Fire in the House

Dinner for the Dog

2006-03-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

It's funny how satisfying feeding your loved ones is. There's real pleasure in thinking about their likes and dislikes, their energy levels -- better after an all vegetable dinner? do they seem happier after a multi-course, leisurely meal? etc. --, their all around health. It's a daily entertainment, mulling over what's in the refrigerator, what will go harmoniously with what, what will look beautiful on the plate, what will make the after meal activities go that much smoother and more pleasantly.

And then there's the dog.

It turns out, it's almost as pleasant to feed the dog. And a lot cheaper than giving him the packaged stuff.

My friend the cookbook writer Linda Eckhardt has been feeding her dogs -- and when I say feeding, I mean FEEDING -- for years. Chicken paprika. Veal marengo. Beef bourgignon. She's writing a cookbook about it. And her dogs live forever.

I have a much simpler standard, being much lazier than Linda. But as I am also in a continual fury about waste, and as all my otherwise unused vegetable peelings, tops, scraps and stems go into the dog's food, I get a huge amount of satisfaction from feeding my dog even in the most basic way.

The easiest way is the one MFK Fisher talks about in one of her many amazing writings. 1lb. meat, 1lb. starch, 1lb. vegetables. 1/3,1/3,1/3. Easy.

This is how I do it:

1 lb meat, either hand chopped or food processor ground. I use whatever is cheapest and best at the market -- my co-op sells organic beef and lamb liver trims from between 45 cents and 99 cents a pound. The other markets sell turkey for 99 cents a pound, and ground chicken for dog food for 99 cents a pound. My dog, Leo, likes the liver the best. No surprise.

I brown the meat in a little fat. Then I add 1 lb. vegetables, chopped or ground, from a bag I've been collecting them in all week. This means: all vegetable parings (carrot, celery, turnip...no potatoes, no onions, though). All stems from parsley and cilantro. Chard stems, if I've used the leaves. Chard leaves, if I've used the stems. I sometimes add a grated carrot to make up the weight. In the summer, I use the green tops of vegetables we grow: turnips, beets, herbs, bolted lettuces, etc. Don't put in onions, tomatoes, or legumes -- dogs don't like them. DO ADD CHOPPED GARLIC. And do add any herbs you have lying around -- thyme, a little rosemary (not too much), etc. Also -- this is Linda's suggestion, and the dog loves it, too -- add a little seaweed, chopped up, if you have it. It's got lots of trace minerals that the dog needs...and that you need, too.

I pour water over all of this and bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer till done. If I'm using 1 lb. starch of something that needs long time cooking, I add it with the water. I look for the cheapest starch at the market, which around here is either organic wheatberries (at 36 cents a pound), or nonorganic oatmeal (at 46 cents a pound). Leo prefers oatmeal. The wheatberries need to be soaked, and cooked longer than the oatmeal. If the oatmeal is in flakes, it really only needs to be added for the last 15 - 30 minutes.

Salt and pepper. Dogs love that, too.

I cook the whole thing on our woodstove in the winter -- gives me another nice feeling of using energy for as many things as possible. It can cook for a longish time on a slow heat.

When everything's cooked so it's digestible, I let it cool, then put in the frig. From there I serve it half and half with any old bagged dog food (I use Mainstay by Purina). We call this Leo's stodge.

You can add anything you like to this. I put in an occasional cheese rind, or the dried up bits of cheese I have left. Tortillas, bread, or pasta can make up the leftover starch weight. Leo was a big fan of a batch of stodge I made with some boxed falafel mix someone gave me ages ago that I never figured out what to do with. The skin from smoked salmon or mackerel adds a nice smelly component that dogs seem to really appreciate.

It's hugely satisfying to watch Leo try to lick THROUGH his bowl. Actually, to see him flop down and grunt with the most obvious extreme satisfaction and general feeling of the rightness of the dog world, that's satisfying, too.

And that's just from feeding the DOG.

Good Eggs

2006-03-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

There is nothing in the world like a good egg. This cannot be said often enough. Those industrial styrofoam eggs that come from the world's most unhappy chickens are a scandal to make and a scandal to eat.

I know it costs extra for free range eggs, and for organic eggs. But it pays to cut back somewhere else, and to start buying the best you can. It pays to pay attention to the Egg, too, and not just think of it as a miscellaneous binder for various more expensive and showy foodstuffs.

