Roving is a romantic way of saying moving from place to place. At one time, the word contained more layers of significance than it does now, including something like “lookin’ for love.” This sense finds its beautiful epitome in Byron’s love lyric, “We’ll go no more a-roving.” More than a poem of love, this is a poem of eros. The short, simple poem, which Byron wrote while in Venice, speaks of the sweetness of longing and nostalgia as it relishes ironic double entendre.
Today, I’ve had a decidedly more banal, and boring, experience of roving: I drove all around this spread-out rural center of civilization in the northeast—seemingly just to keep the car capable of more driving. It was a day of logistics: dropping the boys at camp; driving to White River Junction with my sister to get her tire repaired for $13, which took all day; driving to drop off my sister at my dad’s office so that she could use his car; driving to the library for two hours of 1794 literary journals on microfilm; driving to pick up my boy; driving to CVS and the Hanover Food Co-op; driving back to the back roads of Norwich to drop off the cold food; driving to my dad’s office to pick up my sister; driving to the mechanic’s to pick up her car. On the way out of there, my automatic transmission problem alert signal came on. It’s an orange-lighted gear with an exclamation point in the center. Whoa! So, then we drove, in caravan, to another mechanic’s, who directed us to another, farther south along route 5 in Vermont. This will probably cost me quite a bit more than $13.
And then we drove back up route 5, which, happily, leads to Killdeer Farm Stand. I dropped off my sister and the boys at the UPS warehouse to see the trucks (my nephew’s current obsession) and drove to Killdeer. After a day of aggravation, this was bliss.
The vegetable baskets are more bountiful every day. I wanted to make a pasta dish with a classic combination of vegetables. I bought an eggplant, sweet green pepper, sweet onion, costata romanesca. I looked at everything, admired everything, knew I’d be back tomorrow.
I left, reluctantly, to do more driving.
For dinner we had farfalle with all of the above, and some sweet Italian sausage, flavored with fennel seeds, from Cloudland Farm, which we’d had in the freezer. It was warm, green, springy, delicious.
Spring Pasta
Get the water boiling for pasta. Meanwhile, break a half-pound of sweet Italian sausage into chunks, and slice half of a sweet onion, one or two Japanese eggplants (their skin is more tender), one sweet green pepper, and one costata romanesca. Sauté the sausage until mid-rare and let drain in a bowl lined with paper towel. Sauté the vegetables, beginning with the onion, followed by the eggplant, pepper, and eggplant. Cook the pasta. When the vegetables are lightly caramelized, spoon in a couple of big spoonfuls of pasta-cooking water, and cover for a minute or less. Put the sausage back in the pan, and then combine pasta and vegetables in a big bowl or pot and toss with grated parmgiano reggiano. Serve with extra cheese at the table.
The Roving Locavore 