Caprese Skewers -- The Week the Garden Came Back

Week 478, and the garden being planted, the asparagus arriving at the farm stand, the light returning. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Garden and caprese salad; daily visits; weekly blog; simple pleasures. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made caprese salad this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

Caprese salad was what the week called for — the tomatoes coming in, the basil already fragrant on the windowsill, the whole thing asking to be assembled rather than cooked, which felt right for a week when I needed the kitchen to hold me without demanding too much of me. I made these as skewers because a skewer is a small, portable thing, and small portable things are what I bring to Cedarhurst, and what I bring to Cedarhurst is the marriage, one container at a time. The recipe below is the one I return to: no fuss, no heat, just the red and the white and the green, which have always meant something, and this week meant everything.

Caprese Skewers

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 1 pint cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes
• 8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into 3/4-inch cubes (or use ciliegine/bocconcini)
• 1 large bunch fresh basil leaves
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic glaze
• 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
• 16–20 small skewers or toothpicks

Instructions

1. Prep the ingredients. Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes and basil leaves. Pat the mozzarella cubes dry with a paper towel so the oil clings properly.
2. Fold the basil. Fold each basil leaf in half or in thirds so it fits neatly on the skewer without tearing.
3. Assemble the skewers. Thread each skewer in this order: one cherry tomato, one folded basil leaf, one mozzarella cube. Repeat with remaining skewers.
4. Arrange and dress. Arrange the finished skewers on a serving platter. Drizzle evenly with the olive oil and balsamic glaze.
5. Season and serve. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and cracked black pepper. Serve immediately at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to 2 hours before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 110 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 4g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 160mg