Fall Cleaning

I've been a busy gal of late. Whereas most people clean house in the spring, fall is when I like to clean things out. I suppose it is a genetic imprint from my Swiss-German-Mennonite forbearers that when the calendar begins to head towards winter and the seasons turn toward fall that makes me want to batten down the hatches and ensure that the larder is well-stocked and organized. At least that's what I tell myself.

I've reclaimed most of the surfaces in the living room and the bed in the spare room, along with the floor. Cobwebs have been knocked down, mail and general clutter have been sorted and sifted, and, if not completely straightened out, then at least brought to a manageable level. Among the tasks I usually tackle this time of year is sifting through the accumulated cooking magazines. I take the time to go through each one, cutting out recipes that pique my interest and curiosity. I do subject them to stringent standards. They have to include ingredients that I'm likely to have one hand or make use of should I acquire them. For me that means they cannot include things like dried powdered milk or Bisquick. I just don't use those things often enough to buy even the smallest package available to test out an unknown recipe. The recipes also have to be on the page in a way that lends itself to easy clipping. I don't care how good it looks, if it spans two pages or requires that part of the recipe get clipped to the other part, fuggedabout it. I can say this because I do not lack for recipes in my files. I have my collected recipe cards and clippings sorted by course into four index card holders that are kept in one plastic container. I can afford to adopt a rather cavalier attitude about new ones. Recipes also have to be relatively simple to make. I am not one to fuss with delicate sugar spirals and 112 steps. Lengthy ingredient lists and long cooking times don't put me off in the least, but I am not, I repeat NOT, going to construct any kind of napoleon, be it a dessert or a stack of roasted vegetables. I am not a fussy prep kinda girl, and I lack the patience of pastry chefs. Haute cuisine is not my cuppa tea. As a general rule, I like the rustic and homey foods of most cuisines. The stuff of the nursery and the kitchen table, and the things that remind people of Mom and Grandma, no matter where Mom and Grandma hail from.

I've tried several of the recipes that I've clipped. I've discovered that I don't really like parsnips. They remind me of a cross between a carrot and turnip that hasn't gone particularly well. At least now I know. Among the recipes I've tried and kept are :Stuffed Cabbage Soup (done in the crockpot, no less!), Rutabagas with Dill Dressing and a recipe for peanut butter cookies that makes a small batch. These are all recipes that I'll make again.

I love stuffed cabbage and make a darn fine version if I do say so myself, but stuffed cabbage cannot be made for less than the entire Russian Army. I mean, in for a penny, in for a pound if you're making traditional cabbage rolls, say I. And sometimes, I DO like to make them and then divy them up with family, friends and co-workers. It's one of those things I learned to make by guess and by golly, as it were. I suppose I could work out the recipe, but I've come to enjoy making them by mixing up the meat and rice with a pinch of this and a dash of that. The Stuffed Cabbage Soup makes plenty, to be sure, but it's easy and I can freeze what I don't eat or still share it. Since I really LIKE soup, though, I don't seem to have quite the same amount of it as when I make cabbage rolls, though. And it is awfully close to the taste of stuffed cabbage without the work. You just brown a pound of ground round or ground sirloin, drain it well and then stir in a couple tablespoons of paprika (you may use sweet paprika or a mixture of sweet and hot paprikas). Put it into your biggest crockpot (a 5 qt. would probably be best, as my 3 qt. "big" crockpot was full to the brim!) with a package of regular coleslaw mix, a very large finely diced onion, half a small head of cabbage that has been coarsely chopped, one 14.5 oz. can of regular stewed tomatoes, one 14.5 oz. can of petite diced tomatoes, a 15 oz. can of tomato sauce, 1/2-3/4 cup regular long grain rice, uncooked, and 2 14.5 oz cans of beef broth. Add a little salt & pepper and some chopped garlic if you are so inclined. Stir to combine and set the crockpot to low for 6-8 hrs. The rice will mostly dissolve, so don't worry if it does. This makes a lot of soup, but you can freeze it for later and share it as you wish. And, as always, feel free to adjust any of the ingredients to suit your tastes.

One of my favorite vegetables is the rutabaga, also known as a "swede" in some parts of the world. I'd never tasted a rutabaga until about 5 years ago when I had Thanksgiving with my friend Lisa and her mom. Mashed rutabagas were one of their family standards for the Thanksgiving table, and I fell in love with the darn things. Enough to be curious about other recipes for them. One of my magazines had a recipe for Rutabagas with Dill Dressing. The idea was to roast slices of rutabaga with olive oil, salt and pepper and then dress them with a mixture of honey, white wine vinegar and dill weed. I love roasted vegetables, and I knew that roasting a rutabaga would bring out the natural sweetness. It sounded like a good idea, but I can't leave well enough alone. I decided to cube the rutabaga and toss in some carrots, since I had them in the refrigerator. I let the veggies roast in a 375 degree oven until they were tender and had begun to caramelize. I used a very large rutabaga (about 2 lbs., is my guess) and 4 large carrots and tossed them with a good glug of olive oil, plenty of freshly ground black pepper and a nice pinch of kosher salt. For the dressing, I decided to mix approximately equal parts of honey and white balsamic vinegar (for strength, I put it somewhere between rice vingear and cider vinegar, with a bit more sweetness than cider vinegar, but not as sweet as regular dark balsamic vinegar) with about 1/2 tsp. of dried dill weed. You pour the dressing on while the vegetables are still warm and toss them gently. Add a little more salt and pepper if you wish. This is great either warm or at room temperature. I can forsee adding little pearl onions to the mix, too, and I think the dressing would be great with roasted beets, too.

The peanut butter cookie recipe is one that I like because it makes a great tasting cookie and because it doesn't yield 4 dozen cookies. It makes about 2 dozen, depending on how big you roll the balls of cookie dough. This is perfect for the likes of me. Most scaled down cookie recipes require far too much futzing with ingredient measurements to make it worth my while, but this one was simple. Just cream 1/3 c. peanut butter (I used Smucker's Natural Creamy), 1/3 c. shortening, 1/3 c. sugar and 1/3 c. packed brown sugar until fluffy. Add one egg and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Combine 1 c. flour, 3/4 tsp. baking soda and a pinch of salt and then fold the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes, then roll the dough into golf ball sized balls. Roll the dough balls in sugar and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet, at least 1 inch apart. Use a fork to flatten the balls and make the classic peanut butter cookie cross-hatch markings. Bake them in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 8-10 minutes, depending on how hot your 375 degree oven runs. When they are light golden brown, remove to a cooling rack.

Those are my most recent cooking adventures. With fall upon us, and in spite of temperatures still heading towards 80 in the middle of the day, there are sure to be other recipes for the season.

