Upside-Down Pear

I’ve spent the past two weeks at my in-laws’ place. My mother-in-law is a wonderful cook and generally great fun; we had a grand old time in the kitchen (in addition to a grand old time hiking, biking, swimming, and driving a beat-up Jeep along the beach).

Some food highlights: oysters, all local, including oysters my MIL could identify by sight (“Those are West Tisbury oysters; they always have those weird shells.”); meltingly-ripe heirloom tomatoes with balsamic vinegar; perfect just-picked sweet corn; puff pastry shells filled with lemon curd and pistachios; cannelloni and osso bucco; fresh sweet hardshell lobster (this one attacked me post-mortem, leaving a half-inch cut on my hand, but it was tasty all the same); crabcakes; crisp roasted fingerling potatoes.

The two weeks was topped off with a fabulous dinner at the Sweet Life Cafe – more heirloom tomatoes, delicately flavored duck breast, cool, delicious potato salad.

If it weren’t for my cats, I might never have come home.

One of my favorite main dishes is roast lamb – I love a six-bone rack of lamb, rubbed with salt and pepper and brushed with mustard, roasted so that the fat crisps up, browns, splits and crackles. Done just so, the meat is soft and juicy, the flavor delicate and warm.

The simplicity of this is what makes it work, makes it go with anything – and like so many things, simplicity is in the details. Get good lamb. Get good mustard. Get a probe thermometer. Get an oven thermometer.

Pay attention to the little things, and the big thing will come out perfectly roasted, browned, gorgeous and tender and just the right thing for a cool summer night.