balmagowry

Beets. Then and now, beets. I learned to love zucchini and I learned to love string beans (though "love" seems in both cases a pretty feeble term for the way I feel about them now). But not beets. I also hated halvah. Then one day when I was in high school a dear friend persuaded me to try it again... and you know, it wasn't bad, and I ate a good-sized hunk of it. Unfortunately this was less than an hour before my rent-a-brother gave us the great treat of taking us up in his small airplane. ... ... And so much for my short-lived tolerance of halvah.

Kitchen Sink Fried Rice is simplicity itself. As its name (which I think I must have stolen from Kitchen Sink Soup... not to be confused with Cream of Refrigerator Soup, which of course is quite a different thing) implies, it includes a little of everything - that is, everything I happen to feel like putting in. This always includes pork, and when possible it always includes shrimp. Tonight it also includes: onion, celery, cabbage, snow-peas, un-snow-peas, water chestnuts, and whatever sprouts the Fruitery happened to have. And eggs, of course, and ginger. Also some sherry. And soy sauce. I think that's it. And, oh yeah... rice. This is where the infamous antediluvian cooktop stands me in good stead: one of the burners is improperly adjusted, and produces a much higher and more powerful flame than it is supposed to. Every man who has entered my orbit in the past 14 years has kindly offered to fix it for me; to every one of them I have said the same thing: "what are you, CRAZY?!" Not that it quite measures up to those fabulous conflagrations they have to work with in Chinese restaurants - but it's at least a closer approximation than I've been able to squeeze out of any other stove. Out comes the trusty wok (I have two or three of them - four if you count the one downstairs in the bunker - five if you count the leetle one - but this one is my favorite, mostly because of the handle), and the assembly line begins. First, the ginger. Then, the onion, celery, and cabbage... and when those are almost done they are joined, briefly briefly, by the snow-peas and sprouts. Next, the pork. It was already fully cooked, of course (a bit too fully, actually - sorry, Mr. Boy ), but it'll look and feel and taste happier when it's browned. Even I am not quite They-Call-Me-Chief enough to photograph the frying of the rice and the addition of the eggs - though for the record I should like to announce that for the first time in my life I got the eggs exactly right. Anyway, once that's done, the Kitchen Sink gets dumped back in! It all gets smooshed around together and flavored up with sherry and soy, and it spends a short time covered, over a low fire, to make sure everybody is heated through, and then... ... it gets et.

Was it Tuesday that I was BAD? Must have been. And Wednesday was the day of the Microwave Misadventure. Also on Wednesday, BTW, I made a small Expotition downstairs to the bunker where I hoard all my hedges against obsolescence. Here, for instance, are my extra MiniChops! One NIB, one Nw/oB, and one spare bowl/blade, also new. And here is my spare Mixmaster; identical to the one I actually use - if a bit grubbier. I keep the beaters upstairs - if I'm in a hurry and making several different things, it's often much more convenient to switch to a second set than to wash the first - but the rest of it lives down here for spare parts... Just In Case. Somewhere around here I also have a duplicate of my Singer Featherlight sewing machine. Hey, don't look at me like that! What am I supposed to do? I go to garage sales and I see these things for $5 or $10 (a mere $3, in the case of the MiniChops!), and I should, what, ignore them and walk away? Who else appreciates or needs them as I do? Well, OK - you guys, a lot of you. But you're not here, and I am, and I have room for them, and there's nothing wrong with having an extra... or two... or three... of anything you love and may never find again. So there. Blessings on that Boy and his leftovers! Thanks to him I eat a nice substantial lunch. Also thanks to him, we come to a decision about dinner: there's definitely enough pork to do Kitchen Sink Fried Rice tonight. (And those potatoes will be sure to come in handy for... something.... )