We're lucky. Dawn the Egg Lady lives right next to our mail box, and I can stop and get my eggs from her. These are real eggs, with the dark yellow yolks that tell you the chickens have been eating something good. We eat them with all the reverence at our command, which is a kind of rollicking respect, a kind of deep if momentary happiness that we like to feel at the end of the day, at the dinner hour.

(I find this happiness greatly enhanced if, during the mmmms and the various pleased exclamantions, I can add up what I spent for dinner for two and find it came to under $2.)

So this is what I did with those Dawn's eggs last night.

Eggs poached in roast tomato/chipotle chile sauce.
Black beans refried.
Avocado/jalapeno/coriander/scallion/lime salad.

For the sauce:

Take about a pound and a half of tomatoes, cut in half, roast at 250 degrees for a couple of hours, till a little blackened on the edges. Finely mince a small onion and two garlic cloves, saute till soft in a tablespoon of oil. Add diced tomatoes. Add a finely chopped chipotle chile, and a couple of teaspoons of the sauce. If this needs a little liquid, add some light beer. Cook till lightly thickened.

Wrap some corn tortillas in foil and put in a 350 degree oven. Put casserole with black beans that have been mashed into hot oil in which cnion and garlic has been fried into oven to warm while you do the rest.

Make four indentations in the sauce. Slide a raw egg into each indentation. Turn heat on low, cover, leave for seven minutes.

Meantime, the salad: mince lots of cilantro, scallions, one seeded jalapeno. Add diced avocado. Squeeze wedge of lime over all. Mix with one Tablespoon of bland oil (I use sunflower), add salt.

When eggs are set, put tortillas on plates (two to a plate). Spoon sauce and eggs onto them -- careful not to break the eggs. Put beans on top of a little mound of lettuce if you like, garnish with avocado salad.

Very good with beer.

Even with expensive organic eggs, this meal shouldn't cost more than $2 for two.

And you sleep very well afterwards.

Things to Eat When You're By Yourself

2006-02-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

I love to cook for just myself. That's when I get the real entertainment value out of thinking: what exactly do I have in the house and what exactly out of that do I feel like eating? I have a huge oval platter that I have these solitary meals upon -- and the dog always likes them because, with my vegetarian husband gone, it's likely he's going to end up with a bit of meat at the end of them.

Some of the things I cooked for solitary dinner this last time: bacon and steamed eggs on top of whole wheat toast and salad. Squid in chipotle chile sauce, mopped up with the same whole wheat bread. Potatoes mashed with garlic and parsley and sour cream and butter topped with grated jack cheese and baked.

To get the potatoes for those, I baked a half dozen in the oven with a duck stew and an apple dessert I was making for company the next night. Then I scooped out the pulp, mixed it as above in a baking dish, refrigerated it until time to put it back in a 350 oven for about 20 minutes, and then under a broiler to brown it for 2.

But it's what I did with the shells a few nights later that was the best.

Take the potato shells and put them on a small baking sheet. Brush with melted butter, pepper lavishly. Saute (for four small potato skins) a couple of pieces of diced bacon, then add chopped mushrooms, and a little (just a little) salt. When done (don't let the bacon get too crispy), spoon over the potatoes. Sprinkle grated cheddar over all. Then into a preheated 425 oven for 10 - 15 minutes (I use the toaster oven for this) till potatoes are crisp and cheese is browned and melted. Serve with a salad and a glass of wine.

If you make too many, you'll still eat them all.

The Fastest and Most Elegant Dinner Imaginable (with thanks to James Beard and John McCain)

2005-12-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

Linguine with smoked salmon and parsley
Mesclun salad with grated romano and artichoke hearts

For the pasta:

Put the linguine on to cook. Heat some butter and some cream in a small pan (about a tablespoon and a half of the former, a quarter cup of the latter, for each half pound of pasta). Reduce it a little. Add a splash of Scotch and heat. Mix with pasta and as much shredded smoked salmon as you have (we had about a third of a pound) and a good handful of finely chopped parsley. Fresh ground pepper, no salt (salmon takes care of that). Serve in warm bowls.

Afterwards, mop up the sauce with the salad. As much meslun lettuce as you like, tossed with grated romano or parmesan, fresh ground pepper, no salt (cheese takes care of that), canned and drained artichoke heart quarters. Toss with viniagrette made from a crushed garlic clove, 1 part lemon juice/sherry vinegar, 3 parts olive oil, pepper, some of the grated cheese.

