Forest Street Kitchen

[I have not been missing because I was on the beach in Rio; we have all had stomach flu. As Shakespeare wrote: "Something there is in rotovirus that hath the power to blight the keenest appetite."]

Mr. Annie recently forwarded me this very interesting article by Sarah Dickerson about the fact that, while many Americans are suffering from economic woes, and facing hard choices in the grocery store, most food media are focusing on luxury ingredients unaffordable to most readers. Dickerson points out that there are, historically and currently, many resources for home cooks to cook and eat well on a budget, and that perhaps it would be better for our pocketbooks and the environment if we made some effort in that direction. In closing, she writes that:

“The time seems right for a mainstream voice (better yet, voices) to marry the pleasures of the table with the reality of a reduced budget, perhaps by using what we’ve learned from the food revolution. Michael Pollan has already made a big splash this year by recommending that people shy away from packaged products and eat less meat-two steps that are not only a grassroots vote for a new kind of food system but that will help save money. It’s possible, after all, to economize without reverting to a freezer full of Tex-Mex lasagna (one of those “mock-ethnic dishes that American dieticians love,” as Jeffrey Steingarten puts it). A new home economics could harness seasonal ingredients and real ethnic flavors; it could weave a lusty appreciation of food with a sober appreciation of the grocery dollar.”

I am not ashamed to tell you that our food budget is tight, and that the reason we eat relatively well is that I know how to cook. I buy what’s on sale, I make at least one non-meat meal a week (more, in summer), I know how to make tough protein come out silky, and bland protein more flavorful. I buy very little that is processed or “convenient” not just because it is unhealthy (I love me some Cheetos) but because it is far more expensive to buy potatoes that are cooked and packaged than it is to cook them myself, and they taste better. I can get much better cheese in block form, and it tastes better grated fresh. I cut up my own pineapples and save a couple of bucks. I can, and sometimes do, bone my own chickens, and I always make my own stock. Lest you should think I am idle, and have nothing better to do than swan around the kitchen boning chickens and singing camp songs, I can assure you that is not the case; it takes planning and thought.

I know that people are busy, and that some folks just don’t like to cook, but if you’re eating out often these days, or buying lots of easy-prep, prepared foods, think of what you could do with the money you saved if you just (really) cooked once or twice more a week. I’m thinking of beach vacations, theater in Manhattan…much better stuff than a pre-cooked pot roast and some Ore-Ida frozen potatoes. (Or my all-time favorite: Sandra Lee’s “Buche de Noel which begins with buying a pound cake and cutting it up). You can also use the money you save to buy the “unattainable” ingredients in recipes and make yourself potatoes with truffle shavings, or wallow in Saffron.

Read what Dickerson writes, think about your own consumption and budget, and maybe you can make a plan that saves you cash, helps the environment and still lets you feed yourself comfortably and well.

I used to post a weekly menu every week, sometimes adding menus or comments about what I was cooking. After a while (particularly as I entered the fresh produce-free winter slump) I decided that no ones’ world would be rocked by the revelation that my family was having chili mac on Tuesday or lemon chicken on Friday. So I stopped, and there was barely a ripple.

Last week, at a party, I spoke with a young friend of mine who is newly married and has an avid and charming curiosity about the world in general, and cooking in particular. She asked me why I had stopped writing those weekly menus, and said that she “just liked to know what other people were eating.” Being fairly nosy myself (I look into windows when I am walking the dogs at night to admire bookshelves and shake my head at bad paint choices) I fully understand this. I am therefore restoring the weekly menu feature, starting today.

Saturday

Braised Chicken Breasts with White Wine Sauce; Risotto with Asparagus

I don’t really have recipes for either of these; I sautee chicken breasts in olive oil for about 15 minutes (turning every 5 minutes), then I de-glaze the pan with white wine, return the chicken to the pan, season with salt, pepper and maybe some Tarragon, and add enough chicken stock to cover most of the chicken. I then reduce the heat under the chicken to medium-low and let it cook while I make the risotto (usually like this), about 30 minutes tops. I serve the chicken with the risotto and some pan sauce poured over the top. If I’m feeling thin, I add a little cream to the sauce before serving.