Now I'm starting to work up some momentum... now that it's almost too late. Here, then, is Monday. Lunch should be hauntingly familiar: Sunday night's leftovers. If I'd been The Boy I would have warmed these up - but I'm not The Boy. I can never decide whether I like them better warmed or cold... and greed and impatience tend to be the deciding factor! BTW, a cold or lukewarm Kotletki makes a marvelous sandwich. Plain. On good rye bread. Also BTW... back in the days when I was occasionally practical and efficient... I would sometimes make up a BI-I-I-I-IG batch of Kotletkii, but only cook 4-8 of them. I would put the tray in the freezer, then take it out when the raw Kotletkii were nicely flash-frozen, and decant them into a ziploc bag. They keep in the freezer for ages and ages and defrost really well; take out two, put 'em in the microwave for maybe half a minute, and they're ready to fry. Convenience food! Not very long after lunch, into town I go for the Toscanini event. There's a reception afterward, but by the time we're done with schmoozing and catching up (only one member of the orchestra is actually there, but there are also several of the singers and several generations of descendants and a lot of relatives and associates) and negotiating the narrow aisles of the tiny hall - well, I never really even find out what there is to eat and drink, though I do snag the last of some particularly wonderful Muscatel grapes. Oh, I've told you that already, haven't I. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, a few of us soon duck out into the rain and make our way up to the Cinema Cafe, where I must say I think we end up doing rather well. We are so caught up in conversation and stories stories stories stories that it takes a while before we can really focus on the menu - meanwhile there are chunks of a rather nice flattish bread, a ciabatta sort of thing, with little dishes of (I think) a mild baba ghanouj-ish dip. I make an absent-minded pig of myself over these.... At last we get our acts together to order. We aren't interested in a complicated meal, but after all our recent discussion of blue-claw crabs I am much attracted by the description of an appetizer of blue-claw crab cakes with remoulade. I ask the adorable Adriana (no, she hasn't volunteered this information, but the place is quiet and she so charming that in the course of the evening we spend a little time drawing her out) about portion sizes and it becomes clear that the appetizer as such won't be sufficient to make a full meal; I am just about to enter into negotiations about expanding the appetizer to a double order or some such, when Adriana directs my attention to an item on the menu that I somehow hadn't noticed: the crab "burger" - clearly a larger version of the same sort of treatment. Sold! So here's the rundown: Byron has the Penne with Chicken and Roasted Garlic Broth; Maria has the Angel Hair Primavera; Herb has the Pizza Margherita; Sylvia and Giuliana split the Pizza con Funghi and a garden salad. I'm afraid I don't remember all the varieties of funghi this pizza actually sported - crimini, shiitake and at least four others. (Truth to tell, I think it's a bit of a waste - the individual flavors of the mushrooms kind of get lost in the shuffle; still, the idea is rather attractive and the pizza is very good, though not the explosion of flavors one might hope from the menu description....) Can you see how incredibly paper-thin those pizza crusts are? Here is my lovely crab burger, accompanied by fries which I have to admit put even those of the Delphi Diner to shame. (Unpeeled, but only at the tips.) It is not, as advertised, on a brioche. Just as well - I don't think a brioche would have suited it at all. The bun is rather ordinary... but I don't care. It's very very good, and exactly what I'm in the mood for. I'm happy. The evening wears on amid story after story after story, and by the time it's reasonable for Adriana to offer us coffee (which we don't want) it is too late to order dessert, the kitchen having closed. Byron looks her in the eye and says "... not even sorbet?" Adriana quickly reconnoiters, and comes back with an offer of mango sorbet. Those of us who were not interested in dessert are suddenly intrigued. Four of us order the sorbet: I gather the presentation is all Adriana's doing. Skilful as well as adorable. (I do, er, hope we gave her a fat tip. Damn, wish I'd taken a picture of her. Maybe I'll just have to go back there some time.... ) And the sorbet itself is delicious.

Yes! I love that story! Sorry, that was naughty of me. "Harold in Italy" is a truly marvelous tone poem by Berlioz, based on Byron's "Childe Harold." Representing the Harold character himself, it features a solo viola so prominently (even more so than Rimsky's "Scheherazade" does its solo violin) that it really ought to be called a viola concerto... but it isn't, it's a tone poem. Which is why it works as a viola joke (if you're into that sort of thing, which I confess I am) but not in "transposition" to any other instrument. Trust me... this gets a good laugh among musicians. (And then she found out that he played... the French HORN!) EDIT to add: and I keep forgetting to tell you, I love your sig. Talk about food porn - his description of Brandy Broth would almost qualify, if it weren't so clean and innocent... but it's still orgasmic to read.

