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Wasabi no wabisabi

Wabisabi: a Japanese "aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience."

Wasabi: "a member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbages, horseradish and mustard."

Oz loves wasabi. When we go out for sushi, I have to make sure to get all the wasabi I want from the communal plug right away before Oz snakes the whole thing, him being a "dab of soy sauce in the wasabi" person, rather than the other way around, like a sane person. The sushi is secondary. What he really likes is the sinus hit and the feeling that the top of his head is about to shoot off.

Some years ago I'd heard, though I forget where, that most of the wasabi you get in this country is not wasabi at all, but a concoction of powdered horseradish and green food coloring. We probably haven’t had real wasabi since we went to Japan back in 2000, and even that may not have been the real deal.

I started to wonder, "What does wasabi actually taste like?"

When one has questions, one turns to Google. (Wow, their next April fool's joke should be a 404. The collective shriek would shatter plexiglass.) And so one boring evening a month or so ago, I did a little research and ended up ordering some genuine wasabi as a surprise for Oz.

I bought from Pacific Farms, but there are other sellers out there. (One place sold plants, so you could grow your own. Intriguing! But now I can't find them.) The price of the wasabi isn't so bad, but they kill you on shipping since it has to be overnighted in a cooler.

I had thought that the minimum order of six tubes was kind of excessive, until we went out for sushi this weekend and Oz consumed half a tube. Hah. "Serving size: one teaspoon, number of servings: nine." Right. More like: "Number of servings: two." That's not quite accurate, however, since he'd been taking little hits off the tube already.

So. What does wasabi taste like? Not like anything else, and not really like the reconstituted powdered kind you usually get. Wasabi is hotter and has a flavor, green, vegetal, and rather sweet. Good.

Eat, memory. The flavor reached right into my cerebral cortex and pulled up a complete set of images, tastes, and sounds from a (fabulous) meal at a sushi bar in Tenjin-cho in 1987.

Oz didn't have quite that experience, but he did start asking about the "grow your own" option.

If I knew you were coming, I'd've baked a cake

I am baking cake right now. This lovely chocolate cake (but with substitutions: balsamic vinegar in place of white vinegar and melted butter in place of oil). Seeing (smelling) as how the cake has turned my apartment into a den of chocolate-scented bliss, it doesn't even matter if the cake turns out. Its work here is done.

Though I've been neglecting my own site (to the extent of forgetting to renew my domain, hence this weekend's outage), I still read a lot of blogs. Some of them are connected in mysterious ways. I've seen announcements for the same birth popping up all over in places I never would have expected.

I have been trying to acquire a wide angle zoom lens (trials, tribulations). My requirements are apparently too stringent. I insist that the lens be capable of focussing. Out-of-focus shots resulting from photographer error I can accept, and do rather more often than I'd like, but the lens ought to have better optical properties than I do. I've already exchanged this lens once and tomorrow I'm shipping the replacement back to the shop. Will the third time be the charm? Eh. I think I'll put this project on hold for a while.

Serves 4 to 6

Four to six what?

I'm making this vegetable stew. About the same time I realize I'm going to end up with two gallons of the stuff, I also realize that the recipe reads like a list of Oz's least favorite vegetables. Okra! Zucchini! Sweet potatoes! Green beans!

Hmm. I'm going to have to buy more storage containers.

I wonder if my landlady likes okra, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and green beans.

I can't even give the excess away at work. I mean, sure, cake and pie disappear in no time, but okra? Not going to happen.

Unless I hide the stew under pie crust …

Flavors

Yes! I have found the sweet spot in my apartment where I can get a fairly consistent internet connection. The sweet spot is less than ten feet from where I had been using the computer, and my landlady's house is pretty small, so I can't be that much closer to her wireless router. Conclusion: Seriously wimpy router plus elderly Airport card == not such a good combination.

Anyway, I did go ahead and make up more cranberry sauce with that extra package of cranberries. As in the earlier version, I used apple cider, chopped pecans, cinnamon, ground ginger, and nutmeg. I subtracted the currants since I didn't have any left and replaced a couple tablespoons worth of brown sugar with blackstrap molasses. I also threw in a wee bit of dark rum, just because. The result was a darker tasting, but more cranberry-flavored cranberry sauce. Sophisticated and tasty, but without the cherry pie goodness of the Thanksgiving Day version.

I brought some up to Alexandria with me to eat by the spoonful since I don't have anything to put it on.

Then I went grocery shopping and bought the smallest (yet still startlingly huge) container of Honduran sour cream available in the Latin American section of the grocery store. The awesome Plato Tipico at the El Salvadorean place near my apartment has taught me the glories of Central American sour cream. So creamy, rich and sweet! If there's something horrifically disgusting about the way they make it, don't tell me.

And this huge thing of wonderful sour cream needs to be consumed by the end of December, so I'm looking for things to put it on. Like today's lunch: drunken beans (pinto beans simmered with beer, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and chipotle peppers in adobo sauce) with corn tortillas on the side. (The smallest pack of tortillas in the Latin American section was a thirty count pack. I'm going to be eating them with everything.)

This evening for dessert I decorated a little plate with a few spoonfuls of cranberry sauce beside a few spoonfuls of sour cream, kind of a yin-yang thing, then transferred the sauce and cream bit by bit to a Stoned Wheat Thin delivery medium and ate it up.

I'm going to run out of cranberry sauce before I run out of sour cream. I suppose I'll have to make more.

OMG! Sugar!

So. Is everybody thankful? I am thankful to be home for a nice, long holiday weekend. The trains were running on time Wednesday night too, so getting here wasn't nearly the ordeal that I feared.

Yesterday was all cooking. Cranberry sauce, buttermilk pie, turkey breast with cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and broccoli sautéed with pine nuts and currants.

Oz normally wants the cranberry tower (or cranberry log, once the can-shaped mass of cranberry jelly falls over). This year I pleaded for actual cranberries, seeing as how they have actual flavor and cranberry sauce is really easy to make. He obliged me with a couple packages of cranberries and I prepared this recipe (check out the discussion of variations in the comments). I substituted dark brown sugar for the sugar, and apple juice for the water. After the cranberries broke up and simmered down a bit, I added a half cup of chopped pecans and a quarter cup or so of currants. The sauce thickened up into what is basically cranberry jam. It's good on everything. I'm already planning experiments (less sugar, blackstrap molasses, citrus fruits, etc.) for the next holiday.

Since I was not in town to do my usual sweet potato preparations for pie and soufflé, I asked Oz to pick up some large cans of yams so I could make the sweet potato casserole which is de rigeur for the Ohio branch of the family. I have a dot matrix printout of their recipe for "Kims Sweet Potatoes". I will publish it here for backup in case I lose the paper. I will also correct the punctuation. And I have no idea who Kim is.

Kim's Sweet Potatoes

2 large (40 oz.) cans sweet potatoes or yams
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 to 2/3 cup melted butter (one stick of butter is fine, but feel free to add more if you're not getting enough butter in your holiday diet)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup bourbon (optional, but, hey, you might not be getting enough bourbon either)

Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons flour
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish.

Drain the cans of sweet potatoes and place the sweet potatoes in a large bowl. Pick off any coarse strings (those would be rootlets), unless you're fond of stringy textures (in which case, you can eat and floss at the same time). Mash the sweet potatoes to the desired level of smoothness.

In another bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar, then add the butter, salt, vanilla, and bourbon. Mix well, then stir into the sweet potatoes until well blended. Pour the sweet potato mixture into the baking dish and spread it out evenly.

For the topping, mix together the sugar and flour, then cut in the butter. Mix in the pecans. Sprinkle the topping onto the sweet potatoes.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes.

The sweet potatoes actually taste better after they've cooled off a bit. In the event that you have any leftovers (my horde of Ohio relatives never do), they taste even better eaten cold from the refrigerator the next day. They are also pretty damn good with that cranberry sauce on the side.

Now my burning question is, how long till my buddy Jon shows up and says that his family makes the exact same thing, only with chocolate chips?

White Witch approved

After reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you thought Turkish Delight must be the most wonderful treat in the world and you were sadly disappointed by the cornstarch dusted, rose-scented goo you bought at an international market. You said, "Ptooey! Man, what was C. S. Lewis on?" And you never tried Turkish Delight again, assuming it was some Victorian era "treat" which predated candy that actually tasted good.

Then, years later, you went out for falafel and noticed some goo in the pastry case at the falafel place. But this goo looked different. Chock full of pistachios, for one thing, and less cornstarch.

Tempting.

A couple years later, you actually got a piece and ate it.

And it was good. Tons of pistachios. Very rose flavored. Being an amalgam of sugar and fat, it's also very energizing. Tastes good with coffee. You had some for breakfast today. You are thinking you'd like some more.

If you're local, you can revise your opinion of C. S. Lewis's tastebuds at Aladdin Express. If you're not, I bet you can find a falafel place or Mediterranean bakery where they make their own.

Capacity

After I get back from my walk, I ask Oz if he's still hungry. After demolishing tonight's dinner (mostly potatoes), he'd announced, "That was really good. I ate it all. I may want dessert later."

Now he says, "Well, if you feel the need for waffle cones full of ice cream, I'll take you out."

"I don't know about that. I might just have a coconut pop."

"Or if we have to go out and get a half gallon of Cherry Garcia … "

"They don't sell it in half gallons. You'd have to get four pints. I don't think you could even eat—"

"Don't!" Oz wags a finger at me.

