Shorter days and chilly nights be damned, this year I’m just not feeling ready to say goodbye to summer yet. I’m still buying the last ears of corn from the market, no matter how anemic. And I’ll continue buying tomatoes too, even the ugliest, most bruised ones, if it means that I can eat fresh tomatoes for one more meal as we ease into a winter filled with those lackluster replacements we call “hot house” or “canned tomatoes”.

This works out well for me, because corn and tomatoes are two foods that  are so versatile that there’s no need for a lot of kitchen time and complex recipes, something I just don’t have a lot of these days. I’ve started the second leg of my culinary school career, and for the next nine months, I’ll be spending many of my nights at the French Culinary Institute, learning what I’ll need to become a pastry chef.

I feel like I’ve dropped off the face of the earth since I started school again, and I realized that I haven’t mentioned a thing about how its going. I hate to admit it, but it’s been difficult adjusting this time around, and it has nothing to do with the cooking school part -I’ve got that down.

Thanks to my summer spent in the bread kitchen at the FCI, I’m fully acclimated to the uniform (complete with the ridiculously impractical, hard-to-tie neckerchief), the culture of brevity (YES CHEF! YES CHEF! YES CHEF!), the hard work, the constant hustle, and demand for a focused, I’m-working-but-I’m-also-listening-to-soak-up-every-single-word-that-chef-is-saying kind of discipline.

On my first day of class, I was prepared for all of that, and it’s like I’d never left. I tucked all of my hair up under my hat and pressed my jacket so the chefs would not be able to scold me. I paid attention to demos and lectures and assembled all my mis en plas before I began a task. The first four classes have been like a dream with all of the cool new things I have learned.

The one part that’s been a little hard for me this time around is that I am the old lady in the class. My classmates look at me like I’m an alien, and I think they’re wondering who brought their mom to school. And when I look at them I try not to think about how the middle school students I taught five years ago are now older than the majority of these youths in my class.
In my spin through the bread program, where the youngest person in the class had at least graduated from college, I remember thinking how cool it was that cooking school united such a hodgepodge of people, with ages spanning from 20 to 50. Age meant nothing at all, status was determined by one’s ability hang with the work. I really enjoyed the people I worked with while I was there, because even the youngest person was really passionate about food. We’d geek out talking about food and cooking every second that we were allowed to talk. It was exactly what I expected from culinary school, a group of people as passionate, motivated, and unapologetically dorky as I am.

That’s just not the experience I’m having this time around. My eighteen-year-old partner has a great work ethic and a lot of heart and hustle, but by virtue of our difference in age, I just don’t see us bonding over long conversations about restaurants we love. It’s a small thing that I’ll definitely get over as we move from tarts and cookies to choux and more complicated techniques in the coming months, but for now it’s making me a bit nostalgic for summer.

Perhaps that is why I’m refusing to let go of summer food and embrace the bounty of fall.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa and Roasted Sweet Corn Salsa

I selected these recipes based on what I had in the fridge and they rely heavily on my personal taste. When you try them out, taste as you go to make sure that you making them to suit your palete – if you want more spice you may want to use hotter peppers, for example. The tomatillo salsa is spicy and even a little bitter, while the roasted corn salsa is very sweet – Brian called it “Italian salsa” because the roasted tomatoes, corn, and basil bring a sweetness that most people would not expect from a salsa. I added smoked pepper hot sauce to give it a little heat and I think the smoky flavor works well with all that sweetness.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
Adapted from Gourmet, November 2009

Serves 4-6 people as an appetizer or snack

• 1 1/2 pounds fresh tomatillos or 3 (11-ounce) cans tomatillos
• 3 fresh jalapeno peppers
• 3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt

Preheat broiler.

If using fresh tomatillos, remove husks and rinse under warm water to remove stickiness. If using canned tomatillos, drain and measure out 2 cups. Broil chiles, garlic, and fresh tomatillos (do not broil canned) on rack of a broiler pan 1 to 2 inches from heat, turning once, until tomatillos are softened and slightly charred, about 7 minutes.

Peel garlic and pull off tops of chiles. Purée all ingredients in a blender.

Roasted Sweet Corn Salsa

Serves 4-6 people as an appetizer or snack

3 Beefsteak tomatoes, cut into large pieces and seeded
1 large onion, cut into quarters
3 ears of corn, with the kernels removed from the cob
1/2 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
oilve oil
1 clove of garlic
Juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper, to taste
smoked pepper hot sauce, to taste

Set the oven to 350 degrees and place the tomatoes and the garlic clove in a pan and drizzle olive oil over them, then coat them with the oil using your fingers. Put the tomatoes and garlic in the oven to roast for 15 – 20 minutes. The tomatoes will have begun to caramelize and some of the water should cook off. Once the tomatoes have started to roast, remove the garlic clove and turn the oven to broil, coat the corn and onions in olive oil and add them to the pan with the tomatoes and cook a few inches from the heat under the broiler for 5-7 minutes, until the corn and onions char. Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool.

Chop the tomatoes, garlic, and onions into small pieces and stir together with the roasted corn. lime juice and basil. Add salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Serve with tortillas.