Thank you, yes - very clear. As an admitted fanatic, I would be inclined to add "philosophical" to "artistic," because much of what I admire about Careme has to do with his overt passion and commitment, from which I think there is much to be learned even where the content of his cuisine is less relevant in other ways. But that's just me....

Guess I jinxed myself. Pathmark does have a deal on butter (limit 2 per customer), but Waldbaum's doesn't have coffee on sale. The penalty is paying full retail price - I may as well brace myself and do it. OK, this bugs me. There's always a recipe with the flyers, and very often it's something of interest, something to be saved in the so-many-ideas-so-little-time stack. This week it's by Betty Rosbottom, and I like the look of it and will probably do something like it: portobello mushrooms stuffed with spinach and mozzarella. Nothing unexpected about it; it's all Usual Suspects, and I'd be surprised if I couldn't make it without even reading the recipe. You know it's going to include EVOO and parmesan and garlic and probably some nutmeg, you know it's going to need a last-minute stint in a hot overn or maybe under a broiler.... Yup. I'm batting 1000! So anyway, just out of curiosity, I do read the recipe. Almost exactly what I expected from title and picture. And then I see this: "...remove and discard stems. Scoop out and discard the tough inside centers where stems were attached." Discard? Discard? What's with this Discard? Wha... why? Doesn't she know there are children starving in... yes, well, anyway. I just don't get it. Discard - hmph. Well, I never. Sheesh. Trim off the ends, cut 'em up into leetle dice, saute 'em and add 'em (pureed, maybe, if you insist) to the stuffing. Or use them in something else that cries out for a little mushroomy touch. Don't tell me you don't have a use for portobello stems. I just don't want to hear it. It just bugs me. I don't think it's even stinginess, this time - I think it's more the part of me that cries out in indignant frustration when people don't appreciate the best bits of things, when they throw away chicken skin and offal and pope's noses and fat and all those wonderful dark bits of pan drippings and - oh, you know. The Boy, alas, is like that, but at least he's well-trained now and knows that instead of throwing that stuff away he should give it to me. But I don't think he'll ever learn to buy meat. That pork I used in the fried rice, for instance. Leftover roast loin, somewhat overcooked and perfectly lean. (Sorry, Mr. Boy, if you're reading this, but you know it's true!) Lean lean lean lean lean. Not a trace of fat on it; and not a trace of flavor. Dry. :sigh: They Just Don't Get It, do they.... EDIT to add: If I ever get around to making this - it just cries out for little bits of pancetta. Or even just ordinary bacon. As long as there's something cured and porky and salty and yummy. And maybe a little shallot or some of those Walking Onions from the garden - something like that. Yup, this has potential.