"What? Because then you'd have to prove that you could—"

"Don't!" Again with the finger. He adds, "I know I could eat two pints."

Taste of the season

I went to the farmer's market. I bought no tomatoes, though there were lovely tantalizing tomatoes everywhere for, like, a dollar a pound (so if you don't have a free source, get yourself to the farmer's market). I bought onion-rosemary focaccia, a pound of the cutest little oriental eggplants you ever did see and two sweet Italian peppers, one red and one green.

The eggplants were almost too cute to cook. They were very dark purple with black tops like little emo haircuts, and looked like they'd popped out of a Japanese print or off this Japanese map. If I hadn't been hungry this afternoon I might have indulged in a little food photography, but I settled for admiring them as I cut them up. The peppers were long, thin, and dramatically curvy. I found a live caterpillar in one. I think maybe that one was a little too organic. I called Oz to ask him if he minded sharing his dinner with a caterpillar. "I don't think he ate much." He said, "A little caterpillar poo never hurt anyone." Well, I washed the pepper out pretty good and trimmed off the bits that looked chewed.

I peeled and seeded and diced a half buttload of tomatoes (a quantity of approximately the same volume as one of my buttcheeks) without cutting off a fingertip. Peeled tomatoes are dangerously slippery. I usually use canned tomatoes, but I have to say, using fresh is worth the effort. If you have time. Can you tell I'm still not employed?

All that plus an onion, a ton of garlic, a bay leaf, some basil, and a cup of marsala became eggplant scallopini marsala. It was cooking away and smelling fabulous when Oz called to tell me he was stuck in traffic. So I turned off the heat and took a break from cooking to nibble on the focaccia and drink marsala. As a general rule, one should never cook with booze that one wouldn't drink. It's good to confirm the quality once in a while.

Once Oz got home I boiled up some pasta to go with the scallopini. Grated parmesan on top. I've made this dish before, but I think this is the best it's ever tasted.

We still have tomatoes. We still have leftover salsa. I walked into my neighbor's yard today and saw that even more had turned red. It's a vegetable plot to take over the world.

Knee deep in nightshade

My total tomato consumption for the day was a spoonful of leftover salsa on my burrito at lunch. The jolly red rows of tomatoes on the counter, they mock me. I'm not sure what I'll make next. Perhaps I'll try cooking them into a sauce. Maybe with a little roasted garlic? But it's supposed to be 96 °F tomorrow, so stirring a steaming pot of tomato sauce sounds thoroughly unappealing.

My neighbor is getting back from vacation soon. I'm sure we'll have plenty of tomatoes to hand back over. If she'd been growing zucchinis I'd have thought she timed her vacation on purpose. Come to think of it, I think she is growing some zucchinis.

Oz made sure to remind me about tomorrow's farmer's market down in Shockoe Bottom. I'll be shopping for vegetables which go well with tomatoes.

Six jalapenos is probably too much

Tonight's attempt to use up all my neighbor's tomatoes was salsa. Did I mention that both my neighbor and Oz have planted jalapenos? They are also coming ripe this week.

So I prepped six jalapenos (or was it seven?) by cutting out the seeds and membranes, then running them through the food processor. The downside to fresh crispy jalapenos? They expel a fine juicy mist when you cut them up. The juicy mist goes right into your eyes. I managed to cut the peppers into eighths without cutting off my fingertips or blinding myself.

Half the jalapenos went into the salsa. The other half went into refritos. I wasn't attempting to make an inedible meal …

The salsa was hot! I ended up with about three cups of chopped tomatoes, to which I added two chopped scallions, a handful of chopped cilantro, some olive oil, juice of one half lime, and about three minced jalapenos. Hot! Very fresh tasting, though.

The refritos were also hot! I sautéed one diced onion in olive oil with six cloves of garlic, two teaspoons of cumin, a teaspoon of salt, and some black pepper. When the onion was soft I added the jalapenos. A few minutes later I added two 15 ounce cans of pinto beans, rinsed and drained. I cooked that for a while and eventually mashed up the beans with a potato masher. The beans were stealth hot. At first taste, merely savory. Then the heat hits you and you grab a beer.

I had two avocados ripening on the counter, but they were too ripe. My guacamole ended up nasty so I sent Oz out to the store.

Our satisfying, but super hot supper: burritos made with the refritos and grated Monterey Jack cheese, topped with guacamole and salsa. Picture perfect.

Then Oz went out and picked about five more pounds of tomatoes.

Only two things that money can't buy

The most certain way to get homegrown tomatoes is to grow them yourself. Having a friend or neighbor who grows them is also good. You get a less certain supply, but that's the tradeoff for the zero investment in tomato acquisition. We've stumbled upon a third way: have a neighbor who grows tomatoes and then goes on vacation during the week when they all ripen. She called me into her yard last week and said, "Hey. They're all turning red next week. Pick all you want."

I said, "Okay." Score! She has romas and some beefsteak varieties. Mmm. Also a big pot of basil which I was invited to harvest.

Yesterday Oz said, "Do we need to go buy tomatoes?"

"Just go next door and pick some."

We actually did buy a few Green Zebras at the natural food store when we went there looking for something else. Green Zebras are a green stripy heirloom variety with a tart flavor. Maybe they're not ripe yet? How can you tell? They taste good regardless.

My kitchen is now a festival of tomatoes.

For lunch I made an Italian-style tomato salad:

2 hardboiled eggs, chopped
2 tomatoes (today: one red, one Green Zebra), diced
A few tablespoons each of chopped basil and parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
1 clove of garlic, pressed
Some (I didn't measure. A third of a cup, maybe?) diced fresh mozzarella (optional)
Extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, to taste (about a tablespoon and a half each)

Combine all ingredients and eat it up with an appropriate starch (rosemary bread or fresh pasta spring to mind). The egg yolks emulsify the oil and vinegar so there's kind of a sauce effect. You can also combine the tomato salad with cubed boiled potatoes (I use red potatoes and leave the skin on) and have an awesome gourmet potato salad.

For dinner we had homemade gazpacho with cheese and tomato quesadillas. Last week I ran out and got a panini grill (a George Foreman grill, really), so we've been playing with grilled sandwiches. We brush one side of a tortilla with olive oil (I got the cutest silicone pastry brush too) and put the oil side down on the grill. Then we sprinkle grated cheese on half, layer on a few tomato slices, fold over the tortilla and close the grill. Squish! A few minutes later we have quesadillas.

A few years back, my aunt gave me a tomato knife from Warthers. It's getting a lot of use! If you love tomatoes and kitchen tools, I highly recommend getting a finely serrated knife just for tomatoes. It's a pleasure to slice and dice them up and I'm in no danger of mixing my own blood with the salad. (This is not an ad for Warthers, but their knives are beautiful! I love my tomato knife. I got one for my mom. My cousin got a block set of their knives as a wedding present. I'm thinking, Damn, but that would make it worth getting married! That marriage is over, but she's got great knives. Actually, it's cheaper just to buy some knives.)

Peachless summer

Oh how I miss the peaches this summer.

Normally peaches make up a significant part of our summer diet, between the fresh juicy peaches (available till September) and the Edy's peach pops (available all year round, but only really good when peaches are in season). I've been waiting for the Amazing Bin of Peaches to show up at the grocery store so we can begin our peach orgy, but here we are, mid-July and relatively peachless! Even the freezer case is peach pop-free.

There's a smallish bin of expensive peaches which are okay, but not quite up to the usual standard of full-on juiciness that I've come to love.

So I googled "peach harvest" and found out why. That cold snap back around Easter? When the peaches were in full blossom? The hard freeze took out 60% of this year's crop. Sad for the farmers. Sad for us.

We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for a kinder, gentler spring next year.

[Also, it is always 80's nite at Ukrops anymore. Tonight we danced through the produce section (peachlessly) to the strains of "Love Shack."]

Brunch

Today we tried a new breakfast place that we've been meaning to try for a while. The food was good, the service was fast, and we didn't have to wait for a table. Lo! Brunch was had. (An omelet. A tender omelet. Also, waffles.) The place had the look of being busy enough to stay in business, but of not having been discovered by the groover crowd (hence the available tables).

We want it to stay that way too. So. I won't tell you where it is.

This is not an April Fool's joke either.

Take heart, though. Maybe the joke's on us and the place which shall not be named is actually packed with a line out the door on all days but today.

Vegetarian chili that tastes good

Finally! My quest for yummy yet meatless chili is over!

I've been a mostly vegetarian for the past fifteen years. I've tried a lot of vegetarian chili recipes, because I love chili, but they've all had a big hole in the flavor, the hole that is normally filled by meat. The flavor of this chili, however, is delicious and complete. Oz loves it, and not just because it's an excuse to eat corn chips.

This recipe is a variation on a Black Bean Chili recipe in Simple Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. I have several of her cookbooks and they're all great, by the way.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, diced
1/4 teaspoon (or more if you like) crushed red pepper
6 garlic cloves, pressed
2 jalapeno peppers, small dice, with the seeds if you like the heat
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, with their juice
1 15 ounce can of corn, with the liquid
2 15 ounce cans of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15 ounce can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
3 ounces of tomato paste (half a small can)
Water (about a cup)
3/4 teaspoon of salt or to taste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (No substitutions! I think the balsamic vinegar is the key to the flavor.)

Possible garnishes:

Grated cheese, such as cheddar or Monterey jack
Plain yogurt or sour cream
Chopped fresh cilantro

Possible sides:

Rice
Corn bread
Corn chips

In a large pot, sauté the onions and red pepper over medium heat for ten minutes or so, until softened.