Sunday

Broccoli Cheddar Potatoes and Green Salad

This is simple as can be. Bake big russet potatoes, steam some broccoli, make a cheese sauce (white sauce with shredded sharp cheddar), mix the broccoli into the sauce and serve over baked potatoes. Extra shredded cheese or bacon are lovely flourishes, and leftover ham goes nicely into the mix, although I like to serve this as a vegetarian dinner.

Monday

Chicharrones de Pollo, Green Beans and Rice

I have never made chicharrones before, but I found a recipe in the September 2007 issue of “Gourmet” that has been calling to me. It isn’t on “Gourmet’s” website, but I did find it here. I may play with a little saffron action in the rice, and will serve the green beans steamed with a little lemon, butter and good salt.

Tuesday

Pan-Fried Pierogies and Scalloped Apples

Busy day; frozen pierogies. I’ll just sautee them in a pan with some onions, slice and sautee some apples with some butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, and call it good.

Wednesday

Braised Pork Chops with Rosemary; Ditalini with butter and Parmesan and Green Salad

The braised pork chops are prepared much like the braised chicken from Sunday, except that I use Rosemary, and lots of it. I also usually sautee a little garlic in the pan and remove it before starting the pork.

Thursday

Scrambled Eggs with Chorizo and Tortillas (Migas) and Fruit Salad

I have made my own version of Migas many times, but this recipe was in the same issue of “Gourmet” as the Chicharrones de Pollo, and looked pretty fabulous.

Friday

Grilled Burgers, Potato Chips and Fruit

Hey, its a free country. Don’t judge me.

P.S. Is it wrong that I am totally freaked out by the fact that every time the spell-checker finds the word “sautee,” it offers me “suttee” as an alternative?

(In case you have been following this contest to fill a bowl I was recently awarded, this will not interest you in the least). If you are following, or were actually sufficiently courageous to enter, here are the results:

Robert had me at “[t]he cold will make the cool wings sweat and trickle moisture down both the inside and the outside as everything kinda hovers in the base.”

I was intrigued by the trifles, ceeelce’s melons, Diana’s limoncello sorbet, the jello shot the edible flowers…you are all incredibly creative people,

but

Robert wins. If you would be so kind, Robert, as to send me street address in the next week or so, something edible from Michigan will be on its way to you soon.

Lunch hurts, lunch scars,
Lunch wounds, and marks,
Any heart, not tough,
Or strong, enough
To take a lot of pain,
Take a lot of pain
Lunch is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain
Lunch hurts, ooh ooh lunch hurts

Im young, I know,
But even so
I know a thing, or two
I learned, from you
I really learned a lot,
Really learned a lot
Lunch is like a flame
It burns you when its hot
Lunch hurts, ooh ooh lunch hurts

Some fools think of happiness
Blissfulness, togetherness
Some fools fool themselves I guess
They’re not foolin me

I know it isn’t true,
I know it isn’t true
Lunch is just a lie,
Made to make you blue
Lunch hurts, ooh,ooh lunch hurts
Ooh,ooh lunch hurts

I know it isn’t true,
I know it isn’t true
Lunch is just a lie,
Made to make you blue
Lunch hurts, ooh ooh lunch hurts
Ooh ooh lunch hurts
Ooh ooh…

(Sorry, Nazareth).

When I was a kid, we went home for lunch (not an option for me, a deprived latchkey orphan), we had hot lunch, or we had cold lunch. Hot lunch generally involved exotic foods never seen in the home, such as Hungarian Goulash and City Chicken. There was also a small carton of milk with silver pull-off tabs that read “homo,” much to our collective amusement. Cold lunch, for me, was packed by my father who favored Deviled Ham sandwiches or peanut butter, and felt that removing crusts was likely to cause us to lose all sense of morals and responsibility.