Ah, Saturday. My final day in the bloggy, bloggy dew. Looking back on it, I can't say it's been a stellar exemplar of time management... Ah well. I went a little crazy and I had some fun doing it. Today being unexpectedly chilly, I am making an executive decision: The clam plan is insane; better I should devote myself to finishing what I've actually started, so I shall try before the day is out to show you the out-and-about-Babylon series, Monday's dinner at the Cinema Cafe, and Tuesday's (or was it Wednesday's?) Kitchen Sink Fried Rice, which... if that ain't a fitting finale, I don't know what is! And then, perhaps, if the fates allow, this summer when things are really in season I'll do the promised spread on the joys of beach living. Clams, mussels, crabs, berries, etc. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the coffee to be ready, and Saturday is also the perfect time for the promised rant about the sale flyers. See, used to be, the sales changed every Sunday, and the supermarket sale flyers were delivered as part of the Sunday newspaper: preparing for the week's coups was a Sunday ritual. After the funnies and the puzzle and the entertainment news, after the first cup of coffee, you'd be ready to plan the campaign: Aha, Waldbaum's has coffee on sale; Pathmark has a good deal on butter but it's limit-2-per-customer so we'll have to stagger our trips... etc. Sounds stingy; is. And comes at least partly from the days of being poor relations and really needing to pinch every penny. Later when our pennies began breathing a little more freely, though, we continued the practice. Partly because it's kind of a game, staying on the qui-vive and keeping the reflexes sharp. (Not to mention that smug, if ill-founded, sense of beating the system....) And partly because of the siege mentality of living in Gilgo. As I mentioned earlier, Gilgo is 20 minutes' drive from the nearest anything, so there's no such thing as a quick run to the corner store for an onion or a quart of milk. You have to plan; you have to prepare; you have to stock up. This isn't purely a matter of convenience. There are times when it really isn't feasible to make that run to the mainland, no matter how badly you need that dozen eggs. (I know that somewhere in these parts I've already told the story about the blizzard and the pregnant woman and the helicopters.) You can get snowed in; you can get flooded in. And on a sunny weekend day in the summer, it's as much as your life is worth to get caught in beach traffic. In order to get on-shore and back we must choose between the Scylla of Jones Beach to the West and the Charybdis of Robert Moses State Park to the East. It's kind of the opposite of a roach motel: we can get out, but we can't get back in. Oh - and again, old habits dying hard, there's also the instinctive memory of an old cheese-paring reason: during our first 20 years or so in Gilgo, before they reorganized the parking fees, we used to have to pay a toll every time we drove through the booths on the parkway! (Remember Sonny Corleone?) So planning the week's marketing campaign can be pretty important. Now... what happens? First the stores start changing their schedules: some - but not all - start their sale-week cycle on Saturday. This is irritating, but it's bearable, because now all the flyers are delivered on Saturday. OK, so we have to remember that Waldbaum's and the Fruitery are Sat-Fri instead of Sun-Sat... we'll live. But then - somebody always has to be different - suddenly Pathmark decides to make its sale week Fri-Thurs! The sheer unmitigated gall of it! The chutzpah! So now, Pathmark's flyer arrives with the Friday paper. Foodtown's flyer comes in the mail - around Thursday I think. The other flyers arrive in Saturday's paper but you still have to remember that two of them take effect that day and the rest not until the next day. I don't even know what Foodtown does. Then you have to remember which ones are 24-hour - Pathmark is the only one I'm sure of. I know from bitter experience that every time I desperately need to stock up on coffee and Waldbaum's has it on sale, I have to make damn sure that I get there well before 10:00 PM on Friday... or I'm screwed. And as you must realize by now, keeping track of time, date, and day of week is not exactly my strong point! Oh, I tell you, my friends, it's hard. I miss the simplicity of the Good Old Days. Christ, what a life. Now if you'll excuse me - my coffee and the week's sale flyers (most of them, anyway) await. Back shortly.

Aw... that's cute. And yes, it's very hard to imagine as an exchange between a grocer and a customer. I don't know if that one can be told in writing, but I'll give it a shot. It's only mildly offensive.... Mrs. Smith goes to the corner grocery just before closing time, and she says "Please, please, Tony, before you close the doors - please, I just need to buy some onions." Tony says, "I'm-a sorry, Meessees-a Smeet, but I ain't gotta no onions." "Oh, Tony, come on - please? I really only need one onion!" "But Meessees-a Smeet, I ain't gotta no onions." "Please, Tony, please, I'm begging you... half an onion?" "Look, Meessees-a Smeet.... you know how you take-a da 'tom' outta tomato?" "Yes... but..." "An' you know how you take-a da 'pot' outta potato?" "Yes...." "An' da 'car' outta carrot?" "Yes...." "An' da 'fuck' outta onions?" "But... Tony... there's no 'fuck' in onions." "Dassa what I'm-a tryinna tell you! Dere ain't no fuckin' onions!"

No, nothing obscene or off-color in the story. Actually, there's nothing off-color about this one either. Maybe I'll tell it later. It's kind of cute.

