Mixed Veggies on Rice

I don't usually troll the newspapers for recipes. Once in a while something catches my eye, in this case a "healthy eating" recipe in one of our major metropolitan dailies. You know the kind of recipe I mean—it looks crisp and snappy in the accompanying photo, but when you actually make the thing it turns out to be about as interesting as a week-old English muffin. This particular dish promises utter ennui at the dinner table, consisting as it does of cooked cannelli beans mixed with summer squash that's been sautéed with a bit of garlic and some chopped tomato, the whole dumped over rice or pasta or whatnot.

Mixed veggies on rice, in other words. That's what almost every healthy-eating recipe comes down to. Mixed veggies on rice. Thus a purveyor of such drab fare is likely to strain every nerve in the (futile) pursuit of sexing it up. One strategy is to invade the spice cabinet with mad little cries of joy, snatching every container in sight and going on a mix-'n'-match orgy. Nowadays that almost always seems to involve rendering the dish so fiery with chilies that only a robot could eat it without developing hiccups. Or else it goes all curry.

As far as I'm concerned that's dirty pool. It's still mixed veggies on rice, even if the thing is dissolving your dinnerware and threatening to etch a crater in your dining room rable. Ditto the curry with its infinitude of vapors and hints of Kipling and all that. Mixed veggies on rice.

The counter-approach is to complicate, fuss, and refine the preparation. That's the tack taken by this particular recipe. Something like a full column of newsprint was devoted to the cooking of the cannelli beans. To soak or not to soak? Picking through the beans to remove duds. Making up a bouquet garni composed of items so arcane as would have Julia Child scratching her head and muttering: oh surely they can't really NEED that, can they? Cutting the summer squash into geometrically perfect cubes. Timing the cooking of the garlic down to the microsecond. And of course there's the tomato ritual—run it over a flame for a bit to soften the skin, which is then carefully removed with a surgery-sharp paring knife, after which the tomato is split lengthwise and the seeds removed, then chopped into meticulous pieces. At least they didn't go into that popular rigamarole about grilling a red pepper over mesquite and removing its skin and all that.

Now, I'm not dissing the recipe or all the fuss. I'm sure it results in a dandy pile of mixed veggies on rice. I haven't the slightest doubt that it would be a far sight better than chopping up a few zuccini, opening a can each of cooked cannelli beans and chopped tomatoes, and letting it go at that. But would it be that much better? Enough to turn a culinary wave of the hand into a good hour's worth of kitchen toil?

Probably not. Yet on the whole I'm in sympathy with the hour's worth of kitchen toil, at least in principle. It's precisely that fussy detail, that drive to delve deeper that divides the pros from the dilettantes. When you're a professional, good enough is the enemy of the good. That's as true in preparing mixed veggies on rice for dinner as it is in preparing the Eroica for Carnegie Hall. Artistry is all about thoroughness, depth and breadth, and an unwillingness to settle for the adequate.

I am reminded of a 15th-century letter from one duke to another about hiring Josquin des Prez for court service. The writer spoke candidly. Prepare yourself for some sharp pains in the keester, he warned. Josquin is a diva, he's expensive, he's moody, and managing him is like herding a cat. On the other hand, he will give you music fit for the gods themselves. Your choice. It's to the inquiring duke's credit that he chose excellence over convenience, hired Josquin, and thus earned himself a footnote in music history.

Also to be found in music history is the unmistakable evidence that talent is all very well and good, but true artistry comes only with hard work and discipline. I have recently re-read Robert Osborne's fine biography of conductor Herbert von Karajan, and I was struck by Karajan's overall introversion and solitary habits, despite his wealth, power, and lavish surroundings. A friend once pointed out that while Karajan's glamorous wife was out on the town amidst a flock of dazzled paparazzi, Herbert was most likely at home alone in his bathrobe, sprawled on the floor and studying a score. That sort of thing crops up repeatedly whenever you start looking closely into the lives of fine artists; you find monastic dedication and unquestioning commitment to excellence. Oh, whatever is conspicuously absent.

So bully for the intricate mixed veggies on rice. I can't say I'm planning on making the recipe. We must pick our battles, and food-for-immortality just isn't one of mine. But whereas another musician might view the writing of a program note as a chore to be dispatched with minimal bother, I'll go the distance and then some. Recently I've been working with a composer on the program note for an important premiere. The shift from the usual two-way editing process (me, editor) to three-way (me, composer, editor) increases the complexity logarithmically rather than arithmetically. The versions are flying about like so many feathers in a pillow factory. May blessings rain upon Microsoft Word's superb change-tracking and reviewing features. I hope I'm not being too much of a pain, e-mailed the composer recently. Not at all, I replied, and I wasn't just being courteous. Striving for the best is never a pain. It's what we do.

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