I have now been the packer of lunches for six (long) years. Sam did not historically favor hot lunch because it was both repellent and skimpy; a “serving” of carrot sticks was three baby carrots, and there were chicken nuggets that resembled nothing so much as tiny brown sponges for scrubbing miniature pots and pans. Ketchup was rationed to prevent abuse. More recently, the schools have moved to Healthy Lunches which are, in general, even more inedible than the unhealthy version. They tend to involve turkey hot dogs and pizza with wheat crust. If I were a better person, Sam would embrace these opportunities to load up on low-fat protein and fiber, but I am not, and he hates them.

If I were a better person, I would also be more enthused about packing cold lunch. Part of the problem is the high standard set by other mothers who are clearly reading Martha Stewart publications when they should be shopping or drinking. “Ted’s mom takes all the grapes off the stem and washes them and packs them in paper towels inside the plastic bag.” “Matt always gets Lunchables.” “Alan’s mom packs the meat and the bread separately and gives him those little packages of mayo and mustard so he can make his sandwich fresh and it doesn’t get mushy.” Bully for them.

There is also the issue of peanut allergies which, while real and somewhat terrifying, impose severe limitations on what can be packed in a lunch bag. Peanut butter is out, baked goods with peanut butter are out, peanuts are obviously verboten, and its also necessary to scan labels to be sure that cookies, crackers and other unhealthy starch snackage is not manufactured in a place where there even are peanuts. Since a peanut butter sandwich is the easiest thing to throw together when one has, hypothetically, neglected to construct a lunch until five minutes before its time to head off to school, the allergy situation is a blow to Bad Moms everywhere.

Last week, I bought ham, bread, juice boxes, Cheez-Its, pickles, baby carrots and bananas. I though a ham sandwich with three fruit-vegetable servings and some crackers was a pretty good lunch. When I was feeling benevolent, I would throw in the chocolate mints I got with my lunch bill the day before, or a pack of gum. I meticulously packed the bread, ham and mustard separately, and froze the juice bag to keep the sandwich from growing lethal bacteria that would cause my only child to drop dead during Computer Lab. For five golden days, it worked.

This past Monday, I flaunted the fates and packed the lunch so beloved the previous week. When I asked how lunch was on the way home, there was a long silence. “Well, that ham isn’t really my favorite.” (It was the same ham). “The pickles were weird, too. I traded them for Kellan’s Powerade.” So. The ham was no good, the pickles were trashed, and I had nothing else to put in sandwiches besides peanut butter. (See Peanut Butter, above).

I found myself, at 10:00 on consecutive nights, frantically hunting through refrigerator and cupboards for things that would taste good to Sam and not result in the relinquishment of my parental rights to Child Protective Services. Was that apple too old? If it turned brown, would he just throw it away? Do oyster crackers count as a food? If I used Tahini in a sandwich instead of peanut butter would it still kill the kids with allergies? Its made with sesame seeds; is that like a nut? So I’m on the Internet checking out whether Tahini triggers anaphylaxis in people with nut allergies, and I have packed a bag with Chiclets, a bag of crushed oyster crackers from soup lunch at a restaurant, two juice bags, a suspect apple and a chunk of Parmesan cheese. I give up, in despair. He won’t eat the damned Tahini, anyway.

The next day after school, he told me it was “the best lunch ever.” Wednesday and Thursday I continued to make what I came to think of as Pioneer lunches (because I was foraging) and included things like hard boiled eggs, leftover barbecued chicken in a tortilla, and a colorful assortment of Nerds and Mike & Ikes in lieu of fruit. Today I gave up, and his father took him something from McDonald’s.

I will work all of this out right around the time he gets his drivers’ license and a part-time job, and leaves school for lunch every day to take some undeserving but cute blond clarinetist type to Arby’s. Until then, I try to assuage the pain lunch has brought into my once idyllic life.

