Farmers Market Month, Day 10: Scallops, pea greens, blueberries, sakura mochi

Yesterday I had this for dinner:



It's scallops, Chinese sausage, pea greens, and rice, from this Yotam Ottolenghi recipe, freely adapted as I didn't have all the ingredients. That was a mistake. His recipes are very precise and come out delicious if you do them exactly as written, which I didn't do. And while I can perfectly sear a scallop (yes, even a tiny bay scallop) normally I cook scallops extremely simply so I can focus my entire attention on getting the sear right. Instead, I was juggling multiple steps, and the sear suffered along with everything else. It wasn't terrible but it was nowhere near as delicious as you'd expect from the ingredients.

While I was at the Japanese grocery buying the ginger and pea greens for the scallops, I spotted the first sakura mochi of spring! Naturally I had to buy them. If rules would stop you from eating sakura mochi, you must break the rules.

Flint, by Louis L’Amour

James Kettleman, a successful financier with no friends and in a loveless marriage, is told by his doctor that he’s dying of cancer. Leaving his wife behind, he returns to the west of his boyhood, where he’d been an abandoned child raised by a gunslinger assassin named Flint, to die in peace. However, he gets drawn into some bad guys moving in on a woman who owns a ranch, and finds himself drawn back into life at the worst possible time.

Spoiler: ( Read more... )

This premise is so good! And I generally like L’Amour. Unfortunately, the book didn’t do much for me. By far the best part is the atmospheric description of Kettleman finding Flint’s old hideout in a maze of solidified lava, complete with a herd of horses who’d been living there, unable to get out without human help but with everything they need, for seventeen years.

Kettleman plans to catch up on his reading before he dies – an obviously excellent plan, and one which endeared him to me. Alas, it was the only thing that did. He’s so cold and unlikable that it sucks the life out of the book, and his reawakening to human feelings – possibly my all-time favorite plot – was told in such an unemotional way that I never really believed in it or cared. Not a favorite.

Note the ominous "A Novel." Flint: A Novel