Second Breakfast

I do love me some leeks (read my recipes, which seem to feature them here often).  They’re aromatic and savory, but not as harsh as an onion.  They pair well with lots of things, and make a tasty tarte.  Here’s mine.

Items

• 1 8″ round tarte pan, or round 9″ pie dish
• 1 cup of dried beans of any kind (for blind baking the crust)
• 3 medium leeks, white parts only, trimmed and cleaned well, halved, and sliced thin
• 3 medium carrots, trimmed, peeled, and diced fine
• 1/2 medium onion, halved again and sliced thin
• 2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 pkg ready-made pie crust (there’s no shame!)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup grated Parmaggiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1/2 cup grated smoked Provolone cheese
  (The cheeses are really up to you and what you have on hand.  Goat cheese would work well here.)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp thyme

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F.
2. Warm the pie crust to room temperature.  If you’re in a hurry, defrost it  (30% power) for 20 seconds.  Unroll it and place it in the tarte or pie pan.  Fold the crust over the sides and press firmly into the pan.  Pierce the bottom of the crust all over with a fork.
3. Loosely lay some foil over the bottom of the crust, and pour the beans on top (this will prevent the crust from puffing up during baking).  Bake the crust for 10 minutes.  This is called “blind baking”, and will help the crust stay tender with the moisture from the veggies.  Remove from oven and set aside.
4. While the crust is baking, heat the olive oil and butter over medium-high heat.  Add the veggies, and sautee, covered and stirring often, for 6-8 minutes.  Uncover and sautee for another 6-8 minutes until most of the liquid is gone and the carrots are mostly tender.  Set aside to cool
5. While the veggies are finishing, beat the eggs and milk in a mixing bowl until combined.  Add the 1/2 of the cheese, salt, pepper, and thyme (reserve the remaining cheese for the top).
6. When the veggies have cooled a bit (I run cold water from the faucet under the pan to help with this), add it in small batches to the custard (this will prevent curdling of the eggs from the heat of the veggies).  Stir until combined.
7. Pour into the crust and smooth with a spoon or spatula to the edges so it is even.  Top with reserved cheese.
8. Bake another 12 minutes until the custard is set and the top is browned.  Finish under the broiler for a minute or two longer if you wish.
9. Let rest for 5-10 minutes.  Can be served hot, or cooled to room temperature.  Slice into wedges.

Serves 4 as a light main course with a salad and some bread.

I received a promotional copy of this from my friend who owns our local queer bookstore, as I had mentioned several times how much I liked Laurie R. King’s “Mary Russel” series, whose central character is Sherlock Holmes’ young American wife. This book is from her other, more contemporary detective series whose central character, Kate Martinelli, is a police detective in San Francisco, but it brings some aspects of the two series together.

The story, like many in this genre, focuses on a murder — here the apparent murder of a antiques dealer and collector who is also an intense and obsessively devoted Sherlock Holmes fan. In the midst of the investigation Martinelli uncovers what appears to be an unpublished Dolye/Holmes story, set in San Francisco, involving another murder in which the body and circumstances of the death exactly mirror those of the investigation. The story unfolds in parallel between the inner story and the outer. The conclusion to both is somewhat surprising, but I’m not that clever of a mystery reader.

There is a substantial queer element to this story, which I found refreshing. Martinelli’s character is a lesbian with a partner and daughter, and the book includes nice interludes with her family and friends, and connects to what I presume are incidents in previous Martinelli books. The inner story also focuses on a gay relationship, but I won’t give any spoilers here.

The writing isn’t as strong as in some of her other books, and this didn’t feel as polished or finished as what I’ve come to expect from King. The presentation of my copy was also strange (although mine was a pre-publication copy for reviewers), as the inner story, although described as having been written on a typewriter, was printed in a handwriting style font, and this discrepancy was inexplicable and distracting.

Still, I like what King is doing with the Holmes genre, and this is a fun summer read.

This is a fine, beautiful, almost perfect book. My husband knows Grimsley’s writing from his extensive reading of gay fiction, and I happened to run across this novel while perusing the small sci-fi section at our local queer bookstore. The basic premise from the jacket almost reads like a Saturday morning cartoon — a technological, futuristic humanity encounters a “primitive” world on the other side of a gateway where “magic” operates. But this story is anything but cartoonish, and this multilayered, sophisticated novel reminds me of favorite authors such as LeGuin and Delaney (those comparisons I found were made in the jacket reviews, but I was making similar comparisons in my head as I was reading).

Grimsley’s story follows Jedda Martele, a woman from the overcrowded and futuristic world of Senal, a colony of Earth in the distant past. Jedda is also a trader, and has extensive knowledge of the world of Irion, on the other side of the gateway that bridges the two worlds. As the story unfolds and the inevitable conflict between the two cultures comes to a head, Jedda herself becomes the pivotal character, caught between powerful personalities who wield potent powers. She also finds herself falling in love with the powerful female leader of Irion, and as in all such stories, must make a choice between two worlds.

Grimsley’s style here avoids obvious uses of exposition, so readers encounter many questions about the nature of the two worlds, the peoples involved, the place names, and so on, and in one sense the entire novel is a working through of those questions. What kind of place is Irion, which is a flat, not round world (with edges), but who shares the sky of Senal? What is the nature of the “magic” that is possible on Irion, and what does it mean for Senal? Who made Irion, if it was made, and for what purpose? While this technique can be frustrating early on, a reader’s patience is rewarded. I couldn’t wait to dive back into this book, and I was keenly interested in how these questions were answered as the story unfolded.

This novel is also a meditation on the nature and uses of language, and is a novel of ideas as much as of characters and events. Grimsley’s notions of the intersections between langugae, thought, and reality are very intriguing, and reminds me of similar explorations by LeGuin and Stephenson. I’m curious to know how Grimsley developed his central notion of “magic” as a special form of consciousness made possible by certain kinds of language, and definitely want to see how he develops these ideas in future works.

A treat to be savored!