The fish guy at the supermarket had arctic char (one of our very favorite fishes) a couple of weeks ago, but we had other plans for dinner that night. I asked him if he thought it would keep until Friday if I bought some that day, and he gave me a firm “nope.” Sigh.

But char doesn’t come around every day. Feeling uncharacteristically optimistic, I bought a filet anyway and stuck it directly into the freezer when I got home. The following week, I thawed it out and improvised a meal to go with it. And it worked, hurrah!

The char behaved perfectly, I’m happy to say, just panfried with a knob of butter and drizzled with a bit of pesto from the freezer. Then I made a very simple risotto with lots of fresh leeks, which I expected to be the star of the evening. It was, in fact, extremely nice, but then I hadn’t thought to be so taken by the roasted parsnips.

I don’t normally buy parsnips, since Jon doesn’t care for them much, but I had just read the Parsnips for Epiphany recipe in A Platter of Figs and then I saw the most gorgeous, huge pile of parsnips at Haggen. It seemed fated, and I bought a few roots.

I cooked them as David Tanis recommends, cut into long quarters, cored and tossed with plenty of olive oil and salt, then roasted a good long time. The result was astounding: the parsnips were ethereally crisp on the outside, especially the tips, but the innards were buttery and sweet. Jon willingly ate a couple, but I inhaled the rest of the pan all by myself.

It almost makes me sad that parsnip season is nearly over. Almost.

We were dying for vegetables after our odd weekend in the Tri-Cities, so we loaded up a shopping cart with mushrooms, onion, fennel, beets, carrot and a parsnip and took it all home to roast with olive oil and salt. I separated out the shrooms and fennel to roast together, parboiled the beets and put them in a pan with the carrot, and put the onion and parsnip in a third pan (J is not a big fan of the parsnip). When everything was caramelized and soft I tossed it all together on our plates, and topped the piles with a lovely halibut steak that I had roasted as well. It was all very fresh tasting and delicious, and made us feel that it was nice to be home (sleeping in our own bed helped, too).

So dinner was nice, but I felt the high point was lunch the next day. I was feeling inspired after seeing this post and video on poaching eggs, as well as months of reading the wonderful blog posts on Last Night’s Dinner featuring beautiful poached eggs on top of duck hash or other yummy things. I had been known to poach an egg occasionally, but usually wimped out and ended up frying them (I’m good at frying eggs, at least) and eating them for breakfast on top of leftover greens or couscous.

But I did it! It’s not as pretty as it could be, but it was perfectly done and it tasted wonderful with the roasted parsnip and beets and such, with the yolk dribbling down and mixing with the sweet vegetables juices. With a good sprinkle of fleur de sel, it was a cheery and restorative lunch.