This recipe has several uses: Salty crunch, aromatics, an appetizer, and mediating conversation with your mother in law.
My grandmother was scary – incited fear.
If I were to put it more gently, I could say: she was unkind at times. A hard, more sour person. I looked for the typical expressions of grandmother-ly love throughout my childhood; tight hugs, fresh cookies, a kiss on the forehead… Instead, her love came through criticism and hidden photo albums (only found postmortem). The vision of a warm-and-fuzzy grandmother who baked and always had something bubbling on the stovetop didn’t match up with her. She was masterful with backhanded compliments, and never cooked. She ordered her sons (my father and uncles) around on Sundays to prepare dinner, or ordered in on other nights of the week. We ate dinner together most Sundays, a convening of pinched-lipped discussion, eating slowly, and murmured anecdotes.
Though she didn’t cook, anytime we stepped into her apartment —at around 6:30pm on Sunday evenings— I would be greeted with the warm, wafting smell of rosemary. This dish (maybe it’s generous to even call it that) was the one food item my she ever made and with expressed interest to do so. I see now it was her party trick. Her small extension of warmth to her guests, her family. One that she couldn’t admit verbally or physically, instead she extended her embrace in the form of roasted walnuts.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted, depending on preference)
- 2 teaspoons dried rosemary, pulverized in a spice grinder or bashed with a mortar & pestle
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon, more or less to taste, cayenne
- 2 cups shelled walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°.
- Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium low heat.
- Add the rosemary, salt and cayenne to the butter and whisk the sauce together until it begins to emulsify; do not worry if it is not foamy – all you need is a good mixture.
- Toss the walnuts in with this melted butter mixture in a bowl then spread them out on a baking sheet.
- Roast them for about 10 minutes, or until aromatic. Check frequently for scorching.
- Let the walnuts cool slightly and serve, they will go quickly.
