Ratatouille—Or brown isn't all bad

 

As autumn approaches, my farmers market picks reflect my hang-on-to-summer mood. I want peaches and blueberries as long as possible. I’m not ready for apples. When I can no longer get fresh local peaches, I will buy those farmers’ apples and be happily up to my elbows in homemade applesauce, cinnamon wafting through the kitchen. Just not yet.

Part of holding on to summer is a preference for milder temps, but also, I prefer summer’s greens, bright reds, peach blush, and blues to autumn’s oranges and browns. When I made my traditional ratatouille last weekend, I lined up the veggies on the counter just to enjoy their colors. Eggplant is purple! Even the garlic has purplish stripes. Green zucchini and parsley. Red tomatoes, and a red pepper I forgot to get in the picture. The first sauté looked so bright.

 

But when I added the eggplant, the whole dish took on a brown effect. Cooked eggplant is no longer a summer color; it is a grayish brown, like winter’s dirty slush. Ratatouille’s flavors simmered together taste amazing in any season, but I don’t enjoy looking at the cooked dish. In a couple hours prep time, it goes from looking like summer to looking like winter. (Seems like a good spot here for a joke about aging or an adage about life transitions or positive focus, but I’m too tired to think of one.)

 

As fall inevitably encroaches, I’ll have to keep reminding myself of all the things I love that are in fact brown—squirrels (majorly cute), Paddington Bear (endearing), turkey gravy (yum), oh, and applesauce after a major cinnamon dump.