Stephencooks

Part of the fallout from my obsession with fresh-picked corn on the cob is that in August and early September I almost always have somewhere between 2 to 6 ears of cooked corn in my refrigerator, waiting to find their way into a salad, a fritter, a chowder or an omelet.

This salad of corn, herbs and fresh-from-the-vine tomatoes is adapted from Outlaw Cook, by John Thorne with Matt Lewis Thorne, an interesting collection of essays on the most basic of foods (plowman's lunch, roast chicken, pasta with cheese, grilled hot dogs, etc.). The Thornes' topics (why we  cook the way we do, the history of classic food combinations, the Tao of bread) speak to us in our kitchens, where we live, in a way that brings us to look at our personal cuisines - the specific tools,  cookbooks, ingredients etc., we use, and in fact the whole activity of cooking and eating -  in a new, more carefully examined light. The Thornes focus not on refined food for the fancy meal but rather on the foods we make for the pure pleasure of ourselves and our friends, no matter how simple, and their recipes are presented not as prescriptions but as starting points for experimentation and creativity - which is how I think of the recipes I post here.