This can be on the table, start to finish, in about 20 minutes. The salad is the perfect one to follow this particular pasta. Don't forget to light candles on the table. And Happy New Year.

(By the way, that Seasons Greetings versus Merry Christmas controversy? Has anyone who is swept along by this particular lunacy actually paid attention to our country's foreign policy lately? Don't we all think it's more important that we stop torturing prisoners than that we send out the right kind of holiday cards? Of course we do.

Phew. For a minute there I thought we were all losing it big time.)

A Potato Dinner by the Fire

2005-11-23T11:56:00.000-08:00

We came home, in late autumn, after being gone for two months, and both of us were longing for my cooking again. I think this is common, or should be, anyway...that we all cook the best stuff for ourselves and our loved ones, and this is something with which no restaurant can ever hope to compete. (There are those restaurants that come close, and these, to my taste, are just about always owned by the people who run them...and the people who eat in those restaurants are, by a kind of magic extension, like an extra crowd of loved ones who just happen to pay at the end of the meal.)

When we got home, I immediately set to cooking those dishes we both love. Chile relleno casserole. Whole wheat pasta with anchovies, garlic, and parsley. Simple broiled salmon and black rice.

Alex's favorite is potatoes. Always potatoes. To his delight, there were a bunch to be dug up in the abandoned garden. I had some milk and cream, and there were still some herbs left (even after a freak snowfall we missed) to use as aromatics. So here's what I did last night.

I diced about a pound and a half of scrubbed, unpeeled potatoes. (Diced them small -- I don't know why I did that instead of slicing them. I just felt like it, I suppose.) In a wide nonstick skillet I warmed some milk with the following aromatics: bay leaf, peppercorns, slice of onion, parsley stem, sprigs of marjoram and thyme from the garden, end of a carrot, tops of celery. I used a nonstick skillet, because that milk is hell to clean later if you don't. After it had simmered for awhile, I added the potatoes. (You can add more milk or water to cover, if you want to -- I didn't bother. And you can strain out the aromatics if you want to be elegant -- I didn't care.) Cooked gently till just tender, about ten minutes. Then, since I had some cream (about 1/3 cup, but you can use more or less), I mixed it with ONE TABLESPOON FLOUR (this is important, as it keeps the milk and cream from separating), some salt, some ground pepper, and some fresh grated nutmeg. I poured this into the potatoes and added some minced garlic, as well.

The whole got poured into a garlic-rubbed, buttered pyrex dish, and baked for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees. (I used the stove to bake some mushrooms and roast some asparagus at the same time.) Then I scattered blue cheese on top, though you could use any cheese (shredded or grated) that you like. I put it under the broiler for a minute.

I served the potatoes on top of some sliced celery and tops. Mushrooms and asparagus on the side with a slice of lemon. I fried up some green tomatoes dipped in cornmeal just because we had them.

It was a good dinner to have on a late fall day, with the fire burning brightly in the woodstove. It was good to be home all around.

Chicken liver pate

2005-09-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

I make this on nights when I'm feeling a little blue or downhearted, and then I put it on the table with cheese and pickles and sliced tomatoes and bread and butter and grapes and whatever else...and then my vegetarian husband is happy, and so am I. (Although he does sneak bites of it, because chicken livers and garlic are irresistible, objectively speaking.) I made it the other night, while thinking about how one's loved ones, and one's fellow citizens, and their happiness and wellbeing should always be one's first concern -- and the concern of the State.

It's easy, if you concentrate on what needs to be done.

For a good mound of the pate, take 1 lb organic chicken livers. Cut the big ones in half, get rid of any membranes and bitter looking green spots. Chop a lot of garlic (you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?), and a couple of scallions, and a heap of parsley. Heat a big dollop of butter and a splash of olive oil in a wide pan -- wide enough so the chicken livers brown and don't steam. When the butter and oil sizzle, dump the chicken livers in, followed shortly by the rest of the ingredients. Turn the livers, mashing them with a fork or a spatula as you do. Salt. Salt is good here. Keep turning till the livers are a little browned. Then add something sharp -- white wine, red wine, lemon juice, sherry vinegar -- just to liven it up. Let that cook till it cooks away. Keep mashing those livers. At the last minute, if you have some, add a little cream. That's nice. It'll cook away fast.

