maggiethecat

It just depends. Are your guests well-heeled urban/suburban types? If so, Crate and Barrel, Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table should be good choices. Are your guests starving artists? Go Target. For upscale porcelain and stemware, Fortunoff or Macy's. And if you're near a Macy's check out Martha Stewart's new line. It rocks like a rowboat in a hurricane.

It's a Friday night in Lent, and I thought about this piece as I planned dinner. My family didn't keep Lent, though the occasional fish stick dinner was welcomed by me and my siblings -- we just liked them, back then. Well, sumgun, we're having capellini with white clam sauce. Friday night we go for easy and there's not much easier -- we have a simple pasta dish two Fridays a month. My husband's Irish/Italian family certainly kept Lent. I'm not sure what the Irish side ate, but we lived in the third floor walkup of a building in Chicago's Little Italy for a few years. My husband's grandmother, or, properly, Nonna, owned 1206-1208 W. Lexington, classic Chicago six flats. The family story is that her father, from Porta San Pietro, outside Naples, won them in a poker game in 1908. She married up: a Toscani from Lucca, a man of great gourmandise and so violent and vociferous about his food that he'd throw any dish that displeased him against the kitchen wall. Nonna became a great cook, renowned, even, in the Taylor Street Hood. It's said she cooked for Giovanni Martinelli. When I met Annunziata Rovai she was in her 90s, living alone and cooking as if her terrifying husband were still alive. When she heard us walk up the stairs, she'd stick out her head and press a dinner into our hands. They were nothing like Alfonso's austere and elegant Lenten plate. Shrimp in marinara over polenta. Stuffed whitefish. Meatless lasagna, spilling spinach and ricotta and cheese. Her amazing pizza -- proof to me that you don't need a wood-fired oven that hits 750 degrees. For Nonna, it wasn't about sacrifice (although she stepped up her Rosary schedule during Lent,) it was about confecting the best food she could, without meat. O, Madonna, her pasta e fagioli! (Never pronounced pasta fazool. That was for southerners, not Tuscans.)

Chef/Owner Nadia Tilkian is making honest-to Dieu bistro food in the Western burbs, at Maijean near the tracks in Clarendon Hills. We ate there Tuesday night (a press freebie) and I can’t remember the last time I tasted “Country French” (as her press kit calls it) this inventive and plain tasty. It’s a pretty room, decorated faux Art Nouveau (beautiful scrolling woodwork above the bar,) fireplace, twenty tables give or take. More Mucha fantasy than bar zinc, I’m sure they’re booked solid with Valentine’s Day diners. Amuses were a shooter of Granny Smith soup, with partly melted globs of Pont L’Eveque therein. Apples and cheese are one of my favorite food combos, and I loved it. Catherine and Mr. Mike passed canapés –a nicely presented chicken liver pate and a mouthful of Chef Tilkian’s velvety house cured salmon. The first course was the one I’d been dreading because, well, I don’t like scallops. Billed as citrus crusted salmon with baby fennel salad and citrus fennel broth, we received three fat crispy scallops in a pale green fragrant sea. The scallops were nicely crispy, and I ate two without my usual scallop gag-reflex. Then I grabbed my soup spoon and lapped up the broth. I damn near picked up the bowl and licked it. The salad was a bistro classic Lyonnaise: frisee. Belgian endive, croutons, lardons, fingerlings, poached egg and warm sherry vinaigrette. Never discount the pleasure of breaking the yolk of a poached egg over a dish of greens, potatoes and pork. The vinaigrette sang, and I remember thinking: “I can do this. Why don’t I? It’s a perfect lunch.” My husband announced that he couldn’t eat another bite, and offered his main to the wait staff. They said “No, no. no, you have to try this” and wrapped up his “Bunny to Go.” Roast rabbit is a gutsy choice for a media dinner, and I applauded the decision to serve it rather than, say her steak frites. I’ve only ever eaten rabbit braised, and I found the roasted version tasty but, well, chewy. It was served over a puddle of the best polenta ever to pass my lips – it included bacon, brilliant green favas, artichokes and (real) baby carrots. The white wine/rabbit jus was as good as the scallop broth. Dessert was an individual apple tart, garnished with a disk of dried apple and a dab of Danish blue ice cream. The actual pastry was ho hum, but the ice cream and apple combo was so good I beat the edge of my plate with my fork. I did mention I love apples and cheese, right? The garnishes are pretty, the stemware and china would be right at home in a three star joint, and I can’t remember any annoying music, which is always a blessing. Starters range in price from 8 to 12 bucks, mains from 18 to 32. Maijean deserves to be right up there in “The Best of the Burbs.” Maijean 30 N. Prospect Clarendon Hills, IL 630 794.8900

Holy jumpin' catfish! This isn't a gathering, it's a convention. But it's Chicago, Convention Central, and Sweet Home.

