I am finding that this interest/avocation/obsession with food blogging has changed the way I see the world--or at least the way I want to see the world. I gave my husband a digital camera a couple of years ago but in the last two months I seemed to have taken it over. I carry it everywhere in my efforts to capture images that express and/or inspire my thoughts about food.
Carrying a camera around to take photos of food has added to my enjoyment of it. I've always taken an aesthetic pleasure in the way food looks but now, more often than not, I pause to consider the beauty of the image before me and how I might preserve it. But not today.
Over the weekend I dusted off my bikes and have decided to try to bike as many places as possible for the sake of my health, the environment and for fun. Well, after biking around University Hill (and yes, there are many steep hills here--think Oakland and parts of San Francisco) I made it home for lunch famished. So famished that it wasn't until after I devoured my lunch that I thought, that was really good. I should have snapped a photo.
So I'll just tell you about it: thinly sliced Serrano Ham (a dry cured ham from Spain) with fresh mozzarella cheese and sun-dried tomato pesto on some sligtly toasted Heidelberg French Peasant bread. It was delicious! And, I'm happy to report, much of it was local. The mozzarella came from Antonio's here in Syracuse and the bread is baked in Upstate New York. The ham... well, no getting around it, was imported.
The sun-dried tomato pesto is really easy to make. Take a half cup of olive oil packed sun-dried tomatoes (drained but reserve the oil) and two cloves of garlic and pulse in a food processor. With the processor running, add 1 tablespoon of reserved oil from the tomatoes, 1 tablespoon of balsalmic vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste (though I never need to add any.) It will last in the fridge about a week--that is, if you can keep yourself from eating it straight from the jar.
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