Turn off the heat. If you've mashed the livers enough, you can just pile them in a bowl and eat them on toast. If not, dump them on the cutting board, and chop, THEN pile them in a bowl and etc.

Have a glass of nice red wine.

Sleep well in a troubled world.

Bread and Cheese for dinner

2005-08-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

When I was young, in San Francisco, there was a sourdough bread that was the best bread in the world. They would bake it in the middle of the night, in my own neighborhood, and put it to cool on racks just sitting out on the sidewalk. I'd go by there about 3 in the morning and buy a loaf warm off the rack. That's one of my finer memories -- I can still smell the bread. They stopped making it years ago. The famous San Francisco sourdough now is really only a pale imitation.

But then I moved to Oregon, and, nearby, a friend began baking and selling her version of sourdough -- and it is even better than I remember the Ideal Sourdough to be. (That is one thing our generation got right. Artisanal foods have come back. Love of food has come back. Make it stay.) Her brother distributes the bread after it's baked to the local markets. I always try to match my grocery shopping to his timetable.

Yesterday my timing was perfect. We exchanged greetings, I asked about my friend and her family, etc, and he handed me a warm loaf off his cart. And as the weather was too hot for cooking, Alex and I had bread and cheese for dinner.

This is what we had:

steamed beets from the garden, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar
sliced tomato with basil sprigs and balsamic vinegar
a loaf of New Sammy's sourdough bread
some slices of salame
a dish of cornichons (little sour pickles)
a little goat's milk butter
three cheeses:

1 runny french brie type cheese
1 smelly Fourme D'Ambert blue cheese
1 cumin gouda

grapes

He had white wine. I had red wine. We talked a lot and ate and had a very good time.

Here are the main enjoyments of this dinner:

real fresh bread that you cut to order at the table
sweet butter
fresh vegetables
and the CHEESES. They need to be at room temperature. And when you pick them out, look to see if the market has done any unusual markdowns. This is frequently because the cheese is so ripe it can't last one more day -- which is perfect if you're going to eat it that night. The runny French cheese was this kind of markdown. There are few things more satisfying than knowing your own frugality produced the most splendid kind of meal.

And if you have any leftover cheese, it's great grated into an omelette, or spread over some steamed veggies and broiled, or tossed with hot pasta, or...or...or...

Nori wraps for lunch

2005-08-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

It is very hot here.

I've just cleared the house of a large amount of people, all helping me celebrate a birthday. Much food was made and consumed -- all of it good. At a certain point, though, too much food is too much. There is a fine line here. Sometimes too much food is just enough: at a feast, for example...at a wedding, or a christening, or a birthday, in fact. But sometimes too much food is just too much food, whether it's a bad habit, a lack of thought, or a terror of trying something new. (I think of this last whenever I see children or parents horrified at the idea of having a meal without 'protein'. Why can't you have a meal without protein? We in the States eat way too much of it; you're not going to starve without chicken three times a day, that's for sure.)

And when there's too much food, it's nice to think of an elegant way to have just enough. I like to do that, and then to eat it slowly, and think about how if all of the wasted, unenjoyed rubbish we eat without thinking was turned into nutritious, kind meals for more people than the minority presently rushing through the abundance, how much more measured and calm and pleasant that would be.

I felt that way today. So Alex and I had Nori wraps for lunch.

This is easy.

First you have leftover rice. Any kind. Brown rice, white rice, long grain, short grain. I used black Forbidden Rice, because we had it with salmon the other night.

Then you add diced vegetables. Whatever you've got. Cucumber's great. Scallion's nice. Radishes add color. I added, of all things, two parboiled sliced okra, because Alex's okra plant in the garden had produced exactly that amount. And to even it out, I added a few green beans, parboiled with the okra.

I like to add seaweed. You can use soaked wakame. Crunchy sea palm fronds. Today I used hijiki, just a tablespoon, which I soaked for 30 minutes, then tossed over high heat with soy sauce and a little sugar.

After you've got all that together, toss the whole thing with some rice vinegar -- about a tablespoon for each cup of rice -- and about the same amount of soy sauce. Taste and see what you like.

I spooned it out on two plates, sprinkled the whole lot with sesame seeds, added an umeboshi plum for me (Alex doesn't like them), and two fresh plums for dessert.

