A YELLOW BUTTERFLY, SUMMER SALADS & SAMMIES
Linguica stuffing with home cook Susan Colburn Motta in a tiny town in Maine~salads: pasta, potato, and tuna~sandwiches: egg salad, tuna, and grilled cheese~crumbs: blue crab, weenie news & old menus
By SUSAN COLBURN MOTTA (skcolburn@roadrunner.com), a visual artist and poet. An Illinois native, she now resides in a little corner of Maine where she teaches at the University of Southern Maine. She makes art in her studio, writes poems, is a charming gardner whose soul blossoms with her love of flowers, and continues to explore ways to eat without cooking. She also loves hummingbirds. Happily, Susan only consented to writing this after being harassed—“surely you must eat, I implored her!”— into doing so on a cold, wet, and windy day recently unfit for gardening.
Eating has always been something one must do to stay alive. A means to an end. Besides, cooking means cleaning up afterwards and that’s just not something I want to do. I suppose I could manage by only choosing foods that don’t have to be cooked, but I think that would become monotonous. And, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a hot, well-prepared meal like anyone else, just not enough to spend my time cooking it.
As a child I avoided being with my mother in the kitchen, preferring to spend time with my dad doing “Dad” things like gardening and tinkering in his workshop. Somehow I never worried that there might not always be someone else to provide me with sustenance. While in college, I got engaged, and a friend gifted me the red plaid Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Maybe she already suspected my lack of domesticity would be a problem. I still remember the beautiful picture of a slice of apple pie on the first page. Several years later—when I finally did get married but not to the same person—I realized that I needed that book to prevent us from withering away. I pored over the pages looking for simple recipes, but the ingredients and instructions all seemed so complicated and time-consuming.
In desperation, I called my mother who sent me a few “easy” recipes—meat loaf, sloppy joes, American chop suey and tuna-noodle casserole among them. It never occurred to me that she was not a particularly good or inventive cook either. My mother-in-law (bless her heart) taught me to make meatballs, pasta sauce (not from a jar) and linguica stuffing, a Portuguese family favorite. At the time, linguica wasn’t available in our local grocery store, so I had to acquire several packages when visiting the in-laws in Providence, R.I. This is as far as I’ve ever gone to sourcing a specialty product. I’ve included the recipe here, but my mother-in-law never measured anything, so the amounts are basically “until it looks and tastes right.”
Recipe: Mrs. Motta’s Linguica Stuffing
Saute cubed linguica along with a chopped onion and several diced celery ribs.
In a large mixing bowl, tear a loaf of Italian bread into bite-size chunks.
Fold in the sausage and vegetables along with the Simon and Garfunkel quartet of herbs . . . parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Add a raw egg and sufficient water or broth to moisten the bread.
Mix well.
Dump the mixture into a greased casserole dish (or pack loosely inside a turkey) and bake in a moderate oven until nicely browned.
By this time, we were living on the coast of Maine where there are two seasons: winter and July. We had a small hibachi and in July we liked to grill on our back patio. I had developed what I thought was a very good barbecue sauce by mixing maple syrup with ketchup and we slathered it over chicken or pork chops as they cooked. One evening a sea gull swooped down and grabbed a chop off the hibachi in mid-flight and made off with it across the beach.
My first thought was, “I hope it burns its damn mouth.”
My second thought was, “Well, at least the gulls like my cooking,” until my husband reminded me that gulls are garbage-eaters.
When we bought an old house with a huge back yard that led down to a river, I decided to start a vegetable garden. The idea of growing and preserving my own food was attractive. After all, it was the 1970s and everyone was going back to the land. I was blessed with beginner’s luck as the soil was sweet and fertile. I learned how to take soil samples and add the necessary amendments. I learned how to companion plant with herbs. I learned how to get rid of slugs (drown them in beer) and cutworms (invite in green lacewings, a natural predator), without resorting to chemicals. However, I had no clue as to quantities of seed or per-plant yield or, in fact, what to do with all the produce from that garden. I finally bought a chest freezer, a pressure canner, a copy of Putting Food By and built a root cellar in my basement. Every summer for the next fifteen years, I put by enough canned and frozen peas, corn, beets, green beans, zucchini and swiss chard, pickles, tomato sauce, potatoes, carrots, and winter squash to keep our family fed for most of the winter.