Add the garlic, jalapenos, chili powder, and cumin. Stir and cook for a few more minutes.

Stir in the remaining ingredients. Add water to get the consistency you like. About a cup of water gets you a nice, thick chili. When the chili starts to boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for thirty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove bay leaf and serve the chili with garnishes and sides. Enjoy! The corn and/or rice plus the beans gives you a complete protein, so it's good for you too.

About the tomato paste: Don't you hate it when recipes call for two tablespoons of tomato paste? I always just add half a small can and freeze the rest. I spoon the remaining tomato paste onto a sheet of cling wrap, twist it closed, and put it in a small Ziploc bag in the freezer. Next time I need tomato paste, I just defrost the lump and I'm good to go.

About the jalapenos: Ever since an incident a couple years back, I wear disposable gloves when I chop them up. As soon as I'm done chopping, I dispose of the glove and wash the knife and cutting board. No more burning fingers or eyeballs for me.

About the beans: If you want to cook up dried beans and use those instead of canned, you'll want six cups of cooked beans (about 1 1/8 pounds dried). If you want to use different beans, use different beans. It'll probably taste as good.

V-V Day!

Today was Valentine's Day at our house. Pretty much by accident.

I finished up the first part of the huge job. Early! The client was happy. I was happy. I took the afternoon off and went to the bank and grocery store. Since there's more of this job lurking in the pipeline, I figured I'd make my Valentine's purchases today, because who knows when I'll get to the store again?

I picked up a pot of red tulips, because Oz likes tulips, and a package of strawberries, because Oz likes strawberries.

It was cold and nasty out, so instead of taking my constitutional I baked these "Man-Catcher Brownies." Note how most of the ingredients go two by two? Two cups of cocoa, two cups of sugar, two cups brown sugar … I added a cup of chopped pecans and had to add fifteen minutes to the baking time, but other than that I followed the recipe.

I don't know, though, I think I would call these "Woman-Catcher Brownies." If I was planning to catch a man, I'd use beer and onion rings. A heterosexual man, I should say. The gay men I know would totally go for the brownies, if not for my fabulous self.

The house got smelling all good and chocolaty by the time Oz rolled home, bearing bunches of red and pink roses. The bouquets even had some baby's breath for the cats to snack on. Aw! He had needed to run by the store for bananas and decided to do his Valentine's shopping early too.

We had our dinner (spinach tortellini with basil pesto, sprinkled with grape tomatoes and pistachios) surrounded by flowers.

And the brownies? They taste as good as they smelled while baking. Super rich with a nice chewy crumb. I lined the pan with parchment as instructed and the brownies just popped right out. We ate the brownies standing up in the kitchen, hovering over the pan. Oz agreed with me about "man-catcher" food. Deep frying is a must. But considering how his manliness didn't stop him from munching down a bunch of brownies, I think we could call these "man-keeper" brownies.

Na-na-na

We like vindaloo. (I dare you to watch some of those videos. I couldn't watch any of them all the way through. All those pasty white drunken bodies, ugh!) (But we do like vindaloo.)

That's what was for dinner today. Lazy potato vindaloo with sauce from a tub, and a dollop of yogurt that was basically butterfat. Oz found the yogurt at the natural foods store, so it had to be healthy, except it was yogurt made from cream. The nutrition facts section, in very small print, was scary: "Serving size: 2 tablespoons, calories per serving: 60, calories from fat: 50." It was really good.

It was filling, anyway, and didn't leave me any room for pumpkin pie. Yes, I made a pumpkin pie a few days ago. Canned pumpkin, recipe off the label, which makes the best pie and avoids the whole slimy guts problem. This one came out extra tasty, I don't know why. I did add a dash of nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon of cardamom to the spices, but I didn't make any other changes. My cardamom is old and forlorn too. I only used it because it looked so lonely there in the spice cupboard. I'd be surprised if it was capable of having any appreciable effect on the pie.

Food and quarterly tax forms, that's about it. I talked to my accountant today and he's still asking, all incredulous, "But— You're still translating? What about engineering? They'd pay you like a half million dollars." Uh, yes. I don't know. I don't think so.

More food

On Christmas Eve we made our Kentucky Bourbon Fruitcake, Hyper-Mini-Loaf version. On New Year's Eve, we cracked open the aluminum foil, undid the cheesecloth, and Yum! The mini-loaf variation worked quite well. I've updated the recipe entry to include notes on how to do mini-loaves. The main advantage of mini-loaves is that they are easier to inflict on— that is to say, share with others. I shipped a couple more off on Wednesday. When the postal clerk asked me if my packages included anything "perishable or otherwise hazardous", I brightly said "Fruitcake!" and everyone in line behind me giggled.

Tonight I made a French potato-cheese-herb-onion tart, except that, being lazy, I put it in a pie crust instead of a tart crust. Also, it was not quite pretty enough to count as being tarted up. But, ooh-la-la, very tasty. This was from one of the new cookbooks acquired to bolster my resolution to cook more. Oz, who had not been terribly enthused about the cookbooks, was very enthused about the pie. He said, "The herbs make it taste like meat!" I'll definitely be making that one again, though maybe in a scalloped potato style. I can see I'll have to make it larger if I want to have any leftovers.

Liquid bread? No, liquid cake!

Over the holiday weekend, we started joking about making a beer pie, a dessert pie rather than a savory pie, which resulted in a lot of googling and cries of "Euw" and, less frequently, "Hey, that looks good!"

Oz was especially taken with the idea of Guinness cake and since we had almost all the ingredients on hand, except for the Guinness, oddly enough, I decided to give it a go. I kind of figured we'd end up with a pubscum fruitcake, reeking of stale beer and demanding a cigarette ash garnish, but what the heck?

Here's the recipe we used from the above link, with some minor modifications.

Guinness cake

2/3 cup dark raisins or currants
3/4 cup dried cherries (we used sweetened, dried cherries, not candied cherries)
1 1/3 cups golden raisins
2 12 ounce bottles Guinness stout, plus extra for drinking (because you know you will)
1/2 cup butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1. Place dried fruit in a bowl and cover with Guinness. This takes one 12 ounce bottle. Allow to soak overnight. This was where the pubscum concern surfaced. Dried fruit soaking in Guinness smells like a bad thing to do with your Guinness. On the bright side, none of the fruit got snitched.

2. Preheat oven to 350 °F. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time.

3. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients with a fork. After the last egg is added and beaten in, gradually add the flour mixture and beat until it is blended in.

4. Strain fruit, reserving the Guinness separately. We placed a colander in a bowl, placed some cheesecloth in the colander, and added the fruit, giving it a few light squeezes to get any excess beer out. Add enough fresh Guinness to the drained stout to measure 8 fluid ounces. We ended up with 3/4 cup of fruity Guinness, so we only needed to take a quarter cup out of a fresh bottle to make up 8 ounces. Yay! Extra Guinness for us!

5. Add the beer to the batter, mixing thoroughly to combine. The batter will be rather soupy. Stir in the fruit. The batter will be chunky.

6. Butter a 9-inch square cake pan and pour in the batter, smoothing top evenly. Bake in preheated oven for one hour, until the center is firm. Stick a toothpick into the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done.

And the outcome:

Pretty good cake, especially considering how easy it is to make. Probably would not taste good to kids. It's very fruity and rich, not overly sweet, with low notes from the Guinness, and not pubscummy at all. Not quite all the alcohol bakes out of the fruit. It does cry out for a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some Jack Daniels sauce. Or both. I made some whipped cream flavored with sugar and a little bourbon and it complements the cake quite well. Actually, a bourbon version of the cake would probably be pretty good too. When I make it again, I may increase the amounts of the spices and add a little ginger.

It's all about the pie

The day before Thanksgiving is my fun day. When I'm not working, like this year, I bake my pies and pre-bake the sweet potatoes for the sweet potato casserole. The oven makes the house nice and warm and filled with the scent of pie. This year I made my favorite buttermilk pie and a cherry pie. When I asked Oz what kind of pie he wanted, he voted for rhubarb, but we couldn't find any and bought a bunch of frozen pitted cherries instead. I've never made cherry pie before, so I looked around on the Internet and cobbled together my own recipe, which is kind of a fusion of all the cherry pie recipes out there.

Cherry pie

4 cups cherries, pitted
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter
Pastry for double crust nine inch pie

In a large mixing bowl, combine cherries, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Let stand 15 minutes, then place filling in pastry-lined pie dish. Dot with butter. Put top crust on, cut vent slits in top crust and flute edges. Sprinkle with sugar.

The online consensus for the baking time was to bake at 425 °F for 25 minutes, reduce heat to 350 °F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes more. I actually had to bake the pie much longer, sixty minutes at 350 °F, possibly because I used frozen cherries which were still kind of frozen, or possibly because I placed the pie dish on an insulated cookie sheet to catch drips (of which there were none).

The pie outcome: delicious, but the filling is a little on the fluid side. Many of the recipes I saw online called for quick cooking tapioca instead of flour. I'll try that next time to see if that yields a thicker filling. Still, the cherries were dark sweet cherries and the pie has a yummy Bing cherry flavor. It tastes like summer!

We got to talking about pie and puns and then found ourselves wanting to invent a sweet beer pie. We're thinking Guinness. Maybe chocolate. And definitely not this Guinness pie. In one of my cookbooks, I found a chocolate pie recipe into which we can easily substitute Guinness. We'll let you know how it turns out.

Also, happy Thanksgiving, whether you celebrate it or not.

Impulse buy: The Food Lover's Companion

Not really an impulse, considering that it's been sitting on my Amazon wish list since May 31, 2002.

We went to the hippie food store before our trip to pick up fancy chocolate (which ended up getting left behind by accident, but that means we have plenty of fancy chocolate around the house now), fancy toothpaste (not forgotten, oddly enough), and so on. When we passed by the book section on our way to the cash register, this book just jumped out at me. Literally! Well, no, but I picked it up, flipped it open, and was instantly hooked at the definition for Fluffernutter. Why did I wait so long?

If you love food and you love reading dictionaries, you must get this fat little book of food terminology. It's also handy to have someone else around to read aloud to (because you will).

I don't think I'll be able to write anymore tonight. I can't stop picking up this book.

Impulse buy: Moon Pie

I've never had a Moon Pie, but I saw them mentioned in books I read, mainly as a kid. I never saw Moon Pies in the store either, till last night. They're supposed to be a Southern thing, but I guess that's further south than here.

The grocery store had a rack of them by the checkout. Plain and chocolate-covered, with a moon on the wrapper. Chocolate-covered double decker! That means three cookies and two layers of marshmallow. Oh, I'm there. I have a hunch they're kind of gross, but it's worth a shot. I try to find one that's not squashed, give up, and throw a sort of squashed one on the belt.

Out in the car I tell Oz I got a Moon Pie. He says, "You need an RC Cola too. You gotta have an RC Cola with a Moon Pie. You can get a real sugar rush. I'm a Pepsi man myself …"

We digress and talk about colas.

After we get home and I put away the groceries, I break out the Moon Pie. The only flavor I can detect is sweet. After my cheeks stop hurting, I take another bite, and another. It's sort of graham tasting. Not really chocolatey. Another bite.

I could eat this, but I feel like I shouldn't. I carry it into the office where Oz is rooting around among his Amazing Bin of Cables.

"Here, try the Moon Pie. It's chocolate-covered."

"Chocolate? Fancy. Okay." He takes a big bite.

"You want a cola with that?"

"Hah." He takes another bite.

"It's double decker," I tell him and point out the layers when he doesn't believe me.

He takes another bite.

I say, "Are you gonna give that back? Or do I have to pry that Moon Pie from your cold dead hands?"

I get the Moon Pie back. I take another bite.

Ooh. Marshmallow.

More eggs

Yum. Tamago-yaki.

I went and bought more eggs. I told Oz that we didn't need to eat all the tamago-yaki, I just wanted to make them. It is fun when you have half a clue what you're doing. Even though I messed up the instructions a bit, the one I made today still turned out respectably, if a little scruffy looking. But still! Identifiable as what it is and very tasty. Not bad for a first effort.

And, oh joy, it's a taste of Japan that I now don't have to endure 24 hours of planes and airports to get. Tamago-yaki is one of those touchstone foods: it's what your mom makes for your bento, it's what you get for special on New Year's, and it's hard to make right. So people get all misty-eyed over mom's dry, malformed tamago-yaki, and then go buy nice juicy tamago-yaki from the food halls at the department store.

You have to hand it to those Tameshite Gatten food science people, they really do know how to break down the subtle art of simple, yet incredibly easy to screw up, food preparation into something that even a gaijin or dorky guest celebrity can handle.

I have reviewed the video and I will try again tomorrow to see if I can improve on the appearance.

Awaiting the verdict

I experimented with ricotta cheesecake today. I made up my own recipe, based on a couple real recipes for cheesecake, both ricotta and regular. I won't know for sure about the flavor until tomorrow when it's had a chance to chill overnight. I already had one slice, but the flavors have not yet bloomed, so I am not certain about the flavor.

For an experimental recipe, it worked pretty well. The one problem was that the cheesecake took forever to set. It baked for an hour and fifteen minutes in a 325 °F oven with the pie pan sitting on an insulated cookie sheet (I used an eight inch, store-bought cookie crust in a foil pan). It got browner on top than what I'm used to for cheesecake, and was maybe not quite as set as I would have liked in the center. So, all you bakers, what would you advise? A higher temperature and a shorter baking time? Or would that just compound the problem and leave me with burned edges and a mushy middle? Inquiring minds and all that.

Sparky watched me mixing up the batter. Considering that he bit me the last time he watched me make a cheesecake, I found this rather unnerving. I put out some extra cat food so he could chew on that instead. He ate it up and kept watching me. I gave him some bits of ricotta which fell on the counter and let him lick the spatula (when I was cleaning up after the pie was in the oven). I gave him a smidge of the finished cheesecake too and it's certainly passed the cat taste test.

He's had some lactose intolerance issues in the past.

I hope this indulgence doesn't come back to haunt me.

Sometimes a chocolate is not chocolate

Pucca Banana Choco Flavor
Crispy and Creamy
With Banana Flavor
Chocolate Sweets

I'm thinking that the people at Meiji have an entirely different concept of chocolate from the rest of us. For a fake banana flavor snack, this is pretty good, but there is no chocolate. Truly, as much as it looks like that cookie shell is all chocolatey goodness, it is not.

Based on past experience, I knew this would likely be the case when I bought these Banana Choco, but it needed to be said.

Oz wouldn't even try them. "Yuck. Fake banana flavor is even worse than fake watermelon flavor."

"I beg to differ. Fake watermelon flavor is way worse." In fact, these have a nice banana flavor and don't give you indigestion, which is the main problem I have with fake banana.

My only real objection to these snacks, apart from the lies, is the unfortunate graphic design of the banana at the top of the box. I am not a girl with naughty bits on the brain and pretty much all the time a banana is just a banana. But this banana? Is not.

And another thing, you'd think that photographing a cookie box would be a snap compared to photographing big buildings and faded signs. You'd be wrong. I had to mess with the tripod, aperture settings, backdrops, slanty floors, and odd lighting. It would have been easier if there were even one place in the house where I had a true horizontal surface to work from, but 130-year-old houses don't have those. I took 24 shots of this silly box. Still that's only a fraction of what the real photographer shot when we had the circuit boards photographed back during my engineering internship, and she had a studio with a fancy lighting system. I'm rather glad I don't. All the flashes during that session about gave me epilepsy.

Pocky patrol

We went to the Tan-A market to pick up some pickled scallions and also to mock the post-dated Pocky. We'd noticed before that they started blacking out the sell by dates on expired Pocky. Maybe they heard us making fun of them in the store, or maybe they read this blog, but they recently started printing out little labels with a date far in the future and sticking them over the blacked out sell by dates.

We are not fooled. Now when we check the sell by dates, we make sure they aren't stuck on. Ha! And no matter how much I want Men's Pocky, I'm not buying any till they get in some fresh stock.

Anyway, we went there to mock and mock we did, because most of the Pocky varietals had stuck on sell by dates. But we found the chocolate coconut flavor, and it was fresh. It is also awesome. The package says it's only available for a limited time, but I bet Glico didn't consider the Tan-A strategy of everlasting stock. The regular Pocky in the red box didn't have a sell by date, just a lot code. We took a chance and found it was fresh too. We also found legal Almond Lucky Mini and Takenoko no Sato (Bamboo Shoot Village). The Almond Lucky Mini is not as dark chocolate as the package implies, but has a smooth chocolatey taste.

I'm kind of amazed at how Japanese chocolate snacks actually taste like chocolate nowadays. Is this for export-only snacks, or is the Japanese palate growing more discriminating with regards to chocolate? Japanese chocolate used to taste like wax (the Bamboo Shoot Village snack has that old fashioned waxy taste). Back when I was an exchange student, I used to haunt the candy aisles of the convenience stores, desperate for a chocolate fix that actually tasted like chocolate. I eventually found a choko-monaka, a sort of ice cream sandwich with chocolate inside, that had the taste I wanted and there was only one store, way the hell out in Kawasaki, which carried that particular brand. I taught an English class in Kawasaki once a week and I would buy a choko-monaka and eat it on the way from the train station to my class. Vessel in the Fog chocolate bars, also not easy to find, were pretty good too. I remember eating one in August at Goshikinuma; it was boiling hot and the chocolate melted all over me.

I'm glad I have better chocolate access nowadays.

Bread

Today I cranked up the bread machine, which has lain fallow since before engineering school, partly to see if it still works and partly to consider whether it's one of the things we should give away if we're not going to use it. We like bread, after all, and good bread from the grocery store or bakery is considerably more expensive than good bread out of the machine.

With that in mind, I picked up a jar of yeast and some King Arthur bread flour on our last trip to the grocery store, and dug my baking books out from the bottom of the cookbook stack.

Before I could get started with my raisin-pecan oat bread, however, I had to clean out my machine. I've been dusting it off all along, of course, but it got dusty inside. I found cat hair inside. Yes, my cats managed to shed into a closed box. How do you like that, Schrodinger? Put that in your wave function and smoke it!

I was even more in awe of my cats' shedding superpowers when I discovered cat hair in my two-cup liquid measure which I keep squirreled away in an upper cabinet. Also, kind of grossed out. But is that quantum tunneling or what? I ask you.

I'm sure by now you're thinking, "Well gee, lady, your house is obviously a filth pit. What do you expect?" And while you're not entirely wrong, you should know that I do keep the food prep gear clean and my cabinet doors closed except when I'm putting stuff in or out.

The bread turned out great. And since tonight I cleaned out Oz's blender which he brought over from his house, which had cobwebs and dead bugs inside the carafe, I'm not feeling nearly so disturbed by the state of my kitchen.

I'm still in awe of my cats.

Monster mash

Oz walks into the kitchen where I'm peeling potatoes: "Can I help?"

I've only got one potato left: "No, I'm almost done."

"Okay." Oz goes to the freezer, gets ice, and pours some liquor over the ice.

"So feel free to booze it up over there." Bits of potato skin fly around and stick on my shirt.

"Okay."

I finish peeling the potatoes, cut them into chunks and put them in a pot. "When these are done, I shall mash them and then you can stir."

"But I like to mash."

"The mashing is the reward for the peeling. I was the peeler, therefore I shall be the masher. You will be the stirrer."

"You stole all the peeling!"

"You were asleep! You snooze, you lose. You can stir. You like to stir!"

"It's not the same."

The potatoes are done. I drain them, mash them up with butter, a generous six tablespoons. I never liked mashed potatoes when I was a kid. Turns out, it was the warm milk taste that disagreed with me (my mom always added milk). As a grownup, I make mashed potatoes with butter alone. When the potatoes are pretty much mashed, I hand the pot to Oz, who's left his drink and come over to watch enviously. "Here, you can finish up the mashing and make sure the butter is evenly mixed in."

Thus assuaged, Oz mashes around with the potatoes. I get the sauté vegetables from the fridge for him to stir in. I don't make this casserole all at once. I do the vegetables on one day, the potatoes and assembly on another day, and the baking on the day it is eaten.

While he is stirring, I spritz olive oil in a baking dish. "When it's all mixed up, put it in here."

"Dump or spoon?"

"Whichever you can do more neatly."

He spoons the mixture into the dish in big starchy glops, each delivered with a satisfying splat.

"Are you living out your childhood dream of being a cafeteria lady?"

Okay, so that doesn't get much of a response. He spreads the potatoes and vegetables evenly into the dish, then builds a fort with them. We have a discussion about the fort.

Me: "No."

Oz: "Look, it's got a moat!"

Me: "That will just provide a place for the cheese to pool in and get all greasy and burned."

Oz: "Yeah!"

Eventually I prevail and we have a moat-free casserole.

Day of snacking

Pucca Chocolate, University Potato Flavor

Way too much snacking today. We ran by the Tan-A market because Oz wouldn't listen to me when I said that all the Pocky was stale. (They have a habit there of marking out the sell-by dates on food items whose sell-by date has long gone.) Stale Pocky is not worth the trip, but he bought some anyway and I picked up these Pucca biscuits, some matcha (green tea) Melty Kiss, and Matcha Softo (chewy green tea candy).

What, you may ask, are university potatoes? I had the same question, because I'd never heard of them, and google replied with sort of an answer and a recipe. University potatoes are fried sweet potatoes with a sweet glaze and black sesame seed sprinkled on. These sweet potatoes are really yams, and not exactly what are generally sold in U.S. grocery stores under the name of sweet potatoes. (Sweet potatoes in name only! Tubers: By their true name you shall know them! Death to the yam hegemony! Some sweet potatoes are more equal than others!)

The Pucca biscuit version of the university potato does have a nice, mild sweet potato flavor, but that's it. The "chocolate" filling is white chocolate cream with sweet potato powder mixed in and the pretzel outside doesn't have much flavor. The black sesame flecks in the pretzel have no flavor whatsoever. This absence of flavor (anti-flavor?) is characteristic of Pucca biscuits. Once I had some black sesame flavor Pucca and I swear the only way you'd know you were eating them was from the texture.

Matcha Melty Kiss, on the other hand, are very tasty. The combination of the bitter cocoa outside melting away to the bitter green tea inside works surprisingly well. Also, the reason why they're so melty is the super-high fat content. Mmm.

Other snacks consumed today include Sugar Cane Lime cookies, dim sum treats, and Pocky (not stale).

I feel a little bit ill.

Vicarious pleasures

Yesterday's Washington Post had an article about Japanese food shows.

I was really delighted to see them mention the Dotchi no Ryori Show, and even get the English translation of the title correct: "Which Dish?" Is this show available on English channels? Some of the search results when I was looking for that link seem to indicate that it is.

At my house, we call the show "Dotchi Kitchen," literally "Which Kitchen." We have a tendency to call Japanese shows by names which are neither the Japanese name, nor an English translation of the title, but instead which are more descriptive, for our purposes anyway. Thus Gokusen (or see the official site) becomes "Gangster Sensei," Nintama Rantaro becomes "Ninja School," and Aibo becomes "'That dumb cop show—you know, where the murderer is always a woman, what is up with that?' 'Well, there was that one time when the chef stabbed the restaurant critic to death with a frozen squid.' 'Yeah, but he was probably gay.'"

Anyway, Dotchi Kitchen. Their food wranglers (I don't mean the chefs, I mean the people who handle the filming) are the best in the business. This show isn't just food porn, it goes to a whole other level. It's food erotica. It's only a shade removed from full on smell and taste-o-vision.

Sometimes we can't watch it.

Dotchi Kitchen is in the form of a game show. At the end, after being subjected to the barrage of food erotica and seeing the dishes prepared right under their noses, a panel of celebrity guests votes on which of the two competing dishes is the best. Those who vote for the winning dish get to eat. Those who don't have to stand around behind them and watch. They all talk trash at each other. "Oh, this is so good. Too bad you can't have any." "You bastard, you said you were going to vote for the carbonara!" "I changed my mind. Mmm. This is the best pork tenderloin I've ever had. Too bad you can't have any. Oh well, more for me."

Sometimes we don't watch it. Like the time it was ginger pork stir fry vs. Salisbury steak.

It sounded … painful.

D. O. F.

The quest for the perfect double old fashioned glass continued today. Yes, more shopping. We drove down to the Prime Outlets mall in Williamsburg, where we knew we'd find a crystal store. We found other things too, like the store selling chocolate dipped slices of cheesecake on a stick. The only thing more mall-American than that might be deep fried, chocolate dipped slices of cheesecake on a stick, but they didn't have that. (We did not partake.)

If Oz gets motivated about his waffle wishes, we know where to get the perfect waffle iron. I looked at overpriced wallets and decided not to buy any of them. I'm picky and I won't have a wallet with a zipper. You'd be amazed how this limits your options.

But the crystal was the main thing. In fact, Oz insisted that we not go into any other stores until we completed the crystal-related part of the mission first.

The basic configuration for the ideal whisky glass is outlined as follows in Bluff Your Way in Whisky: "Whisky should be drunk from a cylindrical glass, preferably cut crystal with a design that reaches at least one-third of the way up (so you know how much whisky to put in) and a heavy bottom (to make that satisfying clunk when you put it down)."

I have a couple additional requirements. The pattern should have a cut at the level to which I'll be pouring my wee drams. This way I can't pour a double and pretend to myself that it's still a wee dram. The glass should also not be too large in diameter for me to hold comfortably. The glass I've been using is a tumbler from Royal Doulton, in the Dorchester pattern. This is a very nice glass and the only reason why I wanted another glass is that I was bored and felt like spending money. And, hey, they sure make that easy at the mall.

We looked in the Waterford and Mikasa outlet stores, where we saw several patterns which met my specifications. The Mikasa patterns were kind of simple, which gave them correspondingly lower prices and you could buy individual glasses instead of sets. At the Waterford store, they had some great fancy glasses from Waterford and Stuart Crystal. The Waterford glasses came in sets of four, however, so I had to pass. The Stuart Crystal glasses had the advantage of being sold in pairs. I ended up with a pair of 9 ounce rummers in the Madison pattern from Stuart Crystal, which doesn't look like much in the pictures, but is really sparkly in person.

A most excellent glass.

Again with the pie

For our Valentine's Day, we made pie. Any day is a good day for pie, Valentine's is no exception. Oz cut a heart into the top crust as the steam vent. We took pictures, but the light in the kitchen makes the pie look way yellow and unappetizing. So imagine a nicely browned top crust cut with a heart surrounded by little rays, all oozing this pink strawberry-rhubarb syrup.

We're still waiting for it to cool. It smells so good. Do we have wills of iron or what?

This morning I got a Valentine from my backyard. I walked by the window at the top of the stairs around eight o'clock and saw the sun slanting across the fence and through the crape myrtle to light up the first reddish baby leaves on the rosebush. I went out back later and saw tight purple buds on the tips of the hydrangea branches. Spring, yes! Note to Oz: You are now forbidden to prune anything, except for the crape myrtle. Which we should prune this weekend.

Truth in advertising

Today we went on a brief quest for Oz to find some blackest of black licorice. At the candy store I spotted the Yorkie bar. "Not for girls? What's up with that?" The "not for handbags" kind of threw me, because once upon I time I knew a woman who carried her Yorkshire terrier in her purse. But this candy has nothing to do with small dogs.

It turns out this is an elderly advertising campaign as those things go, but this is the first I've heard of it. Based on the description in a feminist analysis of the ads, it sounds rather on the offensive side. After sampling the candy, I must concur with the reviewers, who basically said eh. It needs more raisins and cookie bits. I guess "Not for people who like really good chocolate bars" wouldn't be much of a tag line.

I also read what Nestle has to say about it, and I have to conclude that Nestle thinks we're all really, really stupid. Where do they get this stuff? " . in today.s society, there aren.t many things that a man can look at and say that.s for him." [Insert standard rant to the effect that, what? All the money, power, political representation, good jobs, and by far the better selection of athletic shoes aren't enough? They need special, manly and bigoted candy wrappers too?]

I think I have a better opinion of men than Nestle does.

Speaking volumes

I tried a new recipe today and the big problem I had was figuring out what sized baking dish to use. This was a really simple recipe, obviously, along the lines of "combine ingredients, place in dish, place dish in oven."

I looked at the measurements for the ingredients, a few cups of this, a few cups of that, and figured on about two quarts, maybe less, but I'd need to be sure to leave enough room for everything to expand when it cooks.

Then I looked at my pans. Hmm. 1.8 liters, 9 inches square, 9.5 inches round . So much for standard measurements. I could do the math, but there's a machine that will do it for me.

And now, oh, the window is open, and it's been raining. The breeze is damp and from the south. I can smell the tobacco curing in the warehouses across the river.

USS Missouri Buttermilk Pie

Just about a perfect pie. Also, an excellent breakfast pie, although I'll say that about most any kind of pie.

Today I had an eye doctor's appointment and while I was waiting for the eye-dilation eyedrops to wear off so I could see well enough to work, I made this pie for Thanksgiving. It was Sugar Freedom Day or something, because the sugar was constantly trying to jump out of the mixing bowl. And succeeding. My kitchen floor is all crunchy now. I think it was because the butter was a little too cold and the butter-sugar whip was all fluffy.

You can find this recipe all over the Internet. Over the years, I've made a few adjustments to the baking time and temperature and this time I tried pre-baking the crust a little, because if you don't, the bottom crust tends to taste a little raw.

Master Chief Steward Harry Hightower (retired) says:

2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 eggs
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust with edges of crust crimped high
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted (I think toasting is optional, because I'm kind of lazy and it tastes just fine if they're not toasted)

I says: Put the piecrust into a deep-dish pie pan and prick with a fork. Preheat the oven to 400 °F and prebake the crust for nine minutes or so. Don't bake the crust all the way, get it to the point where it's just barely starting to brown.

Hightower says: In a large mixing bowl, gradually beat the sugar into the softened butter with an electric mixer, beating until mixture is well blended. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Combine the all-purpose flour and the salt. Gradually beat these dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Beat in the buttermilk until mixture is well blended. Pour the egg and buttermilk filling into the piecrust. Sprinkle the toasted pecans over the top of the filling in the piecrust. Bake the pie at 325 °F for 1 hour (says I) or until the buttermilk filling is set. Cool. Store the pie in the refrigerator. (More recently, I added another ten minutes to the baking time and found that this yields a perfectly set pie.)

To toast the chopped pecans (if you're not lazy, says I, but why not be lazy when you can?), spread them evenly in a shallow baking pan. Bake the pecans at 350 °F for 5 to 10 minutes or until they're browned, stirring the nuts once or twice during baking.

Best left buried

The other night, while I was taking a shower, I suddenly thought of pudding pops and how much I enjoyed them when I was a kid. We've been living on Edy's fruit bars all summer, which are great, but not chocolate. This developed into an actual craving, egged on by Oz, who always ready to promote junk food purchases. I began to wonder about possible advances in pudding pop technology that may have occurred in the past couple decades, and what might have happened to that generic brand, touting itself as "a quiescently frozen confection" and prompting a trip to the dictionary, that my mother always bought.

We bought some last night. Turns out that pudding pops are now made by Popsicle, they are smaller, and seem to have less flavor and a mushy texture. My flavor issues probably stem from my palate's additional twenty years of sophistication; I suspect that, since my first taste of Belgian chocolate, there was no going back, ever. But the size thing? These are kind of pathetic. And the texture? These are pretty much just what you'd expect frozen pudding to be like, really fast-melting frozen pudding, I might add. Back in my youth, I'm sure they had a more solid, creamy texture, probably the effect of extra horse hooves (let us not forget where gelatin comes from).

This afternoon, while I was proofreading the water filter patent, I suddenly thought of Laphroaig (I could taste it), but refrained from pouring myself a dram. Too early to start drinking, even if this patent would drive a [insert term for member of teetotaling religion of your choice: Mormon, Muslim, various Christian sects] into a liquor store. So I ate a pudding pop instead and it just didn't do the trick. I think this experiment is over and I have nine pudding pops left.

I'm all done with work for now. I'm writing this and watching Japanese TV. The semifinal match of the annual high school baseball tournament is on. This was preceded by the International Safety Report, a daily five minute show that tells you where it's dangerous to go. Today's extra safety feature informed us of the information parents should collect from adult children before they go off to party down in Spain, or wherever. Because the kids won't call to let their parents know they're okay. Ingrates, leaving their parents to worry beside the phone and eventually go harass the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs!

Shelf life

In a fit of longing for cream tea, I purchased a little jar of double Devon cream at the natural foods market. It's not Cornish clotted cream with a yellow crust, whose label description sounds so very appealing, doesn't it? And it will have to do until I can go to England again. Too bad I can't go in three days!

Yes, I should have read the label a little more carefully. The Devon cream can be stored for another nine months—unopened. Once it's opened you have to use it within three days. Much as I love slathering this 99% pure butterfat on scones, I don't think I'm going to make it, even if I do give myself license to throw all concerns of cholesterol and waistline to the winds.

But, what is cream tea? It's not tea with cream in it, it's the saviour of the footsore tourist in England. For about 3 pounds (this was nearly ten years ago, inflation may have bumped the price up), you can get a little pot of tea, a couple scones or some other bread, jam, and a big helping of clotted cream (with a yellow crust). And, most importantly, a place to sit down while you rest your feet, read a newspaper or book, and figure out what you're going to do next.

Many moods of Pocky

This is something that I should probably not admit to doing, seeing as how I'm over the age of fifteen. I make Pocky recipes.

Pocky is a Japanese snack food. It's unsalted pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate and coatings of other flavors: banana, strawberry, green tea mousse, etc. I didn't use to like it much because the chocolate was not chocolaty enough, but now that I've discovered Men's Pocky, which has a dark chocolate coating, I've decided that it's pretty good after all. Now whenever I go to the Asian market, I check out the Pocky selection and pick up a box or two of various flavors. And when you have a selection of flavors available, it only makes sense to try eating them in combination, especially what with how the shapes are completely compatible. Men's and Banana is okay, but the banana flavor tastes a little too fake. My current favorite is Men's plus Coconut Milk. I bet I could get an Almond Joy effect if I combined Coconut Milk and Almond Crush Pocky.

I shouldn't have an opinion about this.

Snacks for dinner

A trip to the grocery store in the late July heat pretty much took the desire to cook right out of me. But I was prepared for this! We had jars of hot mango chutney and hot lime pickle that we brought home from our trip to Northern Virginia. I had some little pitas in the freezer and plain yogurt in the fridge.

Condiments and bread: sounds like dinner to me.

I whipped up some raita, being a couple cups of plain yogurt, mixed with a cucumber (peeled, seeded, and diced, but it should have been chopped), and spices to taste: cumin, salt and pepper, fennel seeds mashed in a mortar and pestle. Not quite a proper recipe, but good enough. That, with toasted pita and the chutney and pickle, was perfect: spicy, cool, sweet, and crispy all at the same time.

We have cake

I make a cinnamon crumble coffeecake from a mix and slightly botch the assembly process due to an incomplete reading of the instructions. That'll teach me to not make coffeecake from scratch.

"Put more cinnamon on it," Oz tells me.

"It's got plenty already."

"Brown sugar? It needs more brown sugar to cover up where you screwed it up."

"No." I read him the list of ingredients for the crumble topping. "Sugar, molasses, partially hydrogenated blah blah blah. Sugar and molasses is brown sugar, so it already has brown sugar all over it. And I didn't screw it up that much." I'm sure he wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said anything.

"When is it ready?" Today he's made it downstairs to drink coffee and lie on the couch. He arrived a little bit earlier than I expected, or else the cake would already have been in the oven.

"In forty-five minutes."

"O'oh!"

This continues as the cake bakes and the house fills with the aromas of—hah!—brown sugar and cinnamon. I am accused of cruel and unusual punishment when I take the cake out of the oven and announce that it must cool in the pan for a few minutes.

Over the (only slightly) cooled coffeecake, Oz asks me if I've ever made peanut butter and brown sugar sandwiches.

"No." I have to ask. "Did you?"

"Yes. But I used wheat bread so they were still healthy."

"Oh, yeah. Definitely." I think that makes them sound extra disgusting. "How old were you?"

He has to think a minute. "Forty-five? Forty-six?"

"And what kind of peanut butter did you use? Peter Pan?"

Save the fork!

In our grocery shopping frenzy of yesterday, we picked up a package of frozen chopped rhubarb and a pack of pie crusts (because unfolding a pie crust is easier than making one). This morning I went out looking for rhubarb pie recipes on the internet. I found a lot of them, but this is the one I decided to follow, more or less.

Rhubarb pie

Ingredients:

4 cups rhubarb (one 20 oz. package of frozen chopped rhubarb)
Pastry for a double crust
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and powdered ginger
1 egg, well beaten
2 tablespoons butter cut into 12 bits (we used a little more than that, because it was the end of a stick)

Gear:

9 inch deep dish pie tin (mine is actually made of pyrex)
Bowls, forks, measuring spoons, knife
Whisk

Directions:

Thaw the rhubarb. This will take longer than you expect. Spread it out on a platter. Stir it around. Go out for brunch. Come back. Check the rhubarb. It will still be frozen. Stir it around. Set it aside and mess with the pie crust. Check it again. And so on.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line the pie pan with the pastry for the bottom crust. Follow the package directions, because you are using the kind from the refrigerator case. Although, since it's taking the rhubarb so long to thaw, you certainly have time to make a scratch crust. Lazy.

If your companion looms behind you, breathing like Darth Vader and his (or her) stomach growling like the inner workings of The Force, put him (or her) to work, especially if he (or she) offers an excess of unsolicited advice on pie assembly.

While your companion is fiddling with the frozen rhubarb, mix together the flour, sugar and spices. Spread 1/4 cup of the sugar and spice mixture into the lower crust. Add half the rhubarb and give your companion a set of chopsticks so that he (or she) can arrange the rhubarb in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Add half the remaining sugar and spice, the rest of the rhubarb, and the rest of the sugar and spice. Better yet, have your companion do this. It's okay to have extra rhubarb heaped in the middle, it will sink down when it bakes. Also, rhubarb pie is not like lasagna. Convection of the ingredients during baking mixes up the ingredients (so you don't have to), so that even though the sugar and fruit are layered in the unbaked pie, that is not the case in the baked pie. Trust me.

Pour the beaten egg over the rhubarb and sugar. Dot with the bits of butter. Put the top crust on and "gash it well" for steam to escape. Crimp the edges to form a good seal and minimize leaking. Sprinkle a little sugar over the top for pretty. We found that this pie did leak a little, even with the deep dish pan. Put a cookie sheet or something else thin and oven-safe beneath the pie dish in the oven to save yourself the work of cleaning your oven. Actually, I have a self-cleaning oven. I should probably figure out how that works.

Bake the pie at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until the fruit is tender and the crust is brown and puffed—about 40 minutes longer. Because the rhubarb was still quite cold, we had to bake the pie an extra five minutes or so. We didn't have a problem with the crust getting too dark, but if you do, protect it with aluminum foil.

Cool the pie so as to avoid third degree burns. Eat it.

It's on sale!

When you have a "10% off everything" coupon, everything in the store is on sale. For some reason our grocery store is generating these coupons, good for 10% off your total purchase on certain Saturdays. How could we resist?

"School is starting, you'll need canned soup," Oz insists. "And crackers. And cheese. And apples."

"Hey, I'm reading one of those Highland romances right now, I need some Scottish shortbread."

We also needed some rhubarb and pie crust, yogurt, cinnamon buns, almond biscotti… Obviously, we're using the word "need" in its absolute loosest sense. We now have lots of junk food and a ton of canned soup. What's worse, the cash register generated another "10% off everything" coupon along with our receipt. Guess what we're doing next Saturday evening.

Boxing Day

Sleep till 10:00. Another lazy Sunday. Looks like snow, but the clouds blow off by late afternoon. More pile up on the horizon at sunset, maybe we'll have a white Monday.

Calorimetry experiments in a freezing house. I imagine the fun I'd have with a temperature gun (tells you the temperature of whatever you point it at), but I may not really want to know how cold the floor is. My feet go numb just standing on it. With a digital thermometer, Oz tests the temperature of tea and water in the kettle. When the kettle rumbles and starts emitting steam, it's 80 °C. Perfect for tea.

We have so many sweets in the kitchen. Banana bread, sweet potato cheesecake, fruitcake, chocolates, mochi balls filled with sweet mung bean paste and covered with sesame seeds, stollen, chocolates, and more if I think about it. We were so stuffed yesterday that we didn't cook our Christmas Dinner. Tomorrow we'll do it.

But now it's time for dessert.

Thermal expansion

"Did you know that if you measure water into the teapot, then heat it in the kettle and pour it back into the teapot, it's too much water?"

"So how did you find this out? Did you pour the water into the teapot with wild abandon and then—"

"In the interest of heating up only as much water as I needed, I measured the water and then when I poured the hot water back into the teapot it was too much."

"Yes, but at what point did you realize that?"

"You mean, did I make a mess?"

"Yes, that's what I was asking, really."

"There's a spot on your counter that's been sterilized from contact with boiling water."

The fruitcake

This is a variation on a variation of a traditional recipe I found in the Washington Post many years ago. Over time, we seem to have worked out a system for getting the fruitcake made without becoming violent: one person does ingredient prep and washing up (we have to re-use mixing bowls and utensils and they must be cleaned during the cooking process) and the other combines the ingredients. Because of the volume of batter, it helps to have the larger, stronger person doing the stirring and batter wrangling. It also helps for at least one member of the team to have the patience of a saint.

Kentucky Bourbon Fruitcake

For the cake:

1 3/4 cups bourbon whiskey (we use Wild Turkey because good whiskey = good fruitcake)
1 pound dried cranberries (we use Craisins, the original recipe calls for candied cherries)
1 1/4 cups golden raisins
4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
3/4 pound softened unsalted butter (3 sticks) plus additional for the pans
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar (we use dark brown sugar)
6 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups (about one pound) pecan halves

For the syrup (double the syrup if you're making mini-loaves):

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons bourbon whiskey

Other supplies:

Lots of bowls
Egg separator
Measuring cups and measuring spoons
More bowls
Sifter
Spatulas and big spoons
Electric mixer
Baking parchment or wax paper
Cheesecloth (you'll need a whole 2.5 yard package for 8 mini-loaves)
Cling wrap and aluminum foil

At least one day before making the cake: Pour the bourbon over the cranberries and raisins in a medium bowl. Stir the mixture occasionally. Be sure to enjoy the aroma: inhale! Cover and let sit overnight. We actually let it sit a couple days this time around and all the whiskey was absorbed.

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 250 °F. The fruitcake bakes a long time at a low temperature. Start this process early in the day. It takes a while to combine all the ingredients, then it bakes for three hours (90 minutes for mini-loaves), then cools for three hours, then you have to wrap up the fruitcake in syrup-soaked cheesecloth.

Butter the bottoms and sides of two loaf pans. Line the bottoms with parchment or wax paper if you want. We use standard loaf pans: 9.25 by 5.25 by 2.75 inches. This recipe completely fills these pans. If you want to use a different kind of pan or combination of pans, be aware that you will need to accommodate a volume of 267 cubic inches of batter! Do your math in advance.

For mini-loaves: We have mini-loaf pans with which four mini-loaves equal one full-sized loaf. This recipe makes eight mini-loaves. Prepare the mini-loaf pans as you would the full-sized pans.

Sift the flour, baking powder and nutmeg together into a large bowl. Set aside.

Beat the butter and both sugars in the large bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Mix in the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla and the bourbon-fruit mixture, including any liquid remaining in the bowl. On low speed, add the flour mixture, mixing just until it is incorporated. Set aside. We find that the mixer gets overloaded (and we have a big mixer with a big motor) once we start adding flour, so we recommend transferring the fruit/butter/sugar mixture to a REALLY big mixing bowl and stirring in the flour by hand.

We found that once the flour is stirred in, the batter may be too stiff to—well—stir. If that happens, add a little extra bourbon to the batter to loosen it up.

So. While large person with upper body strength is stirring in the flour, the other person washes out the mixer bowl and starts beating egg whites. Beat the egg whites with clean beaters in the clean large bowl of the mixer until firm peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Stir in the pecans.

Transfer the batter into the prepared pans. Don't be alarmed if the batter completely fills the pans. The batter doesn't rise enough to overflow during baking. Be alarmed if the batter overflows your pans. You'll have to find more pans or cupcake pans or something. Or eat the raw batter with all that bourbon in it. It's up to you.

Bake the fruitcakes for three hours (90 minutes for mini-loaves), until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This may take even longer than three hours. I think we baked them about three hours and fifteen or twenty minutes this time.

Cool the fruitcakes in the pans. This takes another three hours or so. Remove the fruitcakes from the pans and discard the paper (if any) used to line the pans. I recommend using paper, it does simplify removal. Our mini-loaf pans have a fancy shape which couldn't be lined with paper and the fruitcakes did cling to the bottoms.

Now it's time for the syrup!

Heat the water and sugar in a small saucepan to dissolve the sugar. Stir in the bourbon. Let the mixture cool a little. Cut the cheesecloth into pieces (one piece for wrapping each fruitcake object you have made). Put all the pieces of cheesecloth into the syrup and squeeze them around to ensure that each piece has absorbed approximately the same amount of syrup.

Spread a piece of cling wrap, large enough to wrap a fruitcake object, on the counter. Spread a piece of syrup-soaked cheesecloth onto the cling wrap, place a fruitcake on the cheesecloth, wrap the cheesecloth around the fruitcake so it is completely covered. Then wrap the cling wrap around that and then wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil. Repeat for each fruitcake.

Store the fruitcakes in the refrigerator. Let them "cure" for at least one week before you start eating them. Cut your fruitcake into thin slices while it's cold and serve the slices at room temperature, or eat them cold if you can't wait. Heck, you've already waited two weeks. Haven't you? Well? You didn't just dig in and start scarfing down fruitcake, right?

The fruitcake

The fruitcake, he is good. Buttery, sweet (but not too), and nutty. And it doesn't taste like the alcohol in the extra half cup of bourbon we added baked out quite all the way. So the fruitcake, he is friendly too.

Alas, I must, instead of enjoying my friend the fruitcake, study for finals. I've been studying all day while Oz amused himself by shopping for gaskets and plumber's goop and then fixing one of the toilets. I'll be studying all evening instead of writing up the fruitcake recipe (I'll get to that after I've completed all the school stuff).