On the table were a plate of sheets of toasted Nori, some wasabi paste, and soy sauce.

Each diner mixes a little soy with a little wasabi, wraps some of the rice salad in the Nori, and desultorily dips the wrap in the soy mixture, reflectively eating. We read during lunch. Alex generally reads something political, and I generally read a cookbook -- which I think of as no less political than CounterPunch (and I'm pretty sure I'm right).

When finished, a light kiss bestowed on your loved one before moving on to the work of the afternoon is always a nice coda.

You feel a little more light and it makes you feel a lot more equipped to face any horrors on the news than would a platter of french fries. Anyway, that's how my body reacts.

PS: Robin Suzanne, where are you? Add your email address to comments, please.

Discouragement leads to Broccoli and Goat Cheese whole wheat pasta

2005-06-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

I spent an afternoon browsing the offerings on the Internet, trying to find a model for an online magazine that would concentrate on making connections with other like minded individuals -- making another link in a chain of communication. And there, on that amazing resource, was the usual vile babble, with no apparent links except between profit aspirant centers.

This was discouraging. I went outside and looked at the trees, and thought again of how amazing it is that we could have started out with the beauties all around us, and made from that Fox News...and affiliated frantic uber noise.

There has to be another way, I thought. There has to be a way to link onto a worldwide sensible discourse. International Common Sense.

I knew that my search for such a thing was likely to be long and arduous. But in the meantime, we had to eat. So I poured myself a glass of Idaho chardonnay and got started on dinner.

BROCCOLI AND GOAT CHEESE WHOLE WHEAT PASTA
(for two. for four, just double amounts)

Bring a huge pot of water to boil.

Peel a half pound or so of broccoli (you don't have to do this, but I like to). Divide into flowerets, and quarter the stems.

Salt the water when it boils, dump the broccoli in. Cook till a moment past bright green -- it should be tender. Scoop it out -- SAVE THE WATER. Put the water back in the pot.

Bring water to the boil again. Add half a pound of whole wheat pasta (you can use regular pasta too, but whole wheat's best with this) -- I recommend penne.

Chop the broccoli. Chop some garlic (I use lots -- start with one clove and work up at will). Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a wide skillet. If the garlic is old and dried, warm it in the oil till golden, then add the broccoli. If the garlic is new and juicy, just throw it in with the broccoli.

Dice up a 3 ounce or so goat cheese. Use anything you want, really. (I stole this idea from Marcella Hazan, and she uses mozzarella.) Grate some parmesan, too, if you have it.

Heat the broccoli and garlic gently. When the pasta is done, drain it -- SAVE THE WATER -- and add the drained, cooked pasta with the goat cheese and a 1/2 cup of the pasta water to the skillet. Cook medium high till the water evaporates, and the whole sauce is amalgamated and clinging to the pasta.

Serve in warmed bowls, with the grated parmesan. Red pepper flakes are nice with this. And a simple salad after in the same bowl to mop up the sauce.

About the PASTA AND BROCCOLI WATER -- it makes great soup base. Details on request.

Wild Mushroom Salad

2005-05-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

While walking in the woods behind the house, and thinking about our dinner as a way of anchoring my thoughts in general, I couldn't decide between cold soba noodles with a radish salad, or something to do with cheese and broccoli. It was a very hot day, very humid, with the promise of thunderstorms clearly behind it. So there in front of me, having sprouted up that morning, was a log covered with oyster mushrooms.

That decided it. For dinner we had:

Oyster mushrooms salad with baby kale and daikon leaves
Broccoli tian with onions and cheddar cheese

Here's how to make the salad:

Take however many mushrooms you have, of any type (wild is best), and, having gotten rid of the grit and sliced them into manageable sizes, throw them into a hot pan into which butter and olive oil have heated. On top, throw much minced garlic and chopped scallions. Salt now (don't stint; mushrooms need salt). When the mushrooms have cooked, squeeze lemon on top of it. Then throw a lot of chopped parsley into it. And add a few glurgs of cream.

When all of this has amalgamated, toss with hardy lettuce leaves, like baby kale, or escarole, or turnip tops, or baby chard, or a sturdy mesclun mix. (If you want to use lighter lettuces -- lambs lettuce, butter lettuce, etc. -- dress the leaves lightly with oil and lemon juice, and put the mushrooms on top, rather than mixing them in.