I quickly learned that one does not need 15 zucchini plants, that the fruit of those plants “hides” beneath the broad leaves and if you don’t harvest it when you first see it, the next day you will have a huge (I might even say grotesque), inedible club. By necessity I got to be quite good at all things zucchini—pickles, relish, quick-bread, baked or stuffed, and goulash (as we called it) which is a one-pot meal made with chunks of Italian sausage, onions, diced sweet pepper, sliced zucchini, mushrooms, and any other leftover vegetables lurking in the fridge, a sprinkling of sage, parsley and black pepper, or whatever flavors I prefered, and topped with bread crumbs and melted cheese (parmesan, but any will do). Again, another imprecise recipe, but quite tasty dish.
I actually had very few problems with critters, insects or plant diseases in that garden. Mostly I had to watch out for the two-legged variety of predator. When my three-year-old son came into the kitchen with a ring of dirt around his mouth, I thought, “Ah, he’s been at the carrots again.” That child could graze a garden salad faster than any rabbit I ever saw. For him, a raw juicy vegetable was better than chocolate ice cream. Interestingly, as an adult, he worked many years as a chef and now runs his own small vegetable farm.
And he still grazes on raw carrots.
As much as I enjoyed sourcing ways to preserve the food we grew, I still never immersed myself in the whole creative-cooking thing. The weekly food shopping and nightly dinner prep was a task my husband took on and, over the years, he got to be pretty good at it. If anyone ever asked him what was in a dish he had made, his reply was always “a secret blend of magical herbs and spices.” Of course, there were times when he got “menued-out,” as he liked to say, and the result was “Dad’s Famous Friday-night Burgers,” even if it was only Thursday. To help out, I would often make a Sunday meal that could be recycled during the week. For example, the leftovers from a large roast made with potatoes, carrots, onions and gravy eaten as a main meal, could be chopped up and thrown into a pot as beef stew later in the week. Bottom line—we managed to stay alive and feed ourselves with minimal kitchen time.
In my later years, thoughts of chopping, slicing, sauteing or baking have become even less attractive. I marvel at all the prepared foods available at my local supermarket—the hot rotisserie chicken cart, sushi bar, fresh pizza by the slice and ready-to-eat deli salads and sandwiches. No need to cook! And my son provides me with fresh veggies and makes his special barbecued ribs and my favorite baked scallops for me. He also does not use recipes. He feels that if you really know food, you don’t need instructions.
I now live on three acres of land that is very sandy and overgrown with acid-loving oak and pine and wild lowbush blueberries. Rather than vegetables, I’ve turned my hand to flowers which I enjoy nursing along and which attract pollinators that I like to watch as they go about their daily tasks. A more sedentary way of life for sure, and with no pressure to get a meal on the table.
A particular yellow butterfly visits the garden every day about 4:00 p.m. to remind me it’s happy hour.
What more do I need?
ICONIC SALADS
PESTO ALA GENOVESE
Iconic means don’t mess with ‘em. Do each perfectly, skip the variations. When it comes to summer food, I think about pungent pesto! Hailing from Genoa, Italy, puréed pesto sauce traditionally consists of crushed raw garlic, rich and untoasted pine nuts, salt, basil, and an aged hard cheese, all mixed together with mild olive oil at the end of the process. I didn’t used to be fussy about my pesto. I’d grab whatever amount of whatever basil I had, a handful or two or three of any old pine nuts, ditto for any hard Italian cheese in the fridge, and any olive oil I have on hand. It can certainly be made 1,000s of ways. Basically, it’s so stinking easy to make at home but, take it as truth, you simply must find a ratio of ingredients that balances the strong flavor of basil and the mild flavors of Italian cheese, rich nuts, and buttery olive oils. You do have a wide margin of error making pesto but outcomes can vary considerably.
Pesto can be made with a food processor or a mortar and pestle. Make with different types of basil, or even oregano; use small leaves vs. large ones; garlic, take it or leave it; the cheese to use, pecorino fiore sardo, a slightly milder sheep's-milk cheese than pecorino romano, creating a more balanced, less harsh pesto sauce; the type of pine nuts to use (or walnuts, pistachios, pecans, marcona almonds, or sunflower seeds); and which of the thousands of extra virgin olive oils on the market the type of olive oil to use. To add some kicky touches, try pinoli from Italy, not China or Siberia. Try pesto with marcona almonds. Use a mortar and pestle to prepare your dish.
I’m fussy about my choice of pasta. It must be tubular pasta with ridges which holds pesto well. It can be served cold or hot. Some people prefer al dente linguine. No matter what combo of amount of each ingredient I’d selected, my memory tells me I loved every batch. Serious Eats is a website that tells us that the best pesto is alla Genovese. And spinach penne rigate is my absolute fave.