A Sweet Tooth

I confess that I like dessert, and as a general rule, one of the signs that I'm doing something right is when I actually make them and incorporate them into my general diet. Sometimes, dessert is something I have right after dinner and sometimes, it's the little something I have before trundling off to bed after work. Sometimes, it's an afternoon snack to tide me over until dinner with a cup of coffee. It's been a revelation to me that I can actually enjoy dessert in moderate portions. I consider myself fortunate that I can indulge and satisfy my sweet tooth (and I definitely have one!) in a rational manner.

I am a sucker for bread puddings and fruit crisps. I also like baked egg custard and rice puddings. As mentioned in a previous entry, I've added fruit galettes and clafoutis to my dessert repertoire. Today, I experimented with a recipe for another favorite type of dessert, the pudding cake. I've had a recipe for a chocolate pudding cake that I clipped out of the local paper years ago that's proven tried and true. Today I tried a recipe for a pudding cake that you bake in your 1.5 quart crock pot. It's called Peanut Butter Cup Cake, and as promised by the recipe, it's got a taste that is very like a Reese Peanut Butter Cup. I think the recipe creators are mistaken to think you can pry a pudding cake out of a crock pot and on to a cooling rack, but that's my particular take on it. Go ahead and give it a whirl if you can manage it and more power to you if you do!

It was easy to put together with ingredients I had on hand. You mix 1/2 c. flour and 1/2 c. sugar with 3/4 tsp. baking powder in a medium bowl. Add 1/3 c. skim milk, 1 Tbs. canola oil, 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1/4 c. creamy peanut butter (I used Smucker's Natural Creamy Peanut Butter), and stir until combined. Pour into a 1.5 quart crock pot that's been sprayed with non-stick spray. In a small bowl, combine 1/4 c. sugar and 3 Tbs. regular cocoa powder, and gradually stir in 1 cup of boiling water. Stir until there are no lumps and the sugar and cocoa are well incorporated. Gently pour this over the batter in the crock pot. Don't stir it in, just put the lid on the crock pot, turn it up to high and cook for 2-3 hrs., or until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let it sit for 10 minutes, and then, in the words of MFK Fisher, "Serve it forth." This is probably best served the day it is made, when it is slightly warm, but I am just fine with rewarming the leftovers for a few seconds in my microwave.

You may note that these desserts have some things in common. They are "homey" types of desserts. Easy to make, without a lot of fussing and complicated recipes. No chocolate curls or spun sugar. No long lists of ingredients or exacting technique required. Depends on the recipe, but most of them can also be made without a lot of high fat ingredients, and sugar substitutes tend to work pretty well in them, too. Most of them adapt pretty well to baking in individual portions as well. You can play with the ingredients and flavors without risking cooking disaster and culinary nightmares. All in all, they reflect my general style of cooking, which has a decided bent towards foods that are seasonal, economical and comforting without a great deal of complications for the cook. The descendant of Swiss and German peasant farmers I definitely am when it comes to cooking and baking. Oh, don't get me wrong. I love to watch chefs make complicated dishes that involve long lists of ingredients, some of which were bought dearly and shipped great distances. But I'm not going to make any of those things as a general rule. I am far more interested in what the "regular folk" of any given cuisine make and consume, as long as insects, grubs, reptiles and innards aren't involved.

But back to dessert. I'm not much on cake for myself. Once in a while, I'll pick up a package with a couple slices of cake at my local grocery, which has gotten wise and put pieces of various layer cakes into convenient two slice containers. And they aren't gigantic slices of cake either. They are perfect for one person to have on two separate occasions. I've got a great recipe for what is known in my family as "Butterfinger Cake", that I'll make up for potlucks and family parties. It's a snap, too. You bake one box of chocolate cake mix (you may use any type of chocolate cake mix) according to package directions in a 9 x 13 pan. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then poke holes in the cake (I use a chopstick) and pour a jar of butterscotch or caramel ice cream topping over the cake. Allow it to cool completely and then spread an 8 or 12 oz. container of thawed frozen whipped topping over the cake. Sprinkle it with either 3 regular or a package of ten mini Butterfinger candy bars that you've crushed. That's it. You can get really fancy and drizzle some chocolate syrup over the whole deal if you're so inclined. This isn't something I make just for me, though.

I will take some effort to make my brother a cheesecake for his birthday with the recipe our mom used, but otherwise, I save cheesecake for a special indulgence and I get it from Cheesecake Factory. Where I buy exactly one slice that I eat on for two or three days, given the size of the pieces they sell. And I tend to do this only once a year. Maybe twice.

I do like fruit as a dessert. I usually have fruit for dessert with my lunch. I am known to snatch up fresh figs when I find them and gorge on them. Who can bear to cook them into something else? Oh, I've seen recipes, but I can't bear to eat them any other way but fresh. As a dessert, they are very good with some nice Gorgonzola. You can die happy at that moment. Watermelon or strawberry shortcake are good finishes to a summer meal. A baked apple is a comforting end to a nice supper of soup and salad in the wintertime.

One really random thought about that Redi-Whip commercial where the guy can't bring himself to eat that diner apple pie until it has Redi-Whip on it; since when does whipped cream of any kind go on apple pie??? Or any fruit pie, except for fresh strawberry pie, for that matter. You may put whipped cream on almost any kind of custard or pudding pie, but with warm apple pie (or cherry or peach pie, and my local Kroger makes the best peach pie!), you put ice cream if you put anything. Although, a side of Swiss cheese is not beyond the pale with your apple pie in my opinion, and being of good Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry on my father's side. If you want whipped cream on your pie at the diner, then order the chocolate or the banana cream or even the peanut butter pie.

Well, that's just a few of my musings and notions about dessert. And I am certainly of the opinion that if you are inclined to eat dessert first, then have at it. Goodness knows, I do sometimes!

Watermelon

Watermelon is one of the things that I absolutely love about summer. Yes, you can get decent chunks of watermelon from somewhere on earth just about any time of year, but in the summer, it becomes incredibly cheap and unbelievably sweet and juicy. I've learned to pick a whole one by judging the yellow patch, where the melon sat on the ground to ripen, and a good thump. I like 'em to sound hollow if I thump 'em, although all experts say it is really that yellow patch that lets you know the melon sat in the field long enough to ripen into something sweet. If I'm just buying cut melon, I have to be able to know that it smells like watermelon through the plastic wrap. If I don't get a whiff of watermelon oozing through that plastic, I leave it on the shelf. That's pretty much my guideline with a lot of fruit, especially things like tomatoes (they are a fruit), peaches, nectarines, apricots, pears, apples and strawberries. They ought to smell like what they are, no matter how pretty they look in the bins. My grandpa taught me to pick cantaloupe by pressing the stem end, to be sure it gives just a little, and by sniffing the stem end, to be sure you get a good cantaloupe scent. This method has never failed me. My friend Lisa taught me to pick a honeydew melon by finding one with a slightly yellow tinge to it, and this has always worked for me, too. A rule I have for most fruit is that it should also feel heavy for its size. This is how I pick my citrus fruits. Nice and unblemished skins and fruit that feels heavy, meaning it will be juicy.