I love Harold in Italy. But I also like the joke. Who says you can't have it both ways?

Point taken. Sorry, BTW, if I seemed to single out your post as a target for my little rant; that was not my intention. I was really responding to what I perceived (both on this thread and in the world at large!) as a more general tendency to forget that there was any French cuisine worth knowing about before Escoffier. And yes, I'll agree to pass on the early hominids. I do think, though, there's a case to be made for a major change having occurred around 1800 +/- 20-30 - and an observable progression since then. (Previous disclaimer still in effect, of course. )

And now we come at last to Those Magnificent Foods in Their Frying Machines.. To begin with, let's fry up the Blinchiki. In butter, of course. And this time... ...on both sides! Ordinarily, as discussed in earlier post, you'd serve these accompanied by bouillon, in which you would dunk them. (I do, ahem, have bouillon cups to match the plates we're using, but I didn't think to photograph one; and in real time they are in Gilgo and I am not. Maybe I'll fix this dreadful barbarism tomorrow... and maybe not.) As it is, we're making do, for tonight, with a little sour cream. After eating the Blinchiki, and after studiously avoiding each other's eyes while furtively licking the plates, we take a brief hiatus to assemble the rest of the dinner. (Something simple to set off all this fried stuff - noodles, cooked in chicken broth.) The Kotletkii are fried (I like to use a mix of butter and oil, roughly half-&-half) over a fairly high fire, until they're quite brown, on both sides (they plump up rather enticingly after you turn them - and this is how you know that that little nugget of fat in the middle is doing its job: when you cut into one of them with a fork it will, er, ahem, spurt juice at you).... Ordinarily I'd be doing these on a cast-iron griddle, but tonight we're being naughty and having the traditional Sauce Smitane with them, so I decided to use a deeper pan for the sake of simplicity. Anyway, as each batch is done, I set them aside in a Pyrex dish while I fry the next batch. If I'm making a lot I'll put the dish in the oven to be kept warm by the pilot light. Tonight I don't bother. Now for the veg and the sauce. Here's some of that broccoli rabe I admired at the Fruitery yesterday. I'm not going to do anything complicated with it. I've trimmed the tips of the stems and that's about it. A clove or so of garlic, pressed, sauteed lightly in oil in one of those non-stick demi-wok-ish pans my mother loved so much. (BTW, the oil I'm using for this and the Kotletkii is whatever neutral stuff they keep in-house - canola, probably.) I've also cleaned a couple of Portobello mushrooms (ordinarily I'd use plain little white ones, but as you may recall I stopped too late at the Fruitery and there weren't any - under the circumstances there's a touch of irony, I suppose, in the thought that beggars can't be choosers! ) - and I've cut them up into smallish bits. Toss the broc rabe in with the garlic, stir and let it cook down a little; then add a little mushroom soy, and it will be done around the same time as the sauce - and make a nice foil for its richness (Papa, who doesn't care for rabe, will get his foil effect from frozen baby peas, lightly killed). Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms in the fat left from the Kotletkii frying; Then lower heat and add a goodly dollop of sour cream :wub: (I used it ALL UP!!! :gloat:); swirl it in gently, and then stir until smoothly combined. And now, at long last, it's dinner-time.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert. Ah yes -- this takes me back in time. Much too far back for my taste actually. A sample: Q: How do you tell a viola from a bass? A: The bass takes longer to burn. Q: How do you tell a violist from a percussionist? A: The violist wears jewelry louder than anything the percussionist plays. And so forth. Oy. Oh, no. I'm really sorry, Mags, and I'll understand perfectly if you want to go hang out at the other end of the table with somebody who's nicer than I am... but now I'm going to have to tell it - secure in the awful knowledge that only about three of the 12,000-odd people here will get it and the rest will go down to your end of the table where the sane people are and mutter, "I guess you had to be there...." OK, everybody braced, and 99.999% of you covering your eyes and ears? Right, you two or three co-music-geeks, say it with me and let's get it over with: Q: What's the longest viola joke in the world? A: Harold in Italy. OK, it's over. It's safe to come out now.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert. Or like two dancers having lunch with a writer. Even the dumbest jokes I told them would elicit either a murmur of "just nod and smile... nod and smile..." or a more defiantly deadpan "Was that JEW-ISH HU-MOR?" Guess I'd better not tell the world's longest viola joke, then, huh.

