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A Couscous for the (Not Quite) End of Summer
It’s that wistful time, as summer fades away — going, going, but not quite gone. Still, the season has changed. Days are shortening. Even if the hot weather hasn’t packed up and left town, we all know darker days are standing in the wings.
And so I head to the farmers’ market to bask in the still-glorious bounty.
I have been more or less vegetarian during these last few weeks of doldrums and dog days. Lots of crisp vegetables and salads and fruit, surviving on peaches, blueberries, watermelon and juicy ripe blackberries. Tomatoes every day, big heavy ones for dinner, and colorful sweet cherry tomatoes for lunch.
I still want my summer vegetables. Except now I feel like cooking them instead of having everything raw with olive oil and sea salt, or with lime and red chile powder.
I went down to the market yesterday, and all of a sudden I saw my dinner. Hello, it said, beckoning. Maybe it was the morning light, but it was a heavenly moment and everything seemed golden: the zucchini, and the crookneck squash, the little orange and crimson sweet peppers and especially the okra. They would be transformed into a North African stew to serve with couscous, warm with toasted cumin and hot pepper, very brothy and rust-colored.
I had cooked a pot of dried chickpeas the day before — great to have on hand and always better than canned — to use for a few meals (a batch of hummus, some garbanzos en vinagreta). I would use some chickpeas for the stew along with some of the lovely pot liquor that added bonus of cooking your own.
I cooked the vegetables slowly until they were soft enough to eat with a spoon and had absorbed all those spicy, tomato-y, brothy juices.
The big surprise was the couscous itself, a little epiphany. I had the idea to cook couscous and corn together with butter and saffron and turmeric and cinnamon. That was a bright yellow brainstorm.
I dug out my beat-up aluminum couscousière from the Paris flea market, poured a glass of rosé and relaxed while the couscous steamed — in between seasons, but living in the present.
Recipe: Summer Vegetable Couscous With Spicy Pesto
And to Drink ...
For this mellow, herbal, lightly spicy dish, you have several good options. You could choose a vibrant, moderately sweet German riesling: a spätlese, for example, which would be delicious with the couscous. Or you could try a dry sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley, which would go well with the herbal flavors. A good, dry rosé would be flattered by this dish, or if you wanted to try something altogether different, why not a fino sherry? Dry reds, too, would be good choices; perhaps something young with a bit of grip from the Languedoc, or maybe a Bandol, with a few years of age to tame the fierce tannins. If you wanted a regional match, Morocco makes some perfectly decent dry reds and rosés. ERIC ASIMOV
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