I pretty much just cut the watermelon into chunks and have it that way, unless I mix it into a fruit salad. Last night my dessert was half of one of those cute little "personal" sized watermelons. It was beautifully red and sweet, and was a perfect ending to my dinner of leftover baked tilapia with fresh salsa and green beans.

Back in the days when I ran, one of the earliest races I did was at the Cleveland Zoo. I think it was sponsored by the local Lions club, and it was a 5K that ran through the zoo. Most of the old Lions that manned the points where they directed us on the course just stared in amazement. They had what was probably one of the best post-race treats I've ever had, though. On a hot morning, they offered water and watermelon slices. As much of both as you wanted. I don't think watermelon has ever tasted so good and so refreshing. The memory sticks with me every time I'm looking for something light and refreshing and sweet, especially in the dog days of summer.

Fabulous Fish

I can cook fish. With confidence. I realized that this evening as I was eating my dinner. This weekend I was up visiting Dad, and among the things we did was help out at community dinner the church (Grace Loyal Oak UCC) sponsored. It was a free dinner for anyone in the community that walked in the door. The idea was to give a good hot meal to anyone that needed it for whatever reason. I think they were hoping for a bigger turnout, but this was the very first one, it was a beautiful Saturday and the church isn't really convenient for those in need who may not have transportation. It's still a good idea. One of the ladies at church is a retired school cook, so she can put together a couple mean roasters full of shredded barbecued beef and shredded barbecue chicken, and the rest of the church crowd, which includes several Men Who Cook, put together a plethora of side salads, baked beans and desserts. Dad bought a couple of pies to contribute.

Anyhow, we volunteered, pitching in wherever needed. I manned the dessert table, keeping it filled with an assortment of individual servings of all the desserts and helped with cleanup afterwards. It's always nice to see a lot of the "regulars" at church and have a chance to visit. Some of the folks have been going to the church since I was a little girl, and some of them are newer additions to the congregation, but they've all really re-energized the church. Somehow, we've managed to figure out how to get enough people showing up on a regular basis to fulfill the spiritual and community service needs of many good church-going folks and keep the folks that want a nice building and sanctuary happy. It's a pretty liberal congregation, and pretty much anyone and everyone is welcomed with open arms, regardless of race, faith, gender or sexual orientation. There are young and old alike, and plenty of families as well as single people. I'm always glad to go there for various events, including actual Sunday worship, and whenever I go, I wonder why I don't make more of an effort to go more frequently when I am visiting up at Dad's. Of course, they love you there anyhow, even if you only come once a year! This weekend, I went to help with the dinner on Saturday and then came to services on Sunday. There was so much leftover from Saturday that everyone had lunch in the fellowship hall after church, and I'm pretty sure that there was plenty of leftover shredded chicken and desserts, like brownies, that were going to be frozen for later use at Open M lunches and for the weeks that the church hosts a homeless family as part of an interfaith network of churches that hosts temporarily homeless families.

After a weekend of good church crowd food (and a reading of Dad's "Arthritis Today" magazine), I was definitely in the mood for light and healthy fare when I headed home. I stopped at the store and bought some frozen tilapia fillets, along with fresh cilantro, a perfectly ripe avocado and some of those microwave ready green beans from the produce department. Upon arriving home, I preheated the oven according to directions for cooking the fish from its frozen state, and put the fish in a baking dish. I sprinkled it with a mixture of salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cumin and ground coriander and drizzled it with fresh lime juice. While the fish cooked, I made a fresh salsa from a couple of Dad's homegrown tomatoes, the avocado, some diced red onion, half of a finely diced jalapeno pepper, garlic, chopped fresh cilantro and lime juice. I microwaved the beans according to package directions, and then tossed them with salt, pepper, some extra virgin olive oil and some of Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar. When the fish was done, I plated some and topped it with the fresh salsa and put the beans on the side of the plate. This made enough for two, so I've got tomorrow's dinner already in containers in the refrigerator. The fish was perfectly cooked, light and flaky. That was when I realized, truly and deep in my heart, "I can cook fish!"

Fish and seafood was always something I ordered out because, living in central Ohio, there really wasn't much good affordable fish to cook and when you spend all that money, you'd like something tasty at the end, so cooking it was a nightmare at home. A few years back, though, I tried a couple recipes from "Cooking Light" that began to give me confidence about fish cookery, and that have become tried and true staples for me. One is "Cumin Crusted Chilean Sea Bass" and the other is "Oven Roasted Barbecued Salmon". The first is simply sprinkling fillets of Chilean sea bass with a mix of toasted ground cumin, salt and pepper, searing it in olive oil on one side and then finishing it in a murderously hot oven and spritzing it with fresh lemon juice before serving. Since I do try to actually practice fish conservation at home and since Chilean sea bass is notoriously over fished, I've found that red snapper and cod can substitute quite nicely, depending on their general availability and how well they are being managed as a food source. The salmon is another terribly simple recipe that involves marinating salmon fillets in a mixture of lime and pineapple juice for 15-20 minutes (longer than that and the lime juice starts to cook the fish, leaving you with oven-roasted barbecued salmon seviche!), and then rubbing the flesh with a mixture of salt, pepper, brown sugar, cumin and cinnamon. You cook it in the oven for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. These recipes have never failed me, but I've always given credit to the recipes. Naturally, me being me, I began to play around with them a bit. I discovered that I could put the cumin crusted sea bass rub on large sea scallops and follow the same general technique to produce perfect scallops. I figured out that Alton Brown's rib rub , which I usually have on hand in the spice cupboard (I make it myself), substitutes quite nicely for the rub in the actual recipe for the salmon. It's that kind of experimentation that gives me the confidence to know that I need not fear the fish in my own kitchen, especially when it comes to preparing it in ways that are light and healthy and full of flavor. Because plain baked or broiled fish is right up there with poached chicken in my book on the "boring" scale.

One of the dietary changes I want to make is to include fish in my diet more regularly, and my revelation today will help. Fish doesn't have to be "special occasion" because I know how to cook it right. It's like falling off a log once you figure it out, and you can't beat most fish for "fast" when it comes to prep and cooking. In truth, fish is definitely one of those foods that lends itself to the KISS principle of cooking. That's "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" Good fresh fish doesn't need much in the way of preparation and saucing, especially if you want to enjoy the taste and texture of the fish. There is virtually no waste with fish, so it really does give me a bang for the buck, especially when we're talking fish like tilapia, catfish and salmon (which is frequently on sale). I can usually buy other types of fish and seafood, like cod, red snapper, tuna steaks, sea scallops , mussels and clams in portion appropriate sizes, which means I'm not required to invest in a whole pound of the stuff. I do try to keep abreast of fish that are endangered and over fished and ones that are full of mercury so that I spend my fish dollars responsibly.

