NEEDLING

POOR MAN'S HALF MOON TOMATO & RICE

Whole garlic not crushed, simply skinned, frying at the bottom of a wok. Salted. Then I ad whole tomatoes, small size but not cherry size, from which I’ve merely cut the dildo off. Don’t know what it’s called, the tip where the tomato was held to the branch. I fry them with the garlic without crushing the tomatoes or cutting them. Massalla, black and red pepper. I fry all that good and well, flipping the tomatoes around so they don’t burn. I do that for a while. Then I pour in a small glass of water, lower the fire, and cover the wok. Bring it to a slow boil. The trick is that I don’t want to break the tomatoes. I’ve got some rice ready on the side. And I’d like to get me a plate of rice and just place the tomatoes next to my rice. There’s the sauce of the tomatoes and the garlic. Far from revolutionary cooking, but I’m hungry, and I decided the cauliflower was not eatable. So the tomatoes, also a little outdated, and the garlic is basically all I had to work with. Plus a little zucchini I’m gonna steam now. Be very careful when taking out tomatoes from the wok so as not to break them. We want to keep them whole. I place them in a bowl and cover them. When done with the zucchini, don’t throw the juice away. This is a given and should not even be written down. That’s what you use if you want a little wetness on your rice, and that’s what you use tomorrow to make more rice, or to make a sauce, or to dip your bread into. But whatever you do, don’t throw the juice away.

What I did was put a lot of rice on my plate, place the tomatoes carefully half moon around part of the rice on the edge of the plate, place the zucchini on top of the rice right next to the tomatoes, the whole garlic in front of the tomatoes, and poured the sauce, which had become a thin gravy, right on top of the tomatoes. Not bad at all for a thrown together little meal. Goes to prove you don’t necessarily need meat to make a good plate.