Saturday

I woke at 3:15 am after going to sleep at 7PM. As I was putting on my blue jeans I got a pain spasm shooting through my hip and thigh. No matter which way I turned it was unrelenting agony. I started wailing. I became dizzy and nauseous from the pain. I woke up my husband. He wanted to call 911. He was thinking I fractured my hip. I pictured a troop of Emergency Medical Technicians climbing up three flights of stairs, taking me down on a stretcher, and over to the hospital. "No way," I thought.

I got up and went downstairs very slowly and made coffee, and took a shower. I had to be presentable to the EMT's just in case. At 8AM I called my Dr's answering service and got an appointment for ten thirty.

After examining my leg, the doctor said that I pulled a groin muscle. I realized it was the perfect storm: shoveling running dog walking and most of all my not-swimming due to skin surgery. Oy!

She prescribed 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen three times a day for ten days and a muscle relaxant so I can sleep tonight.

She suggested physical therapy but I said I probably won't need it because the pool will straighten me out. "No frog kick!" she said.

I feel like I am 100 years old. But the Ibuprofen is just kicking in!

Thursday evening Bill and I attended a function. There was a buffet supper made up of meatballs, gnocchi and eggplant lasagna. The food was ready at 6PM but sat on sterno trays for four hours. Apparently just enough time to grow a hearty infestation of bacteria. I wonder how many people spent Friday being as sick as us.

Be healthy everyone, Count your blessings!

Buffet of Food Posioning

We went to an event that had food sitting on Sterno trays for 3-4 hours before anyone was served. After we got sick we realized this was very dangerous.

Ready Set Joe

I'm back to my one cup drip brewing for coffee. Since I only drink one cup a day it seems right to have it be fresh. I preheat my thermal mug and preheat the milk. Hot Rocks!

Roasted Fennel

Chop fennel and roast with olive oil and salt add sun-dried tomatoes.

I Treat Chocolate, Sugar and Meat as Spices

I have been blessed with a sensitive system. My maternal grandfather and mother also had sensitive stomachs. Unfortunately they ignored their symptoms and ended up losing vital body parts (gallbladder and part of stomach). I know that oily or fried foods will have me doubled over in agony if I eat them on an empty stomach or if I don't cut them with strongly acidic foods like citrus fruit, vinegar, pickled foods, coffee (light roast), black tea (with milk), or seltzer.
Most sugary, chocolatey foods are not in my repertoire. I love meat as a spice blended with 90 percent vegetables.

Churros: Eating Chocolate the Spanish way by Alejandra Garcia

I grew up in the southern United States thinking that chocolate was a treat associated exclusively with dessert. Now living in Spain, I haven't found it hard to adjust — especially to one specific traditional practice: eating chocolate the Spanish way.

Drinking chocolate, white chocolate truffles, hazelnut-chocolate muffins — the Spanish love it all. Small children, for example, snack on chocolate sandwiches, made with bread in the shape of a hot dog bun filled with chocolate paste.

Spain has taught me to eat chocolate for breakfast. The Spanish go out at night until the wee hours of the morning, and then have a cup of chocolate for breakfast on their way home, before going to sleep.

Born in Lima, Peru, and raised in both Kentucky and North Carolina, Alejandra Garcia has mastered the arts of ceviche, sweet tea and saying "y'all." She currently lives in Marbella, Spain, and works as an editor for the Spanish lifestyle magazine Absolute Marbella.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99259513

Instant Breakfast Cocoa Biscotti

Make toast preferably homemade and dip into a paste: teasp. cocoa powder, teasp. molasses or sugar, and a Tbsp water heated to a dissolved paste. Optional: add cinnamon and weensy bit of salt.

Pallavi Gupta: Pumpkin Almond Biscotti

Pumpkin Almond Biscotti

Rather than compliment the pumpkin base with the classic spice pairing these biscotti offset the autumnal flavor with almond meal and a chocolate drizzle.
Pallavi Gupta
24 cookies
Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
¼ cup butter (or oil)
¾ cup almond meal (ground almond)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup dark chocolate, for drizzling

Instructions

In a bowl mix together flour and baking powder, keep aside.
In a large bowl cream butter and sugar till the mixture turns pale. Add the egg and mix well.
Add pumpkin puree & vanilla and stir till its mixed well into the butter, sugar and egg mixture.
Mix in the almond meal.
Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix with a spatula till it comes together as a sticky dough.
Turn the dough out on a floured surface and using your hands form it into a ball.
Divide the ball into two equal parts and transfer onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
Keep them at-least 4 inch apart. Shape each dough into a 6 inch log shape, flatten the top with your hand.
Bake the logs for 20 to 25 minutes, check if its cooked completely by inserting a toothpick in the center (it should come out clean).
The logs will crack slightly on its surface – its okay. Let the logs cool completely on a rack.
Cut each loaf into ½ inch slice and bake again (on the same baking sheet) for 10 minutes turning the the baking sheet midway.
Cool the biscotti completely before adding the chocolate.
Melt chocolate in the microwave – you want it in a runny consistency.
Drizzle some chocolate using a spoon over the cooled biscotti. Add as much or as less as you want. Let the chocolate set on the biscotti before serving.

Bill Neal and Crooks

Article

Pork, still the meat of choice in the South, made no appearance on the menu, much to my surprise; Mr. Neal, a big pork man, put an oversize fiberglass pig outside Crook's Corner. But don't worry, Mr. Currence assured me, ''it's there in the background of almost every dish: the side meat in the muddle, cracklings in the cornbread and bacon fat in the Country Captain.''

In a recent article in Metro Magazine, a North Carolina monthly, Ms. Neal described Mr. Neal as ''a trendsetter, a driven perfectionist, a seductive charmer and the possessor of a legendary temper.'' He had a Pied Piper quality, one of his protégés recalled, that engendered fierce loyalties.

''The food,'' Ms. Neal insisted, ''the food was always sublime.''

Mr. Neal was an unusually well-read chef, who quoted Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers and Homer in his books, not to mention Mary Randolph, the 19th-century authority on Virginia cooking, who was related to Thomas Jefferson, and André Simon, the 20th-century French-born English authority on wine.

He tirelessly pleaded the cause of his native region's culture. All of it interested him, high and low, new and old.

Actually, Mr. Neal discerned a ''confluence of three cultures -- Western European, African and Native American -- meeting, clashing and ultimately melding into one unique identity, one hybrid society, which was changed forever by civil war in the 1860's.'' The legacy of that society, he wrote, ''is what still makes some of us Southerners -- the architecture, the literature, the food, the continuity of man and nature that shapes our perceptions.''

Over breakfast Thursday morning at Home, a Greenwich Village bistro where Mr. Stehling once worked, the chefs spun yarns about their mentor.

Mr. Stehling brought a tin of beluga caviar. His first trip to New York, he explained, was an eating expedition led by Mr. Neal. From a taxi on the way to the airport, Mr. Neal spotted a Caviarteria sign, jumped from the cab, dashed into the shop, bought some beluga, ran back out and sprinted down the street, catching up to the cab several blocks later. They ate the caviar on the plane, with Mr. Neal passing out samples to passengers sitting nearby.

''That was pure, exuberant Bill Neal,'' Mr. Stehling said.

Mr. Neal refused to hire Mr. and Mrs. Barker because they had degrees from the Culinary Institute of America, preferring to train his employees himself -- from scratch.

Vegetarian Hoppin' John

I just made blackeyes peas Southern favorite HOPPIN'JOHN I used kale in place of ham.

Recipe courtesy of Emeril Lagasse

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large ham hock
1 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 pound black-eyed peas, soaked overnight and rinsed
1 quart chicken stock
Bay leaf
1 teaspoon dry thyme leaves
Salt, black pepper, and cayenne
3 tablespoons finely chopped green onion
3 cups steamed white rice

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/hoppin-john-recipe.html

Roasted Fennel, Cauliflower, Broccoli +Carrots

preheat oven to 450. Drizzle olive oil Adobo and Cajun spice over the vegetables. Roast them in the oven. I use a LODGE 12 inch cast iron skillet.

Coca vs. Chocolate: Sensitivity Sweets

If you're me and you can't eat butter, Than this is the recipe for you.

¾ cup plain (or coffee or lemon) yogurt
¼ cup milk
½ cup Cocoa powder
½ cup Old fashioned rolled oats
½ cup sugar or ¼ cup molasses ¼ sugar
1 extra large egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch kosher salt
add ¼ toasted walnuts or raisins or dried sweetened cranberries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a square Pyrex baking dish.
Combine all ingredients and blend until smooth. Use those arm muscles!
Pour batter into the prepared dish and bake for about 15 minutes. Allow to cool completely before cutting into 9 large squares.
Recipe lightly adapted from The Londoner

Steamed Kale with Peanutbutter and Soy Sauce

My new craze!

Fennel Raw and Cooked

All the ways

Sunglasses

Today it is so bright I am wondering if the glare bouncing off the snow is what caused my migraine. I am wearing my amber sunglasses in the house.

Sesame Seeds Taste like Bacon

Yesterday I bought my favorite candy from job lot sesame seed bark. Today I had a bite of it with hot tea. I forgot how much sesame seeds toasted taste like bacon.

Slow Microwave

My microwave is from 1990 vintage. Back when my studio was at a mill complex, away from where I lived. I had a mini fridge and I made hot lunches for myself. Often it was a casserole of corn and spinach and eggs. The brand is Capri and it's built like a tank but it is so slow that while I am heating up my lunch I usually make a sandwich. By the time my lunch is hot I am done with my sandwich and I have to put my meal back in the fridge. I don't want to buy a new one because they are expensive and bulky and ugly.

I Love Boiled Barley

I just cooked a big batch of un-hulled barley in my slow cooker. I added some of the cooked grain to my latest batch of bread dough. I ate a few bowls of it with Smart margarine, Cajun spice, kosher salt and a few chopped dried plums. Fabulous!

Buckwheat Flap Jack Supper

I couldn't resist. I described my favorite buckwheat pancakes to my friend Joe and how I must make them for our next lunch. Next thing I knew I was throwing all of the ingredients in a bowl tasting and adapting. I don't follow recipes even my own. I open the fridge and see what needs to be reincarnated. The secret is buttermilk or sourdough. The natural fermentation makes the pancakes light and fluffy although I always say that pancakes are like cadaver cheeks.

Here's the cheat sheet:

1 1/4 c flour (buckwheat and whole wheat)
1/4 c sourdough starter and flour (not necessary but I had some to use up)
1/2 teasp baking soda
1 teasp salt or more to taste (kosher salt)
1 teasp cinnamon
1/2 teasp real vanilla
2 eggs beaten
1 1/4 buttermilk
1/2 c favorite puree or freshly sliced apple or banana
1/8 cup corn oil
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs molasses

Molasses Mocha Cocoa

I tried using molasses in place of refined sugar when making cocoa and it tasted great. Just like Ovaltine!

Spicy Ginger Garlic Green Beans with Sundried Tomatoes and Sesame Seeds and Almonds

I served it over brown and wild rice.

Hot Cocoa or Hot Mocha

I made this today and it was excellent. Then I made it for my husband and he loved it. The best part is you can control how sweet or how chocolatey you want it and there are no preservatives!

Directions for cocoa:
Add one level tablespoon of plain unsweetened cocoa powder, one level tablespoon of granulated sugar, a pinch of kosher salt then add 12 oz hot milk, (we like 2%) heat it up and enjoy.

For Mocha:
Add one tablespoon of plain unsweetened cocoa, and one level tablespoon of granulated sugar, and a pinch of kosher salt together. Mix 6 oz hot black coffee to dissolve cocoa salt sugar mixture. Then add 6 oz milk to it and heat it all up and enjoy.

A Sad Slow Eater

I tell my husband that when I was a child I was such a slow eater that my siblings had already left and gone to bed while I was still at the table poking at my food.

Irish Oats: Snow Day

Snowing! I am simmering a batch of Irish Oats. I'm hoping the new landlords will come and plow the parking lot. Time will tell.

16 Bean Soup: I LOVE GOYA

Today is a 16 bean soup day! I am simmering a pound of GOYA 16 bean soup beans.