I'm looking forward to having more fish in my diet! And I swear I am not on the payroll of any fish council with my hearty endorsement of fish!

The Best Part of Late Summer

It's the middle of August, the dreaded "dog days" of summer. The weather is often hot and humid and leaves you feeling like a limp dishrag by noon. The upside? In general, the availability of fresh corn, tomatoes and cucumbers, along with a host of other great local produce. I love fresh local sweet corn. I can make a meal out of three ears with just a spoonful of my basil pesto pasta salad and some freshly sliced tomatoes.

I think my absolute favorite thing this time of year is the fresh tomatoes. After 10 months of making due with the plum tomatoes and little grape tomatoes available year round, I've forgotten just what a tomato really tastes like until I get the first bite of a juicy ripe locally grown one. The juicy, sweet-tartness of a tomato is heavenly this time of year, and I really can't get enough of them. Don't need to do anything complicated or fancy to them either. I'm fine with slicing one and sprinkling it with a little kosher salt and some freshly ground black pepper. The simple bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich at this time of year makes you wonder why you even try them any other time of the year. I've come to enjoy the peppery bite of arugula in place of the standard iceberg lettuce in my BLT, but even if you can't get arugula, a BLT is delightful this time of year. I do not fritter away my time cooking bacon these days either. Not when I can get that fully cooked bacon that you crisp up in the microwave! The same number of slices in a package of the pre-cooked stuff as are in most of the uncooked packages, and I don't have to figure out what to do with all the bacon grease that comes from cooking the darn stuff? It's a no-brainer!

Take away the bacon and the lettuce and you have another all-time favorite sandwich of mine: the tomato sandwich. Elemental simplicity. I happen to like toasted whole wheat bread, but there are tomato sandwich devotees that insist on plain white toasted Wonder Bread. Aside from the nutty flavor of the wheat bread, I just happen to think it's a good idea to mitigate the use of real mayonnaise (and I do mean mayonnaise, not Miracle Whip) with some whole grain and fiber. Lots of thinly sliced fresh tomatoes that are sprinkled with plenty of black pepper and just a sprinkle of salt. By the time you're done, it's a sloppy little mess, but it's delightful and something I just plain don't make any other time of the year because fresh, fresh, fresh tomatoes, preferably picked off the vines at my dad's, are essential.

I love plain old sliced tomatoes, as mentioned above, but this is the time of year that I actually make a nice Caprese Salad. It's worth the fresh mozzarella from Carfagna's and makes use of that fresh basil and good olive oil that are usually sitting around in my refrigerator and in the cupboard. It's a nice refreshing main dish type of salad for me when paired with a nice crusty roll and some fresh plums for dessert. I also make a recipe from my paternal grandmother's kitchen. I peeled and slice fresh ripe tomatoes and soak them in a mixture of white vinegar, sugar and water, along with a thinly sliced onion. A little salt and pepper round this one out and it goes well with just about every summer table I make. Lasts a couple days in the fridge, too, which makes life simpler.

Of course, on the salad front, I also choose to mix chopped tomatoes, red onions, green and/or red peppers, cucumbers and chopped kalamata olives with lemon juice or red wine vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper. Maybe some fresh oregano or mint or parsley or some combination of all of the above, along with some finely minced garlic. Sometimes, I just throw it all in the blender and wind up with a gazpacho for a change of pace.

Summer and tomatoes. Nothing goes together better. And that is my paean to the tomato.

Tom Glavine wins 300

I like Tom Glavine. Even when he was an Atlanta Brave and whupping my Cleveland Indians in the World Series as part of one of the most formidable starting pitching lineups all those years ago. I congratulate him for winning 300 games and becoming, most likely, the last pitcher to achieve that status. Now what does that have to do with food, you are likely asking. Well, let me tell you....

I really, really like baseball. In spite of the controversies that surround the modern game, I still love the game. I really like going to games, even though it is god-awful expensive to see a major league game these days. I like to watch the people and roar with the crowd. Some of my favorite memories are of attending Cleveland Indians games back in the days when they set a major league record for consecutive sold out games. I often went with my dad or my nephews. I had a friend that had partial season tickets in those days. I still have the friend, but he doesn't have the season tickets! The package was originally bought because he had a baseball-loving son that went to Case Western Reserve University, and there were always some tickets available because the boy couldn't LIVE at Jacobs Field and earn a doctorate in microbiology. The seats were near the Indians' bullpen, overlooking right center field. Good home run territory in the days when Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez were in the lineup, and a good view of the whole field most of the time. Those were the days of Omar Visquel at shortstop, and I'm glad I got to see him play. And Sandy Alomar. Never much cared for his brother Randy, but Sandy was a journeyman catcher and it spoiled me for watching any other catcher because Sandy was It was a time when it meant something to watch the boys play the Seattle Mariners because you got to watch Randy Johnson pitch when he was at the peak of his power. Even out there in right center field, you could hear that ball pop into the catcher's glove when he threw.

These days, the modern ballpark is a virtual smorgasbord of food. Something there for just about every taste, really, but I am something of a classicist when it comes to ballpark eats. I like to have a hot dog, which in Northeast Ohio means an all beef dog on a plain white bun with minced onions and Bertmann's Ball Park Mustard. The mustard, near as I have determined, is a cross between Dijon mustard and Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard. No ketchup, puh-leeeze! I like to have a beer and some peanuts in the shell. Don't care for peanuts most of the time, but there is just something about peanuts at the ballpark. Preferably purchased from a vendor inside the park. It is probably all in my mind, but to me they just taste different. Cracker Jack and popcorn are acceptable nibbles, too, with a nice cold diet Pepsi (who can afford more than two beers maximum, and they don't sell beer after the 7th inning anyhow. Largely to forestall any repeat of the Great Nickel Beer Night Debacle of the late 70s, I think. Even the normally taciturn and staid Mike Hargrove's eyes still widened at the memory of being a player on the field that night and watching as scores of drunken fans came onto the field over the wall at the old Municipal Stadium before running for the dugout!). Nachos are remotely acceptable if I am in the right mood. Always get the deluxe nachos, though. You get a 1/4 cup of salsa and some jalapeno peppers to go with your garden variety tortilla chips and melted Cheese Whiz. On a really hot day, a nice lemon ice is good, too. It's a cool and refreshing thing that starts out as a rock-hard cup of something like lemon sorbet that gradually melts into something more like a lemon slushy as you sit there in the full afternoon sun.