As a foodie, I am well-versed in the notion of being a localvore, and of buying food with an eye on sustainability. I have read Michael Pollan, Russ Parsons and Barbara Kingsolver, and been moved and excited by the notion that it is more natural, healthier and better for the earth if I buy what is local and in season. Not to mention the fact that things taste best when they are fresh.

In reality, I live in a climate where produce is grown and sold during only parts of the year. Starting in late spring I can buy local asparagus and some local onions; by July I can find zucchini, sweet peppers, hot peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, eggplant, green beans, cucumbers, carrots, berries, melons and eventually apples, squash and corn at my local farmer’s market. One of the farmers sells eggs and butter from his farm, another sells honey, and still another brings free-range chickens and locally produced sausage. From July until October, my house is full of all that is fresh, local and good, my kid eats cherry tomatoes like candy, and I experiment madly with vegetables I have never seen before like garlic scapes and tiny Hmong peppers.

This year, I have promised myself that I will learn to preserve and can, so that we will have some of this freshness throughout the dark months from November to June. I plan to put up pickles (bread and butter and dill), salsa, homemade tomato sauce, green beans, peaches and pickled watermelon rind, and to freeze berries. I will make vats of applesauce, jars of pumpkin butter and jars of strawberry freezer jam, and feel that I have built us a hedge against months of eating nothing but flavorless produce bred for travel and shipped from points south.

In reality, though, I lack the the funds and the time to be a true localvore. I can’t afford to buy gently raised beef, pork or chicken from local farmers all year round, and I cannot find a source for locally produced butter and eggs after the end of farmer’s market season. I try not to buy things at the grocery store that are clearly out of season (rubber tomatoes and strawberries in January), but I do buy things that would never grow here, anyway - bananas, pineapple, mangoes, kiwi and citrus fruits, to name a few. I shoot for organic, but we need to eat fruits and vegetables, and sometimes (she said, skulking away to hide) I end up with a mid-winter refrigerator stocked with Florida oranges, Washington apples and greens from God only knows where. I try to be imaginative about using more root vegetables, pastas and grains as the bases for fall and winter meals, but sometimes I am slammed by life and I just have to buy a bag of frozen vegetables and throw something together.  I would love to grow my own lettuce, garlic, onions, peas and other vegetables in the spring and summer, but I live in a big house on a small lot, there is no community garden space near here, and I am limited to what I can grow in pots that I have to move around during the day so that they get enough sun.

I am trying to reduce my carbon footprint. I am switching to the good swirly bulbs, walking more and driving less, and taking my own bags to the grocery store. I will do all that I can to make changes relative to our consumption of food that will contribute to preserving Mother Earth, but sometimes I wish that it was easier for everyone to have affordable access to what is fresh and in season in the place where they live, and to know how to prepare it so that its as delicious as things that come in cans, poly-wrap and freezer bags from across the country. Time and big grocery budgets are luxuries for many, and it seems like if this change is something we all really want to accomplish, we should be thinking about making it possible for more people to eat locally and sustainably. Just my two cents.

“Now, we are here; next year we should be in the land of Israel. This year we are slaves; next year — free people.”

-The Haggadah

“The tried to kill us; they failed; let’s eat!”

-My husband

Only in my life is it possible to be asked to bring fruit salad for 12 to a Pastor Appreciation luncheon on the same day that my mother requests unleavened sponge cake for a Passover Seder. I am the Ecumenical Poster Child, being the product of a Jewish mother and an ex-Catholic Atheist father, and having become a Non-denominational Protestant myself, after years of flirting with everything from Buddhism to Catholicism depending on what boy I was chasing and what book I was reading.

