Who Knows?

On Saturday, D and I drove up to the Philadelphia Folk Festival, where we enjoyed a wonderful evening of music by, among others, folk legends Tom Paxton, Janis Ian, and Judy Collins. At nearly 70, Judy still sounds fabulous. I've seen her at least three times before and have never been disappointed. Those like D who have followed her in real time for her whole career (he saw her in 1970), say that her voice has changed -- as I'm sure it has (I didn't start seeing her live till the mid-'90s). But it's still amazing. What could be a better lullaby than to be serenaded on a summer evening (albeit a surprisingly cold one) with "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" as sung by the voice with whom it's most associated?

Another highlight was not only enjoying a set by country singer Kathy Mattea, singing from her spare and haunting new album, Coal -- a collection of songs about coal mining (she's from West Virginia, and both of her grandfathers were miners) -- but also meeting her. She was very down to earth and genuine, as I think the picture here indicates.

Where to next?

Basta!

Here's a New York Times article by one of my favorite cookbook authors, Mark Bittman. It's about a vegetarian restaurant -- known for rich, luscious meatless food -- in Nice, France, called Zucca Magica. Of the two Italian owners, Bittman writes:

Ms. Bolmida is from Turin, and her husband, Mr. Folicaldi, is from Rome, where they met. Their vegetarianism evolved slowly. “When I was growing up,” Mr. Folicaldi said to me, in a combination of French, English and Italian, “we ate meat, meat and more meat.” To hear him tell it, he first became tired of eating it. Then he met Ms. Bolmida, and the two became self-described animal lovers. Finally, he says, “We said ‘basta!’ to trying to pretend the slices did not come from a nice little pig.”

With the article is a fun video of Bittman making a dish he learned at the restaurant, chard stuffed with risotto.

I haven't made that one yet, but I've already made this recipe (twice) that I heard on the radio show The Splendid Table on Saturday. I used haricots verts instead of asparagus. On the show the author, Sally Schneider, said you could make it with just about any base for the egg -- from vegetable to starch. Simple and delicious!