These days, Dad and I usually take in an Akron Aeros game sometime over the summer. The park is closer, the parking is cheaper, and, being the AA affiliate of the Indians, you get to see the up and coming prospects and the occasional big leaguer that's recovering from an injury. In AA ball, the players are still human enough to sign bats, balls and gloves for the kids and the stands aren't full of memorabilia collectors fighting for home run balls. The players still make dumb fielding errors, but it's not met with nearly the same outrage as when watching a guy making a million dollars a season do it. It's a more laid-back atmosphere. There are guys who won't get the chance to play any higher level of ball, and, while everyone is hoping to make it to The Show up in Cleveland, most of them are really just playing for the chance to get to go to Buffalo with the club's AAA Buffalo Bisons. It's one of the few places where you can meet people who actually WANT to go to Buffalo. And the hot dogs, peanuts and beer all taste just as good as they do up at Jacob's Field on a warm summer afternoon or evening.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

Today I am 49 years old. Well, technically not until sometime around 9 p.m., or 8 p.m. if you are in Chicago, which is where I was actually born. I fortuitously have the day off work, but no really big plans for the day beyond spending time with myself relaxing. Of course, there will be cooking involved, but I find that relaxing. I have a job that demands a great deal of interaction with my fellow human beings, but I truly am a solitary creature left to my own devices and relish quality private time to recharge my energy. It's nice to have time to reflect and be grateful for all of the blessings in my life. Wouldn't change a thing, not even the unhappy times, because it's all made me who I am today, and I like who I am most days!

Growing up, my mom made a big deal out of birthdays. They were usually family affairs, with both sets of grandparents invited for dinner and cake. When I was young, you got to pick your favorite restaurant to go to, but as I got older, sometime in my teens, we began to cook at home and you got to pick what was for dinner. When my brother and I were small, there was usually some kind of cake and ice cream, but as we got older my generally non-cake loving family members began to pick another kind of dessert. Being a summer baby, I remember usually choosing something on the grill for dinner. A nice sirloin steak, or perhaps my mom's lemon-oregano chicken. Maybe the barbequed chicken done with a recipe from one of mom's co-workers. There would be baked potatoes, locally grown sweet corn and maybe some cucumbers in sour cream or tomatoes in sweetened vinegar. Sometimes, we'd make Mrs. Cardinalli's zucchini provencal. My favorite dessert of choice was lemon meringue pie.

This year, I contemplated using my Cheesecake Factory gift card, but after thinking a bit more, I decided I could make my own celebratory dinner, and since I'm entertaining myself, it could be anything I wanted. I headed to the grocery store with a vague idea of large shrimp and salad. I picked up some nice baby greens, a red onion, an English cucumber and some grape tomatoes that I'll sprinkle with a little gorgonzola cheese and a garlicky homemade vinagrette, and then headed off to the seafood counter. The shrimp that were thawed in the case weren't the size I had in mind at all, and I wasn't inclined to thaw shrimp this afternoon or pay for a whole pound of large frozen shrimp. I did spy some lovely, large sea scallops in the case, though, and decided that three of them, done up with the rub from my favorite Cumin-Crusted Chilean Sea Bass would be just the ticket. Toasted whole cumin seeds are mixed with a dash of cayenne pepper and sea salt and given a quick whir in a coffee or spice grinder, and rubbed over the scallops or any firm-fleshed white fish (cod works beautifully!). The fish is seared quickly on both sides in a little olive oil in an oven-proof skillet and finished in a jiffy in a 400 degree oven. Heavenly for such little time and trouble!

A quick tour to the meat counter and I found a very nice, very small piece of sirloin steak. Aha! My version of surf and turf. The steak will be seasoned and seared on both sides, and then finished in the oven along with the scallops. I thought about cake. Or pie. Or something for dessert. There was nothing really portion-sized to suit my tastes or budget, though, and then I remembered the wonderful brunch drink I'd had with my friend Lisa last Sunday. She put some passion fruit sorbet into glasses and we poured chilled prosecco over it. There was no passion fruit sorbet at my store, but there was some mango sorbet and a small bottle of asti to be had. It's not prosecco, but it will work just fine.

Now that's my idea of a birthday celebration! If you are of a more social nature, it's certainly easy enough to pull this one off for two to four people.

Lovely Leftovers

Okay, I'm going to admit that one of the ways I get my cooking fix and exist quite happily on a budget is because I like leftovers. I never realized until I was chatting with a friend recently that not everyone likes leftovers. You'd think I'd have wrapped my head around this one a very long time ago, given that my dad is one of those people who doesn't like leftover stuff. One of my mom's sure-fire tricks to go out to dinner was to threaten to heat up all the leftover stuff in the fridge. Or make tuna noodle casserole. But I digress. I clean out Dad's refrigerator all the time, tossing out things I made two weeks earlier or that got dragged home in a carryout box in what must have been a fit of optimism on Dad's part.

Leftovers are part and parcel of my lunches and a good part of dinners almost every week. I think it is only in late summer, when corn and tomatoes are at their best and make a dinner all their own, that I approach actual cooking on a daily basis, and then it is just a matter of heating water to boil some corn and cooking a piece of chicken or fish or broiling up a burger or a chop. Usually I do serious cooking (I do not count making a salad or a vegetable as cooking most of the time) about once or twice a week. I make a couple of main dishes, have it fresh off the stove or out of the oven or crockpot once, and then I reheat.

This week, I wanted to use my Boca bolognese to make baked rigatoni. I mixed the sauce with cooked rigatoni and two kinds of cheese (shredded Parmesan and mozzarella), and then topped it with little spoonfuls of part-skim ricotta and more Parmesan and mozzarella. Threw it in an 8 x 8 pan and baked it till the cheese began to brown and everything was bubbly. Of course, I'd made something else for dinner and it is still waiting in my refrigerator to be portioned out.

My other dish this week is downright sinful. Not something I'll make every week, to be sure. It's salmon noodles romanoff. I mixed cooked, butttered medium egg noodles with sour cream, green onion sour cream chip dip, chives, Parmesan cheese, a beaten egg and a can of drained pink salmon. Topped it with a mixture of plain bread crumbs and Parmesan that I'd tossed with some melted margarine. Baked it until the crumbs were golden brown. I portioned it right out of the oven into plastic containers. Took some to work along with some fresh cherries and that was my dinner.

One of the things that makes leftovers easy for me is a supply of plastic containers. A casserole dish may get neglected, but individual portions make it easy to either reheat at home or to grab and go when I'm heading out the door. They also take up much less room in my refrigerator, which is a good thing. Makes more room for all those jars of mustard and salad dressing and pickles that I am so fond of.

Fast Food

Just what is our obsession with fast food? I see a lot of it coming from an "I really can't be bothered" attitude that prevails in our society. We're so busy all the time that we've come to resent taking the time to actually prepare and eat food that is good and good for us. We resent taking the time to figure out how to prepare actual raw ingredients and shop for them. These are just one more damn thing on the list for a lot of people, and not a very high priority item at that, especially given that so many of us have a pretty unhealthy attitude with food. It surprises me when I listen to people talk about food and eating how many people out there don't even realize that they really don't LIKE food. They don't trust it or they fear it. They have a love-hate relationship with nourishment in many cases.