The Passover Seders of my childhood took place at my grandmother’s house on Chestnut Street, in Ashtabula, Ohio. They involved a long, long table that stretched across two rooms, and the full compliment of food and ceremony. We ate herbs dipped in salt water and Moror (usually horseradish) to symbolize the harshness of life for the Jews during their years of slavery, hard boiled eggs to symbolize the festival sacrifice, and matzo with Charoset to symbolize the mortar used to build the temple. We observed, with ghoulish fascination, the roasted bone on the Passover plate that came from some hapless chicken, but might have come from a body exhumed for the occasion. We also cast sideways glances at the empty place setting reserved for Elijah because we weren’t exactly clear on who he was, but we believed that he was somewhat like a leprechaun or a ghost, and might appear unexpectedly at the door. Clearly, we were not paying sufficient attention to the story we heard every single year.

With my Uncle Murray in charge, we took turns reading aloud from the Haggadah the story of the Jews escaping from Pharaoh to find freedom in the desert, and the parting of the Red Sea. We toasted to “next year, in Israel.” The youngest children present asked the four questions and elicited the answers that tell the story of why we celebrate Passover. The exception to the rule that children “inquired” was the question asked by the “simple son,” which Uncle Murray generally reserved for his brother David ( A doctor!) amidst much hilarity.

Then the real food started: the matzoh ball soup (we were a family that preferred “sinkers” with as much schmalz as possible), roast chicken, Farfel, asparagus, more Charoset on matzohs, Gfelte fish with horseradish, and, at the end, flourless sponge cake with fruit. One of the adults would hide the Afikomen (a piece of matzoh) and the children would search the house, knowing that the finder of the cracker would get big bucks from Uncle Murray, although the consolation prizes were always awarded quickly and generously from the same wallet. It was all good.

Those Seders, when we ate our cake with milky, sugary coffee, and laughed at our Uncles’ jokes until it came out of our noses are a thing of the past. We still have a Seder most years, at my parents’ house, but it now involves less strict adherence to the rules. Depending on when Easter is, and how my mother is feeling, we sometimes have a “greatest hits” version of the readings and questions, and make the foods that accompany the ritual. This year, we went for a streamlined approach with only a meal, and an explanation for the children about the fact that Passover is not really just about eating matzoh balls, but is actually a celebration of their Jewish ancestors being freed from great oppression. My brother made the matzoh balls (”floaters,” despite my ardent pleas), my mother made the chicken, we had fruit salad and asparagus and Gfelte fish and I used my grandmother’s 1959 Rodef-Shalom Sisterhood cookbook, with her recipe handwritten on the inside of the front cover, to make an unleavened sponge cake.

Despite the fact that my son is being raised as a Christian, and my brother’s kids are pretty much religion-free, it matters to me that they remember who they are, and that Judaism is about more than the food as they become adults and make decisions about faith. The food, however, is a fabulous bonus. Here’s the recipe for the sponge cake:

Berniece Louis’s Passover Cake

1. 9 eggs - separated
2. 1 1/2 cup sugar
3. 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4. juice and rind of 1/2 lemon
5. juice and rind of 1/2 orange
6. 1/2 cup potato flour (I use corn starch which is not kosher for Passover, but works just fine)
7. 1/2 cup matzoh cake flour (available most places around Passover)

Beat whites with a pinch of salt to peaks, but not dry. Gradually add 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat until sugar is well beaten in. Beat yolks until creams and light colored. Beat in vanilla, juices and rinds.

Mix 1/2 cup potato flour (or corn starch) and 1/2 cup matzoh cake flour and fold into beaten whites.

Bake in a tube pan at 350 degrees for 40 minutes then 325 degrees for about 15-20 minutes more.

Although my grandmother usually served this with fruit, you can also top it with whipped cream, a glaze of orange or lemon juice mixed with powdered sugar, or (if you happen to have some have some) lemon curd.

