That earthquake pasta the other night got me into some kind of mood. The next day, we went on one of those rare grocery shopping extravaganzas where you just go crazy & pile up the cart—at the bottom of the very long grocery list I had written “actually, EVERYTHING”. Fridge & pantry are busting at the seams now, but lunch today ended up strangely earthquakey nevertheless. I think it’s got to be some kind of winter hibernation mentality, cooking & eating as if you’re holed up in some little cabin in the snow with lots & lots of Mason jars of preserved foods.

Okay, well, not quite.

This here is simply polenta (which I always keep in the freezer), topped with buttered corn (also from the freezer), Pecorino, & a few leaves of fresh oregano just to remind me that we have green food in the fridge. I got the basic idea from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but of course hers involves fresh corn & more finessing of the polenta than I can handle right now.

Boil about 1-2/3 cups water, whisk in 1/3 cup of polenta, turn down to very low simmer & continue to whisk frequently, for approximately 20-30 minutes. At some point I sprinkled in salt. Meanwhile, melt some butter in a pan & cook about 1/2 cup of frozen corn kernels. When the polenta is ready, pour it in a pasta dish, top it with the corn, & microplane Pecorino on top. Garnish with oregano leaves & serve to one cold person, still premenstrual as all hell. Don’t worry too much about me though, I had fresh arugula for dinner.