Leftovers

. . . but whattaya do when the gang doesn't all show up to get their orders? Stephen Salaff laid down one idea
in a recent piece for the San Francisco GOOD TIMES

by STEPHEN SALAFF

GOOD TIMES , $6.00/YEAR
2377 Bush Street San Francisco, California 94115

One Saturday afternoon in March, I met a bunch of people standing around a parked station wagon. It seems that the wagon had returned to Berkeley from early morning shopping at the San Francisco Farmer's Market with a load of vegetables. The people were part of the Food Conspiracy, which provides food to neighborhood groups at wholesale prices. One of them said that some co-conspirators had failed to collect their food at the assigned hour, and so it was decided to give away all the extras right out of the station wagon. This illustrates one of the problems of such a food distribution system - the members have to get to the distribution point on time.

I helped myself to the assorted vegetables, picking three medium-sized onions, eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini, and green peppers - fifteen in all. The dish I cooked with them is a vegetable stew from the French Provence region, called a ratatouille. It is, in one or another variant, a natural and colorful way to utilize a windfall of fresh vegetables.

To make a ratatouille for six to eight persons, you will need, in addition to the above vegetables, two cloves of chopped garlic, at least one-half cup of olive oil, and one or more "tomato" spices, like basil and chopped parsley. Here's what you do with each vegetable: