Dolly Parton

I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren't in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.
-Dolly Parton

Teddi's Baked Beans

The beans are a super back to roots and simplicity thing. I used to add all manner of things in...and all not bad. Curry powder. Beer.
Hot sauce. Anything is game.
This is in order of volume. A wing it situation.

small white beans. labeled as such. Not great northerns.
chopped onion
chunk of salt pork.
dark molasses
maple syrup
Worcestershire sauce/ketchup. They get equal billing.
dried mustard
soy sauce (afterthought added in the morning...good call.)

Soaked beans overnight. Boiled with a bay leaf until al dente side of soft but it doesn't matter.
Mixed everything else in the beanpot.
Baked at 225 all night.

Baked Sweet Potatoes

The other night we were eating baked sweet potatoes and Bill asked me what vitamin is in them. I said B flat minor and F sharp.

Dream

I dreamed I was making pancakes in cast iron decorative molds over a fireplace - an open hearth fireplace. I was thinking I should move my easel here. When I visited our painter friend Jacob his easel and bed were right beside the fireplace. I was thinking this morning about Carl Jung's meditative stone tower he built with an open hearth for cooking.

Today we are thinking we ought to shovel the roof of garage so rain expected tomorrow doesn't cause disaster.

The sourdough I baked last night had a 30 hour incubation. It is sour and good.

Dream

I dreamed that Munroe Dairy was making its own beer called LOVE COWS. The milk tanks had to get washed out to make beer by night and process milk by day. I was dreaming up a label.

Delicious Doorstops

Last night the boiler room was colder than usual, and my breads didn't rise. The oven was already hot and I was tired so I baked them anyway. Delicious doorstops.

Favored a Village

In Japanese folklore when the gods favored a village they would shit gold in its fields and piss sake in its well.

Dinner at Noon

Back when dinner was at noon - people had it right!
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Frank Zappa

Tobacco is my favorite vegetable.
-Frank Zappa

J.D. Salinger

I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all, Teddy said. It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.

-J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

Marya Hornbacher

We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.
-Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir

Lentil Gloup

I made a simple soup last night and it was so delicious. I rinsed a pound of lentils and put them in my crock pot with water and olive oil. Then I coarsely-chopped onions, carrots, celery and I added a can of crushed tomatoes. I peeled a bunch of fresh garlic and threw it in halved, and cored. I added dried basil from my garden, Adobo, red chili flakes and freshly ground black pepper. I threw in a few leaves of cabbage (chopped) and chopped fresh kale and three bay leaves. I found some cooked leftover barley and wheat berries in the fridge and threw them in. I covered the pot with a vented lid and let it simmer for a few hours. I added some more water when it needed it. It was more of a gloup than a soup. It was amazing. Tonight we ate it with pepper jack cheese on top.

Laurie Colwin

To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.
-Laurie Colwin

There is nothing like soup. It is by nature eccentric: no two are
ever alike, unless of course you get your soup in a can.
-Laurie Colwin

Galway Kinnell

When a group of people get up from a table, the table doesn't know which way any of them will go.
-Galway Kinnell

Richard Brautigan

It was a dish of ice cream
tasting like an operating table
with the patient staring
up at the ceiling.
-Richard Brautigan, Lay the Marble Tea


I always wanted to write a book that ended with the word mayonnaise.
-Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

Laurie Colwin

The old days were slower. People buttered their bread without guilt and sat down to dinner en famille.
-Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen

Marion Cunningham

Eating food that strangers cook is vastly different than eating what's cooked at home. The real key is sharing food at that table and, believe me, we know we're not born civilized. We're small savages, so you have to be taught the table is the place where you learn who you are and where you're from, understanding that a lot of people just do nothing but fight at the table. Nonetheless, you come to know one another. The result is you know who you are.
-Marion Cunningham

Comfort Food

I woke up at three thirty AM and stayed in bed thinking about what I will cook today. I got up and rinsed and simmered a batch of lentils and then I decided to make a pot of oatmeal with raisins.

Simple and Delicious

I am not always excited about food and at these times I just try to cook one thing each day so there's something good on hand to eat. Last night I soaked a pound of chick peas. This morning they had plumped-up. So I put them in my crock pot with the soaking water about an inch higher than the beans, and added a tablespoon of olive oil. I put the lid on the pot and set it to cook at 225 degrees. I went upstairs to my office and closed the door. I forgot about the beans. An hour or so later I opened the door and the hallway smelled great. Then I remembered the beans. I tasted them. They were done. I added kosher salt and Adobo seasoning. They were so delicious I ate a bowl of them for breakfast with toast.

Anthony Bourdain

We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.
-Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

PETA doesn't want stressed animals to be cruelly crowded into sheds, ankle-deep in their own crap, because they don't want any animals to die-ever-and basically think chickens should, in time, gain the right to vote. I don't want animals stressed or crowded or treated cruelly or inhumanely because that makes them probably less delicious.
-Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Few things are more beautiful to me than a bunch of thuggish, heavily tattooed line cooks moving around each other like ballerinas on a busy Saturday night. Seeing two guys who'd just as soon cut each other's throats in their off hours moving in unison with grace and ease can be as uplifting as any chemical stimulant or organized religion.
-Anthony Bourdain

Cheese Wit

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Tuesday

It's a windy 25 degrees out so I am keeping the living room curtains closed for fear of losing the precious bit of 50 degree warmth inside. I wonder if it is still considered solitude when the radio is on and Lily-dog is on the couch in the next room. Is it solitude when the voices in my head are chattering like a tree full of starlings? No matter, it's time to shower and put on warm dry socks. I put together a batch of bread dough. While that was incubating I chopped up celery, black olives, carrots and garlic. I warmed up three cans worth of diced tomatoes then I added in my home-grown and dried basil, two bay leaves and oregano. I drizzled in olive oil. The sauce is simmering now, bringing a scented hope to my home.

Cheerful Bowl of Corn

Today I heated a few cups of frozen corn and added olive oil and salt and pepper. It made a cheerful bowl of yellow, for lunch.

E.B. White

Countries are ransacked, valleys drenched with blood. Though it seems untimely I still publish my belief in the egg, the contents of the egg, the warm coal, and the necessity for pursuing whatever fire delights and sustains you.
-E.B. White, from The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims (page 142)

Eggplant Guilt

I felt guilty each time I looked at the three eggplants sitting in a basket on my table. I bought them in a moment of exuberance, because they were beautiful, my husband reminded me. They were beginning to age and I didn't have a plan. Last night I sliced them in 1/4 inch rounds, salted them, and placed them in my large colander to drain in the sink. I went to bed. This morning I rinsed them and squeezed stacks of the eggplant rounds between my palms. Then I cubed the stacks, slicing them on my cutting board. I still had no idea where I was going. I placed the eggplant in my slow cooker and added a jar of leftover vegetable stock, a container of chopped black olives that were looking for a job, along with two large cans of crushed tomatoes. I added chopped fresh garlic, olive oil, two bay leaves, dried oregano, basil, Adobo and salt. I tasted it and liked where it was headed. I let it simmer while Lily and I took a long walk. When we got home the kitchen smelled fabulous. Bill and I ate bowls of this eggplant-guilt stew with grated Parmesan on top and toast on the side.