Kiss My Grits

Polenta for dinner tonight. Sure it took about an hour and a half to cook, but man is real polenta worth the wait. Plus "No self-respecting southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits"


I cooked one cup of yellow Marino Felice fine grain corn meal in three cups of water with a tablespoon of Maldon salt. I boiled the water and whisked in the polenta once it was at a rapid bubble. Then the heat went down to a little simmer and the yellow corn meal just lightly blurped away with little spurts and sputters. I sat on the counter next to the stove and happily listened to my little cauldron crank and fart away while reading the endless pages of school work I've due yesterday.
I cut a thick slice of pancetta into large dice, I'd wacked it off the large log that'd been hanging at work. It'd been made from a local hog from Vermont. I helped bring the little guys carcass in and watched our charcuterie guy stuff and roll the fatty belly with peppercorns and juniper berries.
Once my lardons started to crisp I threw in a full head of garlic cloves, peeled but fully intact, and let the entire mess brown up.
A bright green handful of haricot verts blanched in salted water for literally less than a minute went into the pan with the garlic and pancetta and took on all that salty savoriness. Holy shit now my polenta is ready and its creamy as hell so I give it a drizzy of nice olive oil, a crack of pepper and a few grates of parmagiano. The pork, beans and garlic get plated, the polenta flanks, relaxing into a nice pool, thick but not quite set, and BOOM! I fry a few farm fresh in the pancetta drippings and slide them from pan to plate, crowning the polenta. Fresh parsley and one more drizz of oil and I'm ready to eat. We pop a nice light red from south western France, it's spot on with the salty pancetta. When the egg yolks break and oozes onto the polenta it almost makes me cry.
Cheap, simple, if not time consuming, and utterly perfect. This dinner will go down in the books, or should I say on the blog.
To truly gild the lily I baked off a tray of financiers. Wow my special lady dusted them with powdered sugar and served em up with a nice piping mug of Earl Grey. Nothing is better than a good meal...

This guy's last name is Polenta, what a luck devil.