The porch light has been dead for the better part of a week, and I’d been coming up the steps in the dark like a woman who doesn’t own a torch, which is exactly what I am. So this morning I finally walked down to the ferramenta — the little hardware shop that smells of oil and sawdust and has been in the same family longer than I’ve been alive. I asked for a bulb and a washer for the kitchen tap, which has been dripping since the weekend, and the old man behind the counter went through a drawer of loose brass fittings until he found one that fit, charged me almost nothing, and pointed out that I could have brought the old washer in with me. Which is true. I fixed both in ten minutes once I was home, the tap first because the dripping is loudest at night, and it’s remarkable how much better a house feels when it stops making a noise you’d quietly gotten used to.
On the way back I passed the vegetable stall and came home with a box of the long sweet peppers that are the last of the season — the pale ones that turn red if you’re patient and sweet if you roast them. So I did the proper Calabrian thing with them: grilled them whole until the skins blistered black, covered them with a plate to let them steam, then peeled them and laid the strips in a jar with sliced garlic, parsley, and a pinch of oregano, and covered the lot with olive oil. They’ll be better in a week than they are today. The pantry shelf now holds the passata, the dried herbs, and this jar of peppers, which is starting to look less like a shelf and more like a small dispensa. My grandmother would approve, though she’d tell me I could have used more oil.
The other errand was the post office, where I stood in a queue long enough to read two posters about things I don’t need. I was sending my cousin in Rogliano the oregano from the beam and a few recipe cards she asked for, since she’s been trying to make our aunt’s almond biscuits and keeps getting them wrong. It all went into one small box, which is the trick of sending anything: you gather a dozen separate things, wrap them together, and they travel as one parcel. The computer has the same idea and calls it tar, which bundles a whole folder of files into a single archive you can move in one go — tar -czf parcel.tar.gz folder packs it, tar -xzf parcel.tar.gz unpacks it. I like that the command exists because somebody had the same instinct as a person with string and brown paper.
Supper was plain — bread, a little cheese, and the two peppers that didn’t fit in the jar, which is the cook’s privilege. The porch light works again, and the kitchen is quiet in the way that means nothing is leaking. A good Wednesday.
Recipe: Peperoni Sott’olio
Ingredients
- 1 kg long sweet peppers (the pale green or red frying kind)
- 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- olive oil, plenty of it
- salt
Preparation
- Grill or roast the peppers whole until the skins are blackened and blistered all over, turning as needed.
- Put them in a covered bowl or a paper bag and let them steam 15 minutes — the skins will slip off easily.
- Peel the peppers, remove the stems and seeds, and tear the flesh into strips. Salt them lightly and leave in a colander 20 minutes to drain.
- Layer the strips in a clean jar with the garlic, parsley, and oregano, pressing them down firmly so there are no air pockets.
- Pour in olive oil until everything is completely covered. Seal and keep in the refrigerator; they’re best after a few days and will keep several weeks. Bring to room temperature before serving.