Serve IMMEDIATELY, with a glass of red wine, and eat very, very slowly.

Follow by whatever course you think best. As, come to think of it, one should always do in life when one can.

Red Snapper Bouillabaise with Rouille

2005-05-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

I went to town day before yesterday.

When I was at the market, I was happy to see a fresh whole red snapper, cheap because it was still uncleaned and unscaled. And there was some good local fennel, and some rose pink garlic. I had tomatoes at home. The sourdough bread had just been delivered; it was still warm; I got some of that.

This is what we had for dinner:

Red snapper bouillabaise w/large amounts of garlic and fennel
Rouille
Sourdough bread
Goat cheese
red wine

(We had it for lunch the next day, too, but this time over garlic rubbed sourdough toast.)

This is how you make the soup (really more of a stew, it's so thick).

Chop an onion finely, stew it in olive oil to cover the bottom of a pot.
Add a chopped chile pepper if you like heat.
A diced carrot
A sliced fennel bulb
as much garlic, chopped, as you like (we like a lot)
some chopped parsley

while this is going on, scale and clean the whole fish. Put the head and bones and trimmings into another pot, cover with water, throw in the carrot and onion ends, some whole garlic cloves (don't need to peel them), bay leaf, fennel fronds...really, whatever you've got that will add flavor to the broth.

When the onion etc is nice and stewed (don't brown), add some wine (I had some red leftover, so added that), cook till alcohol cooks off, add plenty of diced tomato (or canned tomato). Add some saffron if you have it -- it makes a difference. Bring to brisk boil; boil about 2 minutes, then cook at a brisk simmer till nice and thick and tasty. Add salt. Strain fish broth -- which should taste of all the things in it by now -- into the veggie pot, and cook the whole thing until it tastes really good to you. About twenty minutes to a half hour should do it. Boil it down if the broth is too thin. Taste for salt again.

Make a rouille. That's just garlic mayonnaise with saffron and red pepper added. I soak a dried pepper till it's soft enough to mash with the other stuff, and use that.

Right before you serve dinner, put out some bread and cheese -- goat cheese is great. Put soup plates into oven to warm. Chop some fennel fronds to use to garnish the soup. Warn companion that it's time to light the candles and pour a couple of glasses of wine. Then add the filleted fish, cut into chunks, to the soup.

Don't go away from the stove. The fish should take about two minutes to cook.

Serve the fennel strewn soup in the warmed plates; add rouille at pleasure; if only two of you and no children to impress with manners, you can scrape the last of the rouille out of the mortar you made it in with the last bits of the bouillabaise soaked and goat cheese spread bread.

New blog

2005-05-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

Does it seem to anyone else out there like the world's a house on fire, and we Americans (and English; I know about you guys, too) are huddled in a little room, not paying attention? I bet it does. And are a lot of you blogging to try and make connections with the other people who've smelled the smoke and are trying to figure out the best way to get everyone safely out, and then build something that's not such a fire trap?

I know you're out there. I'm looking for you.

In the meantime: one of the things causing the fire, I think, is our dissing of the Everyday and the Unimportant. As a culture (that American/British one I know about), we're so busy running after the Next Big Thing and Permanent Growth and the Peak of Transcendence, and god knows what all, that we've eroded our base. This is not good. This can only end in disaster and total conflagration.

So until I figure out something more effective to do...while I work on that...and wait for good ideas from anywhere; I'm not picky, as long as they're good...here's my blog about daily meals.

You have to have good daily meals, or the whole machine goes down. Once it goes down, you're not in any shape to help anyone out of any building, burning or otherwise. Also, if you don't have a good, nonwasteful, calm daily meal, you're not likely to want that for others: and believe me, others need it.

This is what I'm cooking for dinner tonight:

smoked oysters on baby kale greens
organic baked potato with butter, sour cream, and black lumpfish caviar
roast asparagus
radishes with coarse salt
maybe a glass of wine
chocolate with dried raspberries

Dinner will be three courses, because the table's right next to the kitchen, so that's easy, and makes for a longer time to talk with my husband. He grew the kale.

What's everyone else having? Whatever it is, I hope from the bottom of my heart that you're going to enjoy every moment of it. Because if you don't, there's not much hope that we can build a house where everyone else enjoys theirs.