Saying that Americans don't like food probably sounds pretty silly to most folks, given the national obesity problem, but then from my perspective, when you don't like food well enough to learn about it and give it an appropriate place in life, you open yourself up to consuming cheap, fast food just to get the process over with. Or eating things that tout themselves as good for you, no matter how tiny or nasty they are. You'll actually believe that little tiny cans of protein drinks are an acceptable substitute for good food that really is good for you. Which only serves to reinforce your idea that food isn't worth it.

I am surprised at the number of people who say that they don't have time to cook, but they do have time to sit in lines at drive-throughs and stand in line for a table at Applebee's. It's not logical. If you have 20 minutes to kill sitting in your car waiting to reach the window, then you got time to cook. And cook something that is a bit more satisfying than a mega-burger and fries most of the time.

A well-stocked pantry is a key to it all. Now, that doesn't mean that you need every food product known to man on hand. What you need are the basic ingredients for two or three simple things that you know you like to eat. Figure out a couple of "go to" entrees that you can round out with a tossed salad or some steamed broccoli. Me? I usually have the ingredients on hand to make a very simple Tuscan bean soup (canned chicken broth, canned white beans, canned Italian style diced tomatoes, and frozen chopped spinach), a vegetarian chili (canned chili beans, canned diced Mexican style tomatoes, shredded cheese and Boca crumbles in the freezer), and some kind of pasta that begins with dried pasta of some kind and canned or jarred marinara sauce. I keep canned tuna and salmon around for the ease of tuna or salmon salad. I keep eggs around for simple meals of scrambled eggs or an omelet. All of these things can be tossed together pretty much when I walk in the door and I can be having dinner within half an hour or so. With the eggs and the canned fish, it can be within 15 minutes. And there is nothing wrong with eating scrambled eggs and toast or a tuna salad sandwich for dinner. It need not be gourmet fare every day of your life, and a standard "test" for most aspiring professional cooks is something as simple as "can you scramble eggs?". The important thing to bear in mind is whether is suits your tastes for that day. If I really can't be bothered with cooking, eggs and toast or tuna salad are no-brainers, as is that bean soup or that chili.

I make use of prepared and convenience foods all the time, too. I've talked about my love of the rotisserie chicken, but I also like pre-cut fruits and veggies and consider them worth what I spend on them. Yes, whole watermelons are cheaper, but I'm a single person that really can't eat that much watermelon, so a quart of watermelon chunks or a couple slices of watermelon are worth it for me because I'm not paying for a whole watermelon to rot in the fridge because cutting it up is too daunting. Fine if I've got the time and the inclination, but I know myself well enough to know that washing lettuce and chopping up melons are the places I can't be bothered. The pre-washed, pre-cut fruits and veggies are where I save time that I'll devote to other things, like washing and chopping fresh parsley and other fresh herbs. It's nice to devote an afternoon to making somebody's homemade marinara sauce, but I've found that there are plenty of prepared sauces that suit my tastes and that don't require an afternoon and 5 lbs. or roma tomatoes. I'm okay with that.

I also like leftovers, so I'll make casseroles and rice and pasta salads that can be portioned out into containers to tote for lunches so that I can toss a cup of yogurt or a piece of fruit into a sack with one of the containers and call lunch a done deal without resorting to the in-store Pizza Hut every day. I like having something in the fridge so that all I have to do is make up a salad or cook a vegetable while a portion of something reheats in the microwave or the oven at the end of the day.

It's really not that hard, but I will concede that it does take practice to acquaint yourself with your own food preferences so that they become a habit and something that you don't have to think about all the time. Which makes shopping based on those preferences much easier. Which ensures that you have your ingredients close to hand for those "go to" meals when you feel rushed and can't be bothered.

Thanks for the Memories

Ah, what was my first actual food memory? Hard to say, really. Never given it a whole lot of thought until now.

There is a black and white snapshot somewhere at my dad's house with me in a high chair, gnawing on the bone from a t-bone steak. Apparently, this was taken in the kitchen at my parents' apartment in Cicero, Illinois when I was about a year old. Mom and Dad were a young couple with not a lot of money, and Saturday night was steak for dinner, a tradition I remember well from later in my childhood. At any rate, during my teething phase, they used to give me the steak bone to chew on. I attribute my life-long love of steak and beef to this. Although I have no deep objection to meatless meals, I do have carnivorous little taste buds, which leads me to a favorite food memory from my childhood.

Many of my food memories involve my paternal grandfather. We spent a lot of time with my dad's family when I was growing up. Usually ate diner there once a week, and my brother and I always spent at least a week with them every summer when we were out of school. We took vacations up to Alexandria Bay, New York with them, too, where we spent a week at cabins owned by Harry and Frieda Coons. We fished the St. Lawrence Seaway, sometimes venturing way out towards the shipping lanes in that little rowboat with the 5 hp motor on it. But I digress from my discussion of beef. Grandpa had a big grill with a rotisserie on it, and at least once every summer, he'd start a fire with real charcoal, using a chimney starter (no steenkin' lighter fluid allowed!), and would rub a large sirloin tip or rump roast with Lawry's seasoned salt and cook it over the coals. I loved the crusty end pieces, with all the caramelized meat juices and that seasoned salt. I liked the rare to medium rare pieces from the center, too, even as a child. We'd toast marshmallows over the coals after dinner on sticks that we'd picked from the woods behind their house.

I remember our vacations with Grandma and Grandpa. The rule if you went fishing was that you baited your own hooks and kept quiet. No whining about a trip that started shortly after six a.m. and ended around 11, so you could clean the fish and have some lunch. I learned to fish without a bobber, as our lines with their lead weights were dropped some 20-30 feet down into the St. Lawrence River. I learned to tell by the way the tip of the pole jiggled when there was a fish on the line. We mostly caught bluegill and perch, but I can't remember a year when Grandpa, Grandma or my Dad didn't reel in a northern pike that was destined to become fish chowder. I remember my grandmother patiently sitting in the kitchen picking out every little pin bone in those fish! Apart from the fact that the recipe started with rendering the fat out of diced salt pork (which became delicious little cracklings that were sprinkled over your bowl of chowder), there was nothing else classically chowder-like about the soup. After the fat was rendered and the salt pork removed, onions, celery and carrots were softened with a little salt, pepper and dried thyme. Then a copious amount of water was put in the pot and things were allowed to simmer. After a bit, diced potatoes and crushed whole tomatoes were put in and allowed to simmer for awhile. We were usually setting the table, one of those old enamel-topped things where the leaves folded out to make enough room for us all, when the fish went in. I still make this from time to time, although I've tarted it up a bit by using chicken broth.