Fruitcake

"So when you write about this—and I know you will—be sure to tell everyone how saintly I've been," Oz says, looking back over his shoulder. He's holding a mixing bowl full of partially assembled fruitcake batter and scraping it into a larger bowl to which we'll add more ingredients. I've just pointed out that he should hold the mixing bowl by its handy handle. Quite reasonably on my part as he'd looked about to simply hug the bowl against his chest which would surely end up decorated with a big stripe of brown sugar, butter, egg, and bourbon.

In fact, the fruitcake prep was far less of an ordeal than it's ever been before, thanks to experience and good division of labor. In two weeks (it only needs two weeks to cure, not four), we'll know how it turned out. At which point I guess I'll post the recipe.

Home remedy

I'm coming down with some upper respiratory thing. Whiskey helps, but the effects are temporary and one can't drink whiskey constantly and still function. Tea, on the other hand—one can drink a lot of tea and it's as efficacious as whiskey in its way. And, since I read it on the internet and so it must be true, chocolate is good for coughs. Not having enough of either around the house, we went to Ellwood Thompson's today, where we picked up some Côte d'Or Noir de Noir chocolate bars and a few kinds of tea we'd never had before, including red bush tea, so we could pretend to be like Precious Ramotswe.

I may not be cured already, but what with all the chocolate and tea, it's easy to ignore my sinuses.

Fruitcake in the offing

It's been a few years since Oz and I made Kentucky bourbon fruitcake. The fruitcake is awesome, but a huge amount of work. It takes two people two days (well, one day really, but it seems like two) to prepare and then it has to cure for a month, so the delayed gratification is onerous. I started the process last night by putting one and a quarter cups of golden raisins, one pound of Craisins (the recipe really calls for candied cherries, but cranberries have more flavor), and one and a quarter cups of Wild Turkey in a bowl to macerate until Sunday when we'll have a chance to bake the cake.

By this evening the fruit has soaked up most of the bourbon. All day I've been taking the cover off the dish to stir the fruit and enjoy the smell. I've been able to resist snacking on the fruit. I show it to Oz when he comes over.

"That looks dry," he says.

"It's not dry. It's soaked up a lot of the bourbon, but there's still some left. Smell it." I take the cover off and proffer the dish.

"Okay. But it's still dry. Look at those on top, they look like raisins."

"They are raisins."

"You're letting it all evaporate. Here." Oz takes the dish, replaces the cover and shakes it a little to demonstrate how little liquid is left. "I think you need to dump another cup of bourbon in there."

"No. You can't add a bunch more liquid and have it come out right. This is baking, not cooking. If we were making Raisin-Bourbon Stew, then, sure you could do that."

Cheese grits o' the gods

6 cups water
2 cups polenta or coarsely ground cornmeal
Half cup grated parmesan
1 teaspoon salt
Half teaspoon dried rosemary, or a sprig of fresh rosemary if you've got it
Handful of pine nuts
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling on top

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Oil a two-quart casserole. In a large saucepan, bring water, salt, rosemary, and olive oil to a boil over high heat. Stir in the polenta and keep stirring. Lower heat when the mixture starts to thicken. Add half the grated cheese and half the pine nuts. Keep stirring for ten minutes or so.

Pour the polenta into the casserole. Top with the remaining cheese and pine nuts. Apply sliced garlic liberally and then drizzle olive oil over it all. Bake, uncovered, for thirty minutes. Serve with a nice marinara, more parmesan and black pepper or just eat it as is because it's pretty good plain too.

It would probably come out well if made with vegetable stock or some kind of broth instead of water, but I haven't tried that yet.

Plums

The neighbors across the street and two doors down have a plum tree in their side yard. In winter it displays the venerable, gnarled branches of a classic Japanese screen, and in the spring a cloud of white blossoms and the palest green leaves. In the summer its branches are weighted with a thousand dusky purple plums. The fruit is guarded by the Spaniel of Doom, who threatens to rend limb from limb all those who walk by. The only way to get any plums is to be within shouting distance on the afternoon that the neighbors are picking plums, stuffing them in bags, and offering them to all prospective victims of the Spaniel of Doom.

This year we happened to be at the right place (outside my house) at the right time (when the neighbor was picking plums). She was trying to pick as many as possible before they fell into the grass and created a mess for the family member who mows the lawn. Presumably the Spaniel is not inconvenienced by the fallen fruit.

The plums are delicious. The skins are tart but thin and the fruit inside is mostly juice. I eat them standing over the sink and I have to wash my face after.

Cooking for engineers

For Oz's birthday I figured I or, rather, we could cook up his favorite thing: "Peruvian" potato salad. It's "we" because he handles the potatoes (that's fair: he's of Polish and British Isles descent, potatoes are in his blood). I probably ought to post the recipe, but it's from a cookbook and I don't feel like engaging in copyright violations today. This potato salad, among other things, gets fifteen cloves of garlic and four jalapenos. Of late, I've been throwing the jalapenos in the food processor with the garlic (why press fifteen cloves by hand?), but the results have not been satisfactory. When the jalapenos are in such tiny pieces, all the hot oils volatilize away during cooking (this salad has a cooked cream sauce and is eaten warm) and the salad ends up with no heat, just little green flecks.

Oz has to run into the office for a little while and I start the dinner prep while he's out. In order to get a spicy salad, I decide to cut up the peppers by hand, leaving them in fairly large pieces and keeping the seeds to throw into the sauce as well. When I finish the chopping and deposit the pieces in a dish, I wash the knife, wipe of the cutting board, and wash my hands twice. Then, because one of my contact lenses feels as if it needs a slight adjustment, I stick my finger in my eye. Yow! That was dumb and, in the perfectly karmic nature of capsaicin, the punishment for my dumbness is instantly visited upon me as the micro-drops of pepper oil hiding in the whorls of my fingerprint slide like a pyre across the surface of my eyeball.

Okay, so what do I do now? I have to get that contact out, but I can't do that without sticking my finger in my eye again.

I run upstairs to the bathroom and squirt saline right from the bottle into my eyes. Now my eye feels salty, wet, and on fire. I wash my face with soap, I wash my hands with soap, again twice, as if that might get the capsaicin off my fingers. Well, bathroom water tastes different from kitchen water… Eventually I work up the nerve to remove the contact lens and miraculously do it without putting myself in greater pain, by using common sense and the fingers that held the knife, instead of the fingers that touched the peppers. After I get the contact out, I wash my hands again. Twice. I'm curious if that's got all the oil off, so I stick my thumb in my mouth, where it promptly sets my tongue on fire. For the sake of completeness, I repeat the experiment with the rest of the fingers on that hand. Yup. Still oily. By now the oil has penetrated my finger pads and they're feeling as though I held them directly in a flame.

When Oz gets back from the office, I am dithering by the table and sucking my burning fingers. With one contact lens is out, my world flickers in and out of focus. I pour out my tale of woe.

He asks, "Have you tried milk? You need something to neutralize the oil."

"So this is something you know? Or is this just something you think?"

"Well, when you eat spicy food, you can drink milk to help with the heat," he explains his theory. "You want to try it?"

"Okay, for the sake of science, we might as well find out," I grumble.

He pours milk (1/2 percent butterfat, not quite skim) in a dish and I stick my fingers in. The cold of the milk numbs my fingers for a few minutes, but as soon as the milk warms up to my temperature, the pain comes right back. So, you heard it here first. If your fingers are burned by peppers, milk doesn't help and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. By now I'm laughing about it and I inform Oz of the failure of this remedy.

"We need to neutralize the oil. How about an antacid?" he muses.

"Okay, give me one. Why not?"

He places a Rolaids (peppermint) in my milky fingers. I rub the antacid with my fingertips and dip it in the milk to help it dissolve. Now I have wet, sludgy-feeling, burning fingers. My eye is still burning too, by the way. Antacid doesn't help either.

"How about beer?" Oz says.

I'm not going to waste beer on a topical application experiment. "I'll drink the beer."

Things work out happily in the end. Oz acts as my sous-chef and the salad turns out great. He has a beer too.

Kitchen tips of the day:

• Don't stick your finger in your eye after cutting up hot peppers.
• Don't bother treating capsaicin burns with milk-based home remedies. Have a beer instead.
• And from my brother: Don't set your fridge too cold.

Pasta salad

We are out driving around in search of a clockwork to replace the broken one in my kitchen clock. I don't want to replace the clock itself because it's a one-of-a-kind, hand painted cartoon cat swiping at the mouse that swings on the pendulum. Hickory-dickory-dock.

"We should think about dinner," Oz says. His stomach's been grumbling for an hour.

"Your stomach has been more vocal than mine. What does it want?" I ask.

He thinks for a while. "Pasta salad."

"Okay. I have pasta at home, but we'll have to get these other things." I list the ingredients and we drop by the grocery store after we fail to find the right kind of clockwork at the last craft store in town.

1 lb. dry pasta, any short and chunky shape
3 tomatoes, diced
8 oz. feta, crumbled
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 handful chopped parsley
1 scant handful pine nuts
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, some extra for the pasta pot
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
12 (or more) kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
black pepper to taste (the feta and the olives contain plenty of salt, so you don't really need it)

Boil the pasta in salted water with olive oil in it. While the pasta is cooking, prepare and combine the other ingredients in a large bowl. When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the bowl. Stir, serve, eat.

"So is this what you were fantasizing about earlier?" I ask.

"This is better," Oz says. "I mostly just didn't want anything fried."