Scallion & Sumac Socca with Mashed Avocado, Olives and Feta

I have a lot of ideas. A lot. In bed at night, as I can’t sleep, I think about my potential businesses, the books I want to write (a cookbook, always, but lately, I cannot get this one out of my head 2017: The Year I Stopped Giving a F*** — if you know me, you are as shocked by this title as I am, but the brain wants what the brain wants. Also, can I really commit to that? As a trial, I tried to wear red, red lipstick at home with my family on New Year’s Eve and couldn’t bring myself to look in the mirror once the entire night).

But, mostly, when it comes to what I think about in bed at night, while everyone else is asleep, it’s food. Sometimes it’s because I’m starving (so hoping this is a direct result of nursing and not that I’m newly destined to a life of convincing myself it’s a bad idea to go into the kitchen at midnight). But, mostly, it’s because I have recipes just waiting to be tested and written down. I’ve been thinking about turning Beef Negimaki into Shrimp Skewer form, making PB&J Fig Newton type cookies and something that I can’t quite nail down with provolone and anchovies. These tacos started late one night, as did these eggs and this pecan milk. And for weeks, after waking up night after night, thanks to one minuscule cry from one of the girls, I could not stop thinking about Sheetpan Sumac Socca.

Socca, made from chickpea flour, water, oil and salt at it’s most basic, is one of those meals you barely have to think about. Yet, for a long time, I put off making my first batch: the batter needs to sit for an hour and sometimes that just takes too much forethought. But, here is what often pushes me forward: the batter may need an hour to sit, but first it takes about 3 minutes to whisk together and then demands nothing of me, until I pour it into a blazing hot pan and let it broil for less than 10 minutes. So, if I can’t get it together to make the socca, who’s really to blame in this situation?

My favorite socca has always been freshly baked and topped with a lemony arugula salad, but since Easton has started eating with us, I’ve changed it up: sometimes finishing it with pesto and fresh mozzarella, other times with salsa and pickled onions. Really socca is just a canvas. A deliciously, crisp canvas.

But, since Easton has been eating with us, one socca, made in the traditional cast iron skillet has started to feel like j-u-s-t enough food for the three of us. A salad on the side helps, but it still feels like a stretch. So, late one night, after remembering that there was a bag of chickpea flour in the freezer, I started to imagine sheetpan socca – playing off my love of all things sheet pan, and playing up the potential pizza aspect of socca.

I wanted it topped with lemony avocado, briny olives and creamy sheep’s milk feta. And, to play up the lemony aspect, sprinkled tart, brick red sumac into the flour. And, scallions to subtly mimic scallion pancakes. The process was successful: a well-seasoned, well-rested batter, poured into a very hot, oiled sheet pan and then broiled until patchy. It’s just that the outcome wasn’t as successful. Three times.

The flavor was there, but the texture just wasn’t right. The first time, I was convinced that I had rushed heating up the pan, which is why the socca was baked unevenly, was pliable and rollable, but not crisp. So, the second time, I heated up the pan and put it back into the oven once I had added oil and before the batter. I left it in a minute longer than comfortable, but still, it was too soft in the middle. The third time, worried that I had not used enough oil on the bottom either time, I added more and adjusted the racks in the oven, moving the sheet pan closer to the broiler. The top was the same and some of the bottom stuck to the pan.

But the flavor of the scallion and sumac socca was worth it. And the bright flavors of the avocado, olives and feta were, too. So, in spite of feeling like I was giving up, I made it a fourth time, this time, as socca is meant to be made: in cast iron, with the appropriate amount of olive oil, under the broiler. And, it was perfect: burnished in spots, crisp around the edges and golden along the bottom.

So, I piled on the avocado, smashed with lemon, the halved olives and the crumbled feta. And, just looking at it, I knew it was right.

There is some sort of life lesson in there, I think, if I’m willing to really look: recognizing defeat (sheet pan socca: no), sticking to your guns (scallion and sumac socca: yes) and seeing the whole thing through to the end (crispy socca with mashed avocado WILL happen). They don’t all turn out this way (I’m three batches in to that PB&J idea and still know those cookies are not right), but it’s because those ideas sometimes turn into something worth the trials, that I never let myself stop with the ideas.

Except red lipstick. That one will probably never come together for me.