Overnights at Grandma and Grandpa's always involved a bedtime snack. The one I remember most was root beer and those big reddish-purple grapes with the big pips in them, but small dishes of pineapple sherbet were frequent offerings. The root beer was served in those stainless steel glasses that came in a host of bright colors. The big thing was picking your favorite color. I remember being especially fond of the dark turquoise one and the dark fuchsia one.

I remember my mom getting the recipe for chicken paprikash from Mrs. Gross, who babysat me and my brother when I was in kindergarten. Mrs. Gross was an older lady of Hungarian descent. I'd had paprikash at Mrs. Gross' house for lunch and it was one of my favorite things. I have the recipe from my mom's recipe box and it's something I make when I'm feeling indulgent as there's a scary amount of sour cream involved. It's a recipe that hails from a different era, though, and once in a while, on a cold winter day, it's the kind of comfort food that nurtures your battered soul and warms your heart.

Some of my favorite memories involve the Christmas cookies. Lord, I have all the recipes, and I am amazed at how my mother did it every year, especially when my brother and I were small. The first cookies I ever made, probably when I was about 8 years old, were the pineapple drop cookies. There were also Mayme Osburn's orange drop cookies, Elizabeth Steiner's cherry cream cheese tarts, pecan bars, date-nut bars (Dad's absolute favorite, and I still make them for him every year), heath bars, thumprints, Patty Kapusinski's lemon sugar cookie Christmas tree cutouts, Carolyn Strandberg's butter rum cheese bars, lemon bars, apricot bars and a filled Christmas tea ring or some stollen. This was in the days before things like cookie exchanges, and Mom always made lots and lots of cookies to make trays to give as gifts and take into the office. Still have most of the Christmas cookie tins, either here at my house or up at Dad's. As I got older, I helped with more of the recipes, and sometime in my late twenties and early thirties, my mom and I would have the best time baking together. Our relationship hadn't always been easy, so I remember those times quite fondly. Including the time we misread the thumbprint recipe and wound up with enough thumbprint cookie dough for the 8th Army! I still make the date nut bars and the sugar cookie cutouts and some of the easier or more decorative bar cookies every year, and they always bring good memories.

My mom was a good cook, which was a surprise to her family as my maternal grandmother wasn't known for her cooking (a fact which she freely admitted in her later years!), and was always trying new stuff. Some of it was good old stick to your ribs Midwestern casseroles gleaned from the ladies at church, but Mom used to get these recipe cards from Reader's Digest to make things like Quiche Lorraine and fondue. Since these are the recipes I remember, it must be my Swiss forebears shining through. They weren't really common dishes, though, in the Midwest during the sixties, so I'm sure I was eating things that sounded terribly exotic to my grade school classmates. I even remember Mom trying steak tartare, although my father insisted that it needed a good grilling and a bun!

Eating out was something we did most Friday nights. Usually, we wound up at Tonyo's, which later morphed into the Parasson's restaurant chain in the Akron area. But in my day, it was one narrow little restaurant with about 10 booths and a few tables. Nothing fancy, by any stretch of the imagination. Spaghetti and meatballs and pizza were the order of the day, along with salads that consisted of iceberg lettuce, a wan looking wedge of tomato, a few slices of pepperoni, a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella and a lone pepperoncini tossed with the house Italian dressing. I'm pretty sure the four of us were fed for about ten bucks. I forget the name of the place, but we'd also go have Chinese food at a place in downtown Akron, not far from where my dad worked at Cascade Plaza. For me in those days, it was wonton soup, shrimp chips and sweet and sour pork with fried rice. My taste buds have sure moved on, but I can't see sweet and sour pork on a menu without remembering it was one of my first forays into exotic cuisine, along with moo goo gai pan and shrimp with lobster sauce. The Brown Derby in Montrose was for birthday dinners. I can also remember what seemed like pilgrimages to Smithville Inn all the way out towards Wooster for family style chicken dinner in the Amish style. We also frequented all of the chicken dinner places in Barberton, but our favorite was Milich's, because it was right down the street from home. There used to be five chicken joints in Barberton, but now there are only four, and they still do a land office business on Sundays after church.

I remember we used to have a big Memorial Day picnic at our house with my mom's family every year. The Indy 500 would be on the radio in the background, and everyone brought a covered dish. I think it was mostly hot dogs and hamburgers, but one of my favorite things, even as a young child, was the bean salad my Aunt Rosie brought. My mom's youngest sister in a family of seven, Aunt Rosie had married my Uncle Tom right out of high school. Uncle Tom is Armenian, and the bean salad was one Aunt Rosie learned to make from his family. It was nothing more than cooked navy beans, some chopped tomatoes, a little diced onion and lots of chopped fresh parsley, dressed with lemon juice. It was an odd thing for a child to like as I recall, but I looked forward to it every year. I made it and took it to a reunion of mom's family (this was after she'd died) out at Lake Dorothy Park a few years back, and I think my uncle was touched. Aside from the fact that the man is scrupulous about a no-fat diet, having had two heart surgeries, and the dish being tailor-made for someone with his dietary restrictions, I think it meant something to him that I'd remember that one dish out of all the ones that had been served at those picnics all those years ago.

I remember eating both sardines and pickled pig's feet as a child, although I can't imagine it now. Oh, I'll have the occasional sardine, but I pick them over something fierce, quite unlike the way I ate them when I was little. I also clearly remember my paternal grandmother feeding me raw chicken hearts. It was like a little treat! Of course, that was also in the days before every living chicken carried salmonella and when you knew from where the meat and poultry came because you had a butcher with a little shop that knew you and your kith and kin. I also remember eating black bread and Limburger cheese at my grandparents. You can't find that black bread. It was a black Russian rye bread. And I do mean it was black. I've seen some pretty dark rye breads, and this was darker still. I'd still eat the Limburger, though. With the darkest rye I could find.

Well, enough memories for one post. I'm sure there will be others. Goodnight.

About Me

"Table for One" is a cooking blog. It's about my experiences in the kitchen as a single woman that likes to cook but who is less than fond of entertaining. It's intended to be a whole lot about how to feed yourself, although I am sure to come up with ideas for stuff you can easily make and take to the work potluck and the family reunion. You don't have to be relegated to bringing the chips or the paper plates just because you're a solo act. And even though I don't generally throw parties, I got ideas that shouldn't be too hard to pull off, so there may be the occasional entertaining post. Of course, you should bear in mind that I am definitely an "intraverted" personality on the Myers-Briggs scale, so you might wait a very long time for party food at my blog. No doubt, there will be various and sundry musings about all things food related. Rants, too, from time to time, I expect.

