course, cracked it.

I was weirdly inconsolable. This tumbler had become something more than a piece of pottery. It was a celebration of the ordinary beautiful things. It was a connection to my friend. It was something normal when everything else felt so shitty, when we had all lost so much. When I was mourning yet another loss, this time, an amazing blogger friend who had died of cancer. And now it was cracked; usable, but not for long.

I thought a lot about the tumbler in the days that followed. About how fragile so much is right now. Our health. Our relationships. Our democracy. Though I guess everything was always this fragile, right? So it's a matter of making the decision to use these fragile things anyway, to use the vessels we have to hold the things that might slip away, to accept the possibility that they might slip away or change. Maybe to appreciate the ordinary beautiful things a little more if we can. It's not a new lesson to many of us who have lost what we love, over and over again. Somehow it doesn't get easier to learn.

(I always have a recipe, so here's a comfort food from my childhood, for moments when you need a full belly and things are slipping away and you need to be grounded. I ate it from a piece of pottery made by another friend, who uses clay he finds locally, with all of the stones and pebbles still visible. You can make a vegetarian version of this by skipping the first part of the process and using vegetable broth instead of the home-made broth, but I do recommend adding Sazón to whatever you're using as your broth base. I don't use Goya any more, if I can avoid it.)

Arroz con Pollo

Original at http://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/chicken-and-rice-arroz-con-pollo

Chicken and Stock
2 whole chicken breast, bone in and skin removed
1 scallion
½ white onion
2 garlic cloves
½ tablespoon ground cumin
½ tablespoon Sazón with azafran

1 bay leaf
Salt and Pepper

Rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup chopped red bell pepper
¼ cup chopped green pepper
1 cup long- grain white rice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 chicken bouillon tablet
2 ½ cups chicken stock
½ tablespoon Sazón with azafran

 

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
½ cup frozen peas
½ cup frozen diced carrots
½ cup frozen diced green beans

Place the chicken breast, 5 cups water and the remaining ingredients for the stock in a medium pot. 

Bring to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to medium low. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the chicken rest in the pot for about 15 minutes covered. Let it cool, shred and set aside. Strain stock and measure 2 ½ cups and set aside.

In a medium pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, green peppers, garlic and red bell pepper. Cook until the onions are translucent, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the rice, tomato paste, chicken bouillon and sazon goya. Stir until the rice is well coated about 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the peas, carrots and green beans and cook for and additional 7 minutes, add the shredded chicken and cilantro, mix well with a fork, cover and cook for 5 minutes more.

Athena's Breastplate, and Cauliflower and Potato Masala

My daughter has already started making her Halloween costume.

I'm actually pretty happy about this, on the one hand, because she's been bored out of her little skull these past few weeks, quarantining at home all summer with little to no regular contact with other humans her size (besides a week here and there of half-day-masked-and-socially-distanced-dance-camp with two other girls in attendance). And there's a pumpkin growing in our garden, so it seems weirdly apropos. Maybe we'll carve it up and celebrate early.

Because on the other hand, who even knows if there will be Halloween this year? Things are changing at the speed of light, and schools that were opening are now not opening, and wandering around a crowded street during a pandemic taking candy from neighbors and SO MUCH TOUCHING of things other people have touched ... well, that seems ... unwise.

I hate to disappoint my daughter by telling her this. She's had so much disappointment these past few months, which she has handled mostly with grace, but also by sheltering in a little closer, by asking me to lie there next to her in bed while she goes to sleep, by patting me gently on the arm as she walks by, knowing that I'm stressed, too, asking me when it will all be over.

And there's something about this particular choice of costume that I don't want to discourage. My daughter has been deep into Greek mythology this summer, and has learned more about it than I ever knew, for sure. She loves the whole pantheon, is enthralled by the stories (which she can retell in exquisite detail), and has chosen Athena as her alter ego: the goddess of war, strategy, wisdom, crafting. It's not a bad choice for someone who is as active and creative and stubborn and determined as she is.

She's going to need a breastplate and sword for the fall.

And so might we all, right? I've been drinking Emergen-C and turmeric tea with ginger and taking Vitamin D like my life depends on it, because I worry that it very well might (anyone else in the room start experiencing all coughs and aches with a sense of panic? Yeah, me, too). I am deeply anxious about our kids going back to school, even though I know that they really want to be there and that our district has such carefully crafted plans to avoid and contain an outbreak. I worry about what will happen to families that can't afford to juggle the hybrid model or be remote when the time inevitably comes to do that, if their school district isn't already doing it in September. I worry about the families who are enduring ongoing trauma as a result of this situation. And in my darkest hours, I worry about the very real possibility of loss, which is always there, haunting you, which never really goes away after you've lost a child, no matter what they say about kids not getting as sick as adults do.