While I am currently enjoying truffle butter on everything but my waffles, courtesy of claudia, this is generally a time of frugal eating on Forest Street. Its almost always cheaper to cook rather than eating out, but even if one “starts from scratch,” there is a continuum of expense starting with peanut butter on saltines and ending somewhere in the neighborhood of Niman Ranch beef and lobster tails. I tend to shop and cook somewhere in the middle of that range, but I do enjoy finding a recipe that makes a cheap, filling meal that we are all willing to eat. As you will see, this one got a little more platinum level than I had originally anticipated, but that was kind of a fluke.

In the February/March edition of Cook’s Country magazine, I discovered a recipe for Red Beans and Rice that sounded like it would give me the flavor of that dish (which I love) without the necessity of messing around with a ham bone (which I hate). It calls for dried kidney beans, which are dirt cheap, rice, which is equally inexpensive, and a variety of other things you probably have in your house anyway. The only potentially expensive ingredients are bacon (which is perpetually on sale) and andouillle or kielbasa. There is no andouille around here (and more’s the pity), but I had bought some kielbasa (on sale) and was preparing to make the dish when my husband called from The Road (that’s where he works) and said he was driving by a sausage factory in Ohio, and would I like some?

I was already feeling sorry for myself about the substitution of kielbasa (which i don’t even like) for andouille, so I asked him to go in and find me something smoky, spicy and interesting at Mom Wilson’s Country Sausage. He called back and said he’d bought some spicy smoked sausage, and would be home in time for me to add it to the beans and rice. It was pricey, but it was the perfect flavor for the dish, and made me feel considerably better about the Absent Andouille. Use Kielbasa, use andouille if you can find it, and if you’re lucky enough to live near Delaware Ohio, go pick something out from Mom Wilson’s. Do it soon, though; they close for the summer.

Here’s the recipe as I made it:

Red Beans and Rice

1. 4 slices bacon, diced
2. 1 small onion, chopped fine
3. 1 green bell pepper, chopped fine
4. 1 celery rib, chopped fine [Note: since the onion, pepper and celery were all going in the pot at the same time, I chopped them at the same time in the food processor]
5. 4 garlic cloves, minced
6. Fresh ground pepper
7. 1 teaspoon minced, fresh oregano
8. 1 teaspoon minced, fresh thyme
9. 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I added a tablespoon)
10. 4 bay leaves
11. Salt
12. 1 pound dried red kidney beans
13. 7 cups low-sodium chicken broth
14. 7 cups water
15. 1/2 pound andouille sausage, kielbasa or other smoky sausage halved lengthwise and cut into small pieces
16. 6 cups cooked, long grain rice (from 3 cups raw rice)
17. Hot Pepper Sauce

-Cook bacon in large Dutch oven over medium heat until lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Add onion, bell pepper and celery and cook until softened, stirring frequently (about 8 minutes). Stir in garlic and cook about 30 seconds. Add 1 teaspoon pepper, oregano, thyme, cayenne, bay leaves, 1/2 teaspoon salt, beans, broth and water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to medium heat and maintain vigorous simmer (allow it to bubble). Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally until beans are soft and liquid is thickened, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

-Stir in sausage and cook until liquid is thick and creamy, about 30 minutes. Unless you already have 6 cups of cooked rice, cook rice during this 30 minute period.

-Season beans with salt and pepper and serve over hot, cooked rice with hot pepper sauce.

One of my keenest memories from law school (which I have otherwise tried strenuously to forget) is making the acquaintance of a girl named Lily, on the first day of class. Her opening statement to an assembled group of terrified and sweaty classmates was as follows: “I’m not really looking to make friends, I have enough friends already.” This has stuck in my mind for 20 years as one of the stupidest things I have ever heard said by a sane and rational human being.

I have friends, too, but in the past year I have made two new ones who have so completely blindsided me with kindness and goodness that I feel I could sprout wings. Or something. One friend is “live,” and one is “online,” but they have become sort of essential to my well-being, and both of them contributed greatly to my recent coronation canonization award-from-the-City thingie.

