Succulent doesn’t seem like an appropriate word to describe….peas. Peas, the adorable tiny sweet spheres surrounded by their canoe like casing. It’s like they want to come out and say, hey! I always picture them with smiling faces in my head. But succulent is totally appropriate to describe them if they’re prepared the right way, much like most ingredients. I remember looking at these, thinking nothing. Oh, okay, these are some ho-hum peas. But then the world stopped, and it got me thinking. People in Italy don’t worry about what they’re going to eat like a lot of us do. I can think of so many times that I’ve stressed myself out, discombobulated and paralyzed over what I’m going to prepare for people, even people I love that I know will love me even if I serve them Vienna sausage with a side of funyons and some delicious, tubey go-gurt for dessert.

They don’t worry because they start with super-high quality ingredients that need nothing, ingredients that have either been picked from two feet away or have come from a friend who picked them from two feet away yesterday or this morning. The sense of community that comes from eating seasonally to the highest respect and regard for the earth and for the purity in the purest sense of the word for produce and for what we ingest enthralled me in Italy. Summer produce was everywhere I looked. And I joked with my Italians that they ruined produce for me, because I’m not sure I can recreate the taste of the foodstuffs over there, over here. As Michael Pollan describes, when you taste something that tastes like it’s actually supposed to, with no chemicals or GMOs or hormones,  there’s no other way to describe the taste except that it tastes more like that thing.

 

Figs (!!!!) never tasted figgier or more mouthwatering.

Apricots made my head want to explode with their apricottiness. This was seriously a world-altering revelation for me. I realized I had never tasted an apricot before, because before I had only tasted slightly sweet leather. They are now my favorite fruit.

Zucchini became zuuchiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiii.

Strawberries made me want to shun Driscolls forever.

Plums. Dont get me started on the plummy plums.

As I spoke with the person I spent the most time with in Italy, who only served me the peachiest peaches picked from his parents’ trees, or the ripest plums that we’d pick up straight from the ground in front of his house as we’d walk around grassy green mountains that I would later make into jam because we couldn’t fit more of these perfect earthly morsels into our stomachs and nothing goes to waste.

And always vine ripened tomatoes, again from his parents, fat and bursting at the seams that made feel like I had never lived before.

As I frantically spoke with him night after night, over the tablecloth (of course) and a Barolo he picked the grapes for seven years ago about this astonishing revelation for me, about how everyone does this and lives in this fantastically human way, he smiled and just said, “Pero e normale!” (it’s normal). It is, and geez, is there any other way to live?

I don’t think so and I don’t want to.

But back to the peas. The peas require love and some care and that is it. And hopefully we can learn to live this way, somehow, in all aspects of our lives. The true way we were meant to live: close to the earth, unadulterated, and needing nothing else but molto amore.

Perfect peas

3 tablespoons olive oil

One pound peas, in their shell

3 cloves garlic

1 cup water

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Once hot and shimmering, add the peas and garlic and saute for a minute or two, until slightly browned.

Add the water and lower the heat to medium-low. Cover and cook until the peas are cooked through, about ten minutes more, adding more water if necessary. Season to taste with salt and pepper.