I like food, therefore I like to cook. There, I said it. I like food. I've worked long and hard to develop a relationship with food that is relatively healthy, and it hasn't always been that way. Lest anyone fear they are in for "The Brown Rice and Granola Chronicles," put your fears to rest. I do not have a macrobiotic palate. I believe that it is quite possible to make and eat healthy, nutritious food to be sure, but I also live in a world that includes on a somewhat regular basis chicken wings, beer, potato chips, dessert and Chinese buffets. Occasionally in overly indulgent quantities. All at the same time. I don't feel guilty about it either. I'm a realist that way.

I suppose I could be called a reluctant foodie. Reluctant because the term "foodie" carries overly unpleasant connotations in my mind having to do with people who are always on the lookout for the latest and greatest just because it is the latest and greatest, and not because it actually looks good, smells good or tastes good, or in any way nurtures their souls. Nevermind that I have just about every spice and herb known to man and somewhere in the vicinity of eight kinds of mustard lurking in my refrigerator. The latter I attribute to a hereditary predisposition acquired from my father, who is a sucker for any kind of sweet-hot or spicy mustard. I will happily own up to having a fascination with the world of condiments, although I have thus far managed to avoid wasabi mayonnaise, having yet to figure out what I'd do with it if I had it. I took a wine class a few years back, not because I expected to dazzle friends, family and business connections with my knowledge of fine wines, but mainly because I wanted to be able to pick up a bottle of wine in the under twenty dollar range (and, for the record, the ten to fifteen dollar range is preferable) at my local World Market or Trader Joe's that wasn't fit to make vinegar out of.

My tastes are whimsical at best. I'd like to shop every day just because my taste inclinations can change that frequently. Right now, I am crazy for fruits and vegetables, and probably have more than I know what to do with in my refrigerator at this exact moment. I've got the makings of Thai beef salad and Vietnamese chicken salad, watermelon, strawberries, asparagus, cole slaw mix and arugula. I am hoping my taste buds will cooperate with me long enough to dispose of most of this in the next week or so. Because next week, I could just as easily decide that tuna noodle casserole and Krispy Kreme donuts are good ideas. It happens like that with me.

I am not anti-convenience food. I am not anti-comfort food. I think the rotisserie chicken right there at the deli in my local grocery store is one of the greatest food inventions of modern history. I love the darn things because they're convenient and I can do about a million things with them. I like bagged spinach, lettuce and lettuce mixes in spite of recent e-coli incidents. I like meatloaf, mashed potatoes (my sister-in-law's are worth a two hour drive on any holiday you can name), mac and cheese, and fried chicken. I say walk on the wild side and have street food and fair food because you only go around once, and whatever doesn't kill you only makes your gut stronger. I do draw the line at innards and insects, though. You will never put enough chocolate on a fried grasshopper to make me forget that it is a fried GRASSHOPPER. I almost always have a couple of those little frozen entrees from Stouffer's, Healthy Choice, Michelina or Marie Callendar in my freezer for those days when I don't have something quick and portable at the ready for my lunch or when I'm running late or when I'm too tired. I like those 99% fat-free cream soups, and the Kroger versions are just fine for my needs. With the exception of diet sodas, Hellman's light mayo and light sour cream (and the afore-mentioned canned cream soups), I got no use for "light" or "diet" much of anything. A little less of the real deal is more satisfying in my book, and I have done with trying to convince myself that some dry little rice cakes or artificially sweetened chocolate are good things. Ick.

At family gatherings, the things I am asked to bring are strawberry jello dessert (it's my paternal grandma's recipe and I have to bring this to pretty much any family gathering. After my mom died, the first Christmas dinner without her at my brother's house, my brother asked me to bring this. Mark doesn't generally go in for any kind of sweet things, so I figured it must mean something to him if he specifically asked me to bring it, and I've made it ever since. It's actually a rather light, refreshing bit of sweet after a big holiday meal with all the trimmings if you can't face pumpkin pie and red velvet cake), salami rolls (store bought hard salami rolled around a filling of cream cheese, chopped green olives, chopped green onions, prepared horseradish and a dash of Texas Pete), Butterfinger cake (taken right out of "Taste of Home" magazine and a staple at family cookouts and graduation parties. You'd have thought I invented the wheel the first time I brought it, and everyone swears I make it better than they do somehow), and my friend Elaine's sweet potato casserole (Elaine was my college roomie and close friend. She died about ten years ago and she herself admitted that she was no great shakes in the kitchen, but this recipe was one of her standouts, and every time I make it, I think of her and am proud to share the dish and the recipe. My niece-in-law, Jamie, loves this dish and asks for it every Thanksgiving).

I love to collect recipes and I read cookbooks the way other people read the latest best sellers. I think I could make a new recipe from my recipe boxes everyday for the rest of my life and not get to them all at this point. Although, in truth, I rarely actually follow recipes. Recipes are just suggestions about what ingredients go together for me. I constantly improvise. I've got cookbooks for just about every ethnicity out there, and what I don't have, I check out from the library if I get a burr under my saddle to cook something say Norwegian or Burmese or Ethiopian. Betty Crocker, Better Homes & Gardens (the red checkerbook one that is an updated version of my mom's) and Reader's Digest "Creative Cooking" are standard "reference" books for me. I love my copies of "Please to the Table" (Russia and all the former Soviet republics), "The Splendid Table" (Italian, Emalia-Romangna), "Everyday Italian", "Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking" and "A Wok for All Seasons". I love recipezaar.com because if you can't find a recipe for whatever it is you want to make, then it don't exist. I also subscribe to about.com's newsletters for Indian, Chinese and Korean cooking. Food Network is almost always on in the background when I am to home, too, even though I think I've seen just about every show they have. "The Next Food Network Star" is to me what "American Idol" is to the rest of the nation.

Things I can't live without in my kitchen are onions, garlic, chicken broth, rice, butter, olive oil, kosher salt and sherry vinegar. I love my Calphalon stir-fry pan, my microplane grater, my pepper mill, my big cast iron skillet and my big ol' chef's knife.

I can't quite wrap my head around cooking radishes, cucumbers (I know. I eat pickles and they are technically cooked cucumbers, but I am talking about the suggestions I've read from time to time that involve sauteeing the damn things in some oil or butter and serving them hot), and iceberg lettuce. Not sure why that last one gets me, as I happily and merrily eat bok choy and napa cabbage when I am in the mood for Chinese food! I have no use whatsoever for Minute Rice or instant tea. The average five year old in most underdeveloped nations of the world knows how to make REAL rice and REAL tea, so I'll confess to being a bit snotty on this point about these products. It's not that hard to do the real thing. I do not order iced tea north of the Mason-Dixon line most of the time because of the Yankee fascination with powdered Nestea. Ick again.

Well, I think that's enough of an introduction at this point. After all, it's a blog, and I can make lots and lots of posts whenever the mood strikes me. If you've read this far, thanks for your perseverance. Hope you find something that is at least entertaining, if not useful from time to time.