Ok, so I guess it isn't the one about taking the fuck out of onions....

Either that, or silver threads among the gold.

Nope, you're quite right, AFAIK - it's an old Jewish story, at any rate, and its exact provenance, who knows? And... Cartoon? What cartoon? You didn't think I got it from Milt Gross, did you? No, no, sorry if I gave that impression - I was just borrowing his style as a framing device, same as I did yesterday for the story of Water to Cover. I know the story because my parents told it and their friends told it and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts told it, and we've all known it so long that no one has any idea who got there first or who heard it from whom. IOW, oral history. In my family "Oy, kreplach!" is on a par, as an expletive, with "Oy, gevalt!" or "Oy, a klogg is mir!" Hmmm... might not be the one I'm thinking of, which I've always heard told in an exaggerated Brooklyn-Italian accent as an exchange between a grocer and an insistent customer. Funny how sometimes folk and/or immigrant humor can become completely ethnically-interchangeable (Italian/Jewish, Polish/Belgian etc.) - just as many viola jokes (NOT, however, my very favorite one of all) can be "transposed" for tuba or saxophone or accordion....

Practice! Seriously, it's easier than you think. Go outside with your skillet (10" is a good size to start with) and a bag of dried beans. Start with a handful or two of beans in the pan and start flipping. When you get the knack of making them turn over en masse, add another handful and repeat. You'll pick it up fairly quickly, though you might feel a right fool while you're doing it. When you get back in the kitchen, start small - a fried egg, toasting spices to go in the mill/mortar, etc. One other thing - once the food is in the air, pay attention to the pan, not the food. The food's got one direction to go, and that's down. If you make sure that the pan is under the food, gravity will take care of the rest. This is where an early training as a jacks player can really stand you in good stead! Seriously - if you've ever practiced flipping single-handed (I was taught that only sissies flip with both hands - no challenge in it at all), if you can get all 10 to the back of your hand in one move and back to the palm in another, then you've got it made: it's only one small lateral step from flip-jacks to flap-jacks. (:groan:) Also - I first started doing the flippy thing, not with crepes, but with mu shu pancakes, which are made of a firmish dough, rolled together in pairs, and cooked dry. Much MUCH less messy if you blow it! That's the kind of practice that can really give you confidence before you start messing around with thin batters and melted butter....

I've said it a million times,and now I'll say it again: (Maybe I should just start using that as my sig line.) Sick puppies of the world, unite! Not for nothing am I the co-author of a recipe entitled Boiled/Drowned Baby! And then there's one of my favorite Sunday brunch treats: Dutch Baby.

I have seen kreplach served deep fried -- that's how my mom makes them. Oooh, YUM! I stand corrected, then - here I thought boiling was the most traditional treatment. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio.... Deep-fried... must... try... that...! And hey, it's only a hop/skip/jump from potstickers. How I love these convergences! Well, as you will see when the next instalment arrives, Blinchiki are re-fried - not deep, but in plenty of (sorry!) butter.

