Writin' Rations™ — Bruschetta

"Ah," you murmur. "If only I had that three-book deal. I could sit at a waterside café, nibbling pensively and artistically at bruschetta and writing gripping tales in my Moleskine with a fountain pen. Jazz would play softly in the background, and soon it would seem good to me to order a glass of pinot noir, and so I would do. Ah, for the three-book deal."

Alas, I cannot give you the recipe for a three-book deal. But I can help your writing dreams come true to this extent: for the cost of a few cheap ingredients, a trip to the store, and no more than 15 minutes of your time for preparation, YOU CAN HAVE THE BRUSCHETTA!

Bruschetta (and it's pronounced "broo-sketta," I'm not kidding, if you say "brush-etta" I will hunt you down)

Six tomatoes
Half an onion
Three (or maybe four, if you're like me) cloves of garlic
A handful of fresh basil leaves
A half cup of olive oil
A teaspoon of freshly ground pepper (you do have a pepper grinder, don't you? Don't you?)
A teaspoon of salt*
A stick of French or Italian bread

Chop the tomatoes and onion relatively finely (about quarter- to half-inch/6mm to 8mm cubes). Chop the garlic extremely finely, as tiny as you can make it. Shred the basil leaves into tiny strips or pieces. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir well. Cover and put in the fridge. The hard part is done.

When you're ready to sit and nibble pensively and artistically, slice some bread, toast it**, slather it with bruschetta, sit by a sunny window, and nibble away. (Don't forget your notebook and pen. And put some jazz on the stereo. And if you happen to have some pinot noir, is there a law against opening it right now? No, you're quite right, there's not.)

*Invest in some good salt, like pink Murray River salt, or flaky sea salt, or something like that. I can't guarantee it will taste better than the cheapie supermarket stuff, but it will make you feel very special to use it. And you should feel special. You're awesome.

**Some advocate rubbing the toast with a cut garlic clove or whatever, and that that's the origin of the term "bruschetta" (that is, brushed with garlic). While that may be etymologically so, I consider the practice to be nonsense, and against the principles of Writin' Rations™. There's plenty of garlic in the bruschetta mixture already, so why add a step that increases the time, fussiness, and stress levels required to prepare the dish? There is no reason, that's why. So we need not do it.