My friend Alice nominated me for the award, spent time she did not have writing about my wonderfulness and attended meetings to convince a committee that I could, indeed, walk on water (while making perfect meringue). She is a fierce little person, my friend Alice, and she convinced them. She then proceeded, on the night of the award ceremony (when she had a bad cold) to throw me a wonderful party complete with a stocked bar and a bartender, good things to eat, fabulous company, and her beautiful new deck strung with Christmas lights and lit with candles. She is a fabulous cook (see, I’m going to talk about food a little bit) and promised to fill the bowl with her vegetarian steamed dumplings. I’m waiting.

My friend Claudia from cook eat FRET conspired with my husband via e-mail to make my night of glory even glorious-er. First off, she recalled that I had first visited her blog to rhapsodize about this dish, way back in August. She instructed Rob to buy the pasta, the chives and the creme fraiche, and she sent me truffle butter which is possibly the best gift I’ve ever received in my life. (Well, in my adult life; as a six year old I would have been totally traumatized to receive truffle butter instead of the Penny Bright doll with a nurse’s outfit and a tiny stethoscope). I will add that we had the Spaghetti with Truffled Creme Fraiche for dinner this very night, and that it is both really easy and to die for. I don’t care what you have to do to find the ingredients; do it and you’ll thank me Claudia.

But that’s not all, folks. Claudia and Rob knew that I kind of have a thing for Michael Ruhlman (his writing, I mean) and Claudia has actually met him. He is, in my opinion, one of the finest living food writers, plus he actually knows Anthony Bourdain and Thomas Keller. Among others. And Claudia, of course, who helped Rob get a personally inscribed copy of his newest book, House: A Memoir. A lovely personal inscription. It was as if Claudia, who I have spoken to, but not actually met (yet) was with me at Alice’s, on the deck with all my other friends and family, and I could really not have been happier.

I would like to think that I have attracted these women because I am as wonderful as they are. I think though, that I’m really just lucky. Damned lucky.

Well, the contest is over, and jaydee of life in the lost world has won by a mile. She is a gem of an interworld friend, and has gone above and beyond what I could possibly have expected by way of promoting this blog. She’s also brought me several new readers, who I love already. If Ms. jayedee will send me her street address via personal e-mail, I will speed Alice Waters off to Florida ASAP.

Now for another contest of an entirely different variety: last night, I was awarded a large crystal bowl by the city I live in, in recognition of various volunteer activities. (In case you didn’t realize what an absolute saint and selfless uplifter of the downtrodden I am when I am neither cooking nor eating, which isn’t often).

The person who makes the best suggestion for an edible substance to fill the bowl on or before Friday, April 25^th will win a surprise. The bowl is about 6 inches in diameter, and about 6 inches at its highest points. You’ll have to trust me to pick a good one. Recent winners are eligible to win again (that’s you, jayedee). The food may be raw or cooked, prepared or purchased, probable or improbable. The judging is entirely subjective; I’m going to pick the suggestion that pleases and/or amuses me most. Again, you’ll have to trust me. To enter, please make your suggestion in the form of a comment on this post.

I am going to be lazy, and let my friend Alice write this post. This is an e-mail I received from her today; Brian is a friend of her’s who I have not met yet, but I’m sure I’ll like him when I do. I could not possibly not like anyone capable of doing this.

Alice writes:

“Hi, Ann,

My friend Brian decided to (as uncles are wont to do) torture
his niece with a homemade birthday card. Apparently Gillian is
mortally afraid of eyes on potatoes. So Brian managed to fix up this
little baby. Only the flies (for the dots on the i’s) are
photoshopped in.) Why didn’t I have GOOD uncles like Brian? All I had
were the weird ones that sent boxes of old soap and magazines stolen
from dentists’ offices.”

Brian adds that: “Just to clarify… there was some significant photoshopping involved in getting the letters although it’s all done with real potato parts (flies excluded).”