NOT QUITE ICONIC
As for summer pastas which I think of salads too, I’m struck by this blue cheese-walnut-sausage pasta by Leite's Culinaria. And this pistachio pasta is one dish I really can’t wait to make!
ONE GLORIOUS POTATO SALAD
It’s simple and I want it that way. I usually use a half dozen medium russet potatoes, a half dozen eggs, a half dozen chopped scallions, a sufficient amount of S & P, and enough mayo to make the dish moist, which, of course, can mean many different things to many different people. Whatever, the most important step in my mind is to put the mixture in the fridge overnight and eat it the next day after the flavors magically meld together after aging. It’s as close to a perfect dish as I ever make.
Spring scallions are more than just a garnish. While I’m a big fan of red onions, too, it’s hard to put into words just how fond of simple raw scallions I am for this and the following tuna salad.
A TIPTOP TUNA SALAD
The best tuna to me means packed in olive oil, period. Among those best are also different fish—albacore or yellowfin—to decide between. The former is smaller, rarely exceeding 45 pounds, with bigger eyes—who knew!— tan and with more tasty mild light flesh than the latter which range up to 150 pounds with smaller eyes and flesh that’s pinker and more firm. When shopping for tuna in a can, the size of the eyes doesn’t mean much, just sayin’. Both are delish.
Scallions are a major player in this tuna salad, for which I slice both their white bottoms and green tops and scatter them atop tuna with mayo and S & P on the side, nothing more and nothing less, resulting in as basic a salad as there is on planet earth.
ICONIC SANDWICHES
EXCELLENT EGG SALAD
Eggs come in small, medium, large, and extra large. But when it comes to my egg salad sandwiches, size matters not. Boil ‘em, cut some chives onto shelled and chopped eggs, add your preferred amount/brand of mayo, and, again, age the dish overnight in the fridge. I like wheat bread for my sammy. It’s another perfect dish, most every time. For variety, if you must, try this The Spruce Eats recipe or even more from that same The Spruce Eats.
DEVINE TUNA SALAD
Let’s start with the tuna discussion above, except mix everything together and, behold, tuna salad for your sandwich. For more ideas, see Leite’s Culinaria and The Spruce Eats.
GRAND GRILLED CHEESE
The beauty of the grilled cheese sandwich is that it can be simple-perfect or more complicated-challenging. There is a whole, big, grilled cheese universe out there beyond my sliced white bread and American cheese slabs. Armed with this recipe and what some call a “Grilled Cheese Chooser”—the basics of bread, cheese, fat/oil, and add-ins—you can build a variety of soul-satisfying grilled cheese sandwiches . . . 12,650+ or so.
Crumbs & Leftovers
BLUE CRAB
The Chesapeake Bay blue crab was immortalized in William Warner’s 1976 book, Beautiful Swimmers, the classic Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the blue crab the people of the Chesapeake Bay have harvested and eaten for generations. But it reached lofty culinary heights in my eyes during a sailing trip with seven friends in the Chesapeake that ended up at a fish house where these beauties were piled by the bushel on our table to feast on for hours. One of those guests was even an expert in cracking these little guys open. In 2016, Warner’s book was followed up by a PBS’s production Beautiful Swimmers Revisited.
WEENIE-MOBILE NEWS
Just in case you missed all the Wienermobile renaming doings of late, you can catch up here, and sing along with an old fave from a 1965 commercial—the Oscar Meyer Weiner Song—while you’re at it.
MENUS ACROSS TIME
A Century of Dining Out at the Grolier Club in New York City features menus from 1841-1941 American society. They are from restaurants, hotels, Mississippi steamboats, utopian communities, and grand estates. Highlights include rare examples from the haunts of Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman in New York City, eateries in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush around 1850, Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural ball, and Mark Twain’s birthday party at Delmonico’s.
Vintage Morels always makes me hungry! Right now I'm craving some of your potato salad, which sounds divine. And can't wait to try Mrs. Motta’s Linguica Stuffing! Re: Pesto, I agree that the classic recipe is unbeatable, although I do like to add a few fresh mint leaves from the summer garden to the mix. Thank you for the info about the Oscar Mayer "Frankmobile" -- talk about news you can use! Now I've got the song stuck in my head. "Oh, I'd love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener..." Thank you for an always-entertaining and educational read.
Another post full of all sorts of interesting things! Thank you! I've copied Ms. Motta's zucchini "goulash" recipe for later on this summer (subbing in veggie fake sausage, of course 😉). I've learned to just plant one or two zucchini plants, too... 😂