Moving on to Sunday night, Part III. BTW I got a little confused last night: this next episode is not Those Magnificent Foods In Their Frying Machines - that comes after this one and will cap Sunday night (whew). This one is entitled: Story Time. First, though, one small frying interlude. The Kotletkii having been shaped and laid out, the tray goes into the fridge while the Blinchiki get made and assembled. (BTW it is a good idea to chill them for a while even if you don't have something else to do in the interim: one of our SSBs can probably tell us why, but all I know is it makes them fry up better.) Out comes the Blinchiki batter. (If it has thickened while chilling, thin it with a little more milk.) And remember... "Don't bother" to brown the second side! I didn't - but I turned over the top one on the stack for this photo-op. Some explanation of the part I'm skipping tonight: The traditional filling for Blinchiki is made of cooked beef and uncooked onion. You get a lot of beef bones and a great big hunk of chuck roast or something like that, and you cook it all up stockwise, with an onion and some celery and carrots and whatever else you like to add - herbs and the like - plus S&P, of course. You cook and cook and cook it until you have a nice powerful broth and the meat is falling off the bones. Strain. reduce and clarify the stock. Pick over the meat, separating it from the bones and groozly bits; then chop it up, along with a raw onion. (It is perfectly OK to do the first cooking stage in the pressure cooker and the chopping in a food processor - I generally do if I'm short of time.) The meat/onion mixture becomes the filling; the broth is usually part of the final presentation. It won't be tonight, though, because I'm using leftover filling from a previous batch. That's OK - for once we'll get by just fine with a dollop of sour cream instead. And now we come to Story Time. Oh oh oh, I've been wanting to do this for such a long time! Nize baby, itt opp anodder spoon Epplesuss, so Momma'll gonna tell you de sturry from de leetle boy what didn't like his Momma's Kreplach, ooh dat doity rotten leetle keed. (For the uninitiated: Kreplach are not quite the same as Blinchiki: for one thing, they are kosher. They are dumplings made of chopped meat wrapped in a flour/water dough - and they are boiled and served in soup. But every time I make Blinchiki I think of the Kreplach story. So now I shall tell it as I've always wanted to, and in future perhaps the same will happen to you!) [WARNING: Jewish humor ahead!] Wance oppon a time.... Once upon a time there was a little boy who hated kreplach. His mother was at her wits' end, because she made them often, and she just couldn't understand why he wouldn't eat them. So at last one day she came up with a scheme to persuade him to give them a try. "Semele," she said to him, "sit here with me while I make something nice for dinner. Look - here are some beautiful pancakes and some nice chopped meat. What do you think?" "Looks good," said the son. "Good. Now I'm gonna take a little of this meat and make a nice little lump out of it. Okay so far?" "Great," said the kid. "Good. Now watch, I'm gonna put this meat on a pancake. You like that?" "I love it," said the kid, mouth watering. "Good. Now watch: I'm gonna fold the far edge of this pancake over the lump of meat. How's that?" "That's great," said the kid. "Good. Now... I'm gonna fold this side of the pancake over onto the meat. Does that look OK to you?" "It looks terrific," said the kid. "Good. Now... next, I'm gonna fold this other side over too. You like that? "I sure do! When do we eat?" said the kid, eyes wide. "Good, good... good. And now... I'm gonna roll this last edge over it, and I --" "OY! KREPLACH!"

Cool! Now that's a kind of honor worth having.... The artichokes up-thread were sort of borderline; upon arrival at their centers I found some chokes developed, some not. This may explain why they were so cheap; I've seen that same package since in a couple of stores and it's always quite the bargain. From my standpoint this is just fine, as "baby" artichokes were not really what I was after. The only artichokes I avoid are those big round flavorless spineless ones - other than that, any artichoke is a good artichoke, as far as I am concerned. Given my druthers I guess my overall choice would be a big one (or two... or three...!), very fresh - but these adolescent artichokes were very good and were one hell of a deal for the price. In answer to your question (oops), I do see real baby artichokes here from time to time, but never pre-packaged like that. Which is a good thing: if I really wanted the babies I'd want to pick them out individually, by hand, as I do string beans or snow peas.

So, good morning. As advertised, I've actually been up since 7:30. (I imagine I'm scheduled for a hell of a crash this afternoon, since that represents something like two hours' sleep.) Every time I see the real morning I am reminded how much I used to love it. I shall desire its more acquaintance. Still not sure how the alarums and excursions of the rest of the day will shake out, but I'm not going to worry much about that until I finish this coffee. Meanwhile, I have plenty to do just getting the rest of Sunday cooked and served! Lucy - Thank you....

and please, who or what is Gilgo? Fi Explanations can be found up-thread in the following posts: this one, and also this one.