Nigella's Chickpeas with Rocket and Sherry (with a Southern Twang)

While excessive apologies make me squirm, I should say "sorry" for vacating the blog. Sorry, dear blog, for the hiatus. Blame spring, blame school, blame spring quarter.

Now I'm back and have a story to share. It goes like this: When I found out this winter that I was teaching a noon to 2 p.m. class, my first thought was: WHEN AM I GOING TO EAT LUNCH??? (Yes, when it comes to meals I always think in capital letters and employ punctuation liberally.)

The first day of school snuck up on me last week, and that sucker found me feeling more jittery than pleasurable at 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning. So I did what any terrified, first-time teacher would do. I uncorked a bottle of cream sherry.

Only the intense stare of my morally-superior husband prevented me from pouring that sherry into a crystal glass, and then taking a few generous sips. Why, you ask, did I have a bottle of sherry in my hands just after sun-up?

I wanted my back-to-school lunch -- the lunch that followed my first class -- to be special.

Lately, I am obsessed with Nigella's Chickpeas with Rocket and Sherry and claimed this recipe as The One. Btw: Stateside, we call "rocket" by the snootier name of "arugula." As a cheapskate who happens to live in Louisiana, I substituted turnip greens for the pricey rocket. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Hopefully, my students will never know how frequently I thought of the lunch awaiting me as I tried to make a good impression, teach them something useful, and stop myself from sounding like a crazy old person when I said things like, "Stop rustling your papers" or "Is it just me, or is it really hot in here?" and punctuated my sentences with a long, deflated um.