I am so very blessed to have the breastplates that I do have: a house, a job that will continue to pay and allow me to work remotely, caring colleagues who are friends, friends who are not colleagues. But we are not, like the Greek gods, immortal.

What are your breastplates? How are you taking care of yourself?

Cauliflower and Potato Masala

because we might as well eat turmeric and ginger, just in case.

1 c. potato, peeled and cubed

1 c. cauliflower, blanched
1 T. oil
1/2 t. mustard seeds
1/2 t. cumin seeds
1 t. chana dal
1 t. urad dal

1 pinch asafoetida (optional)
1 t. ginger (grated or paste)
1 cup onions, thinly sliced
1 sprig curry leaves
2 green chilies, chopped or sliced
1/4 t. turmeric
1/2 to 3/4 t. salt (adjust to taste)
2 T. cilantro, finely chopped

Steam cauliflower and potatoes until not quite cooked. Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seed, cumin seed, and dals. When the dal turns golden, add asafeotida. 

Add the grated ginger and saute until fragrant. Add onions, chiles, and curry leaves, and saute until the onions are slightly golden.

Add the potatoes and cauliflower along with the turmeric and salt. Add 2 T. water, and saute well for about 2 minutes. Add cilantro and serve, in a dosa, with naan, with dal, with rice, or just as a side!

Vacation All I Ever Wanted: Cannellini Bean Salad

Ages ago, before children, S. and I biked the P'tit Train du Nord, a rail trail in the Laurentians in Quebec. I can't remember how we happened across the trail any more -- it was probably something S. found -- but it was a unique experience, and one of two times I've ever done a multi-day bike trip. When we did it, you could make arrangements with bed and breakfasts along the way, and a company would transport your luggage for you, so all you really had to do was keep pumping (it was entirely up hill) and enjoy the scenery.

It was along that trail that I ate one of the more memorable meals of my life, in a little bed and breakfast (I think this was it) in the village of Nomininigue. The meal wasn't elaborate -- in fact, the beauty of it was its simplicity. There was celeriac soup, and vegetables fresh from the garden, and a bean salad -- chickpeas, if memory serves -- that made me wonder if I'd ever really eaten chick peas before. I remember the air being crisp and clear, with perhaps a hint of sharp wood smoke and pine. I marveled at how the bounty on my plate could all come from the garden out back, how our host (Guillaume) managed to turn next to nothing into a feast.

Our vacation plans have been thwarted multiple times over this year. First we canceled our trip abroad back in April, seeing the inevitable beginning to unfold. Then we canceled all of the kids' camps, with the exception of a two week part day dance camp for N, which kept her from climbing the walls, at least briefly. All the while we've both been working. And finally, when I thought I would catch a break next week and be able to take a long weekend away from my computer, my boss scheduled two important meetings for the days I'd just asked to take off. To say that I was upset about losing my most recent attempt at some mental health time would be an understatement.

But this weekend we somehow managed to slow down, just for a little while, and it reminded me of the magical night in Nomininigue, the way we stopped to watch the blue sky and the clouds, the things we marveled at growing in our own garden (including a full fledged pumpkin), a half an hour of wading in a creek when we'd been looking for a way to cool off for weeks. And at the end of the day on Saturday, there were heirloom tomatoes still warm from the garden, and home grown cucumbers, and a simply herby bean salad. And just like that, a weekend felt just a little bit like a vacation.

Here's wishing you some small peace in your little corner of a quarantined world.

Cannellini Bean Salad

h/t to Yotam Ottolenghi, whose recipe in Plenty More was the inspiration for this salad. He uses quinoa, which S. is allergic to (and he couldn't find any in the store), but double the beans worked out just fine.

2/3 c. flat leaf parsley leaves, finely shredded

2/3 c. mint leaves, finely shredded

3 to 5 green onions, green and white parts only, thinly sliced

2 cans cannellini beans, drained

1 large lemon, skin and seeds removed, flesh finely chopped

1/2 t. allspice

1/4 c. olive oil

salt and pepper

Add the parsley, mint, onion, beans, lemon, allspice olive oil, 3/4 teaspoon salt and some black pepper to a bowl. Stir together and serve.