thoughts on dinner

Growing up, my family ate dinner together every night. Usually, my dad cooked. My mother would sit in the kitchen and talk with him, both of them drinking wine and relaxing after work. Sometimes I acted as sous-chef and helped my dad with the prep work: snapping beans, trimming the fat from lamb chops, washing lettuce, stirring sauces.

When I was little, I assumed that everyone had dinner this way.

Now that I'm older, I appreciate the challenges of cooking dinner every night. After a long day at work, sometimes it's all I can do to muster the energy to make a tunafish sandwich, much less roast a chicken and julienne potatoes for a galette.

But still, I like to at least try. Which last night meant pasta with chanterelles.

Since it's fall, chanterelles are everywhere. When I got mine home from the market, I saw that they were going to take some thorough cleaning as there were lots of things Not Mushroom in my bag of mushrooms- plenty of sticks and such. But they smelled fantastic, rich and earthy.

This recipe is so simple I hesitate to even call it a recipe. You boil pasta. You sautee chanterelles in a bit of olive oil and butter. You place said fragrant, buttery chanterelles on top of pasta and then cover with a drift of freshly grated parmesan and a toss of chopped parsley.

Then you eat. With a small green salad.