A Trio

I am never quite sure how to call the small dishes that usually open a meal. "Appetizer" is a good standard, but there is also "hors d'oevres", "starter", "first course", and (I've only heard this phrase from MFK Fisher) "titbits", or the more puritanical spelling "tidbits." (For more on this, see Fisher's With Bold Knife and Fork. )

I've always differentiated between appetizers and hors d'oevres as such: Appetizers you sit down for, while for hors d'oevres you stand up. I was recently introduced to synonym for appetizer, "starter", by my roommate, Sara, who brought it with her from the UK. I do now, however, take issue with both words, appetizer and starter - the first because it reminds me of eating at TGIFridays, the second because it seems sort of crude. As Elizabeth David said "I cannot bring myself to use the terms appetizer or starter. The first is meaningless in context and the second makes me think of a man on a racecourse with a stop-watch in his hand." [See Is there a nutmeg in the house?]

And what do you call them if they're just sauces to dip things in? Dips? I couldn't bring myself to call them that either - it's too reminiscent of something that comes in a foil package in powder form that my aunt would mix with sour cream and serve with wilty veggies at a potluck. Blech. [and, on second thought . . . Yummmmmm. Sour cream and onion . . .I'll just block the vision of that wrinkle-y package sitting on the supermarket shelf for years on end only to spew that grey-brown dust into a bowl of runny sour cream and pretend like it never happened.]

I provided the house with three pre-dinner dining media: my homemade hummus, a roasted pepper salad, and tapenade - all served with Zingerman's French baguettes.

I've made this pepper salad before with much success. Take a bell pepper (or two, or three, depending on the size of your crowd) and roast it/them in a roasting pan under the broiler until 70 to 80% of the surface has charred. This takes about 20 min. For three peppers (I used two red and one orange) squeeze the juice of half of a lemon into the bottom of the serving bowl. Add about two tablespoons of olive oil, a grind of pepper, and a pinch of sea salt. Whisk a bit and set aside until the peppers are done.

When the peppers are done roasting, take them out of the oven and let them sit for a second while you grap a zip-lock bag, run tap water into it, and then pour it out. There should be a couple droplets of water on the inside of the bag. Using tongs, pick up the peppers and add them to the bag. Push most of the air out of the bag, and seal it. Let the peppers sit like that for about ten minutes. They should be hot enough that the water will vaporize and steam the skins from the flesh of the peppers so that they are easy to peel.

When ten minutes are up, take the peppers out of the bag and pull away the stems. Most of the seeds will come with the stems. Peel the skin from the peppers and throw it out. Rinse the peppers inside and out to remove the seeds, and chop the peppers into 1-in squares. Toss them with the olive oil and lemon juice. Put in the fridge to chill for at least 30 min, but no more than 45, or they'll get soggy.

Usually, this salad is wonderfully fresh, and a perfect beginning to a summer meal. The peppers are firm with out begin crunchy, have a hint of smoky flavor, and are brightened up by the lemon. This time, I got too distracted and let the peppers roast for too long. They were soggy. I didn't eat them.

I was very proud of my hummus. Now, the usual recipe for hummus calls for chickpeas, lemon, garlic, and tahini, with a pinch of cumin or smoked paprika. I used to begrudgingly purchase tahini at the store, begrugingly because it always has a sandy consistency which I despise, until I discovered the recipe for it in the most unexpected of places - The Joy of Cooking. I had always pictured The Joy of Cooking as a sourcebook for midwestern potluck dishes - Greenbean casserole, creamed corn casserole, casserole a la casserole, etc. Flipping through my mother's copy, which my mother has not opened since she received it as a wedding gift twenty-five years ago, I found the recipe for "Tahin", which reads something like this:

Tahin

A Mideast seed butter of yogurtlike consistency, used to dress salads or as a base for sweets. Combine in a blender:

4 T ground sesame seeds
1 t sesame oil
1T lemon or lime juice (Kate's Note:Lime juice? Really?)
1/2 t salt

Add slowly while blending:

About 1/2 cup water

Remove from the blender and stir in if you wish:

1 to 2 pressed garlic cloves

Since I was making the hummus in a food processor, anyway, I skipped making the tahini ahead of time and just added the ingredients with those of the hummus. I have no idea if this has an affect on the hummus at all.

To make my hummus:

Take two 14-oz. cans of chickpeas and drain them. Remove any extra skins that are floating around. Puree them in a food processor with four large garlic cloves, juice of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, 4 T sesame seeds, 1/4 cup of water and a 1/4 to a 1/2 cup of olive oil. (If you want a creamier texture, add more olive oil. For a chunkier health-food store style hummus, use less oil.) Season to taste with sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, more lemon juice, and paprika. Puree again. If the texture is still to chunky, add more olive oil, or a little bit of liquid reserved from the cans of chickpeas. This is VERY garlicky, so if you don't like garlic, add less. Garnish with an olive. (In the photo, it had already been eaten.)

The tapenade was my favorite. The name is derived from the French word for capers, and originally, it may have been made with them primarily. MFK Fisher, in With Bold Knife and Fork, traces the dish to "a famous restaurant in Marseilles [first made about a hundred and twenty years ago]" but, as she says, "[tapenade] tastes as subtly ancient as Time itself can taste.'' According to Ms. Fisher and Ms. David, it is traditionally served with hard-boiled eggs, but as it was excrutiatingly hot this night we served them, I didn't want to deal with the potential smell. I served it on thin slices of baguette, with the other dishes. Here is the recipe:

Tapenade

1/2 lb oil- or brine- cured black olives, pitted
1 T small capers
6 anchovy fillets, packed in oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
extra virgin olive oil
black pepper, to taste

Equipment: Food processor

Finely minced together the olives, capers, anchovies and garlic in the food processor. Add the lemon juice and pepper and pulse once or twice. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil until you have a thick paste. Chill for about thirty minutes, or, to make it ahead of time, put it in a clean jar and cover with about 1/4 in of olive oil. It will keep, covere,d in the fridge for about 2 days. (If you want to make it more ahead of time than that, omit the garlic, so as to avoid botulinum, and wait to stir the garlic, finely minced, in until about 1/2 hour before serving.)

Tapenade, if youlove olives, as I do, is a delicious treat. Served with bread, a light cheese, and a glass of white wine, it makes an excellent pre-dinner snack.