Contorni – Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Mushrooms, Anchovies and Tomatoes

Vegetables never ranked high in my juvenile estimation, and cauliflower occupied a particularly low rung on the ladder, beneath broccoli but definitely above rutabegas.  Everybody behaved as though cauliflower were a deviant vegetable, safely edible only after an extended baptism in a volcanic bath to exorcise its cruciferous demons.  This reduced it to a watery, insipid mess, the kind of thing found in ANGELA’S ASHES or PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, on the PRIVATION section of the menu.  Like orange juice in small glasses, it was one of those things I immediately abandoned as soon as I was on my own.  Jody reintroduced me to it, Italian style, after we began living together, shocking me with how good it was.  For years our favorite way of preparing it was to roast it with olive oil, often with a bit of flash like pine nuts, a few currents…