I feel like a lucky woman, or a happy moron. Maybe I haven't paid attention to the eating habits of my friends and family, probably because I've had my head in my plate, food touching, eating in no particular order and inhaling everything. (With time out for chat, telling cats they aren't welcome on the table and yacking politics and religion.) If I leave something on my plate it means I'm full. It must be exhausting, counting bites and worrying about food co-mingling. And, I've been known to mingle pasta in a dish if the shapes are about the same weight and surface area. Makes for a cheery dish.

I think they're talking about lovely Lucullus, at 610 Chartres in the Quarter.

My hair coloriste is a young woman who actually cooks, and we chat about food every six weeks when I put myself in her brilliant hands and say: "You are the Holbein of hair. Do whatever you want." Jennifer has told me that she's "picky." She's also seven months pregnant. I told her about a watermelon/tomato sorbet a friend made, and she turned paper white and retched into the (handy) sink. All us ladies with foil on our heads gasped. She returned to me and my head. "I'm so sorry. But I detest any member of the melon family and raw tomatoes mystify me -- so slimy. The thought of eating either of them makes me shudder, even when I'm not pregnant. What kind of sicko would deliberately put them together?" Um, a good cook I know.

There are two genres I can guess don't have much to say about food: Science Fiction and Westerns. I'm no expert on Sci-Fi or Oaters, I admit. Maybe because what I've read hasn't had many food descrpitions?

Isabel Allende in "Aphrodisiac." Any novel by Laurie Colwin Oliver Twist: "Please sir, may I have more?" "A Christmas Carol", come to think of it. Nancy Mitford's books swell with food descriptions. Mark Twain's "The Appetite Cure." The Bible Dave the Cook and I had a week long Daily Gullet piece about food in the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe novels here.

Snap! In Ottawa my mother's copy of "Purity" is sitting in the cookbook bookcase in exactly thesame condition you describe yours. I'm wondering how many Canadian Society me mbers have their mother's or grandmother's workhorse copy of "Purity." (The name referred to a brand of flour, I believe, not the nominal chastity of its owners.)

Ah, takes me way back. My grandmother did this when the White Album came out -- just for chronological purposes, altho, come to think of it , Liverpool was 30 miles from where she was born. It was like an "I Love Lucy" episode. We stared, dazed and confused, at the suds rising halfway up the lower cabinets. Then someone turned off the dishwasher and we laughed 'till our sides hurt.

Smoked oysters. Yum. Wrap each in enough bacon to encircle it, skewer with a toothpick, and broil until the bacon's cooked. Back in the 60s this was one off my mother's favorite drinks nibbles: I call them WASP rumaki.

If you plug Ultimate Coconut Cake into the recipe search feature at marthastewart.com, there's a nifty video demo by Robert Carter from the Peninsula Grill.

I’m a pragmatist about how much kitchen storage I have, and a realist about worn out dreck kitchen equipment I’ve accumulated since Creedence broke up. Viz: all those fancy shrimp deveiners kind friends have given me – I just pull out those blue slimies with my fingernails. The odds and sods from numerous sets of china, the orphaned juice glasses, those expensive electric self-contained deep fryers (a thousand bucks down the tube for dross right there!) All those expensive crappy non-stick pots and pans from the early nineties, again gifts from people who loved me. Ditto the gleaming Teutonic steel I could never raise an edge on. (Mind you, I’ll be buried with my collection of pie birds, one of which gets used every two years.) This historical meandering through my kitchen is to establish my cred as a non-hoarder. If it doesn’t work, I 86 it. Flash to dinner last night. We had home made puff pastry (butter has been on sale here) and roast chicken leftovers, with stock from the bits and the carcass. Sounds like chicken pot pie, a tiny CPP. (He did roll it and prick it and mark it with M – in peas.) It was good. A few hours later, after writing and chatting with friends, I finished the dishes and tossed the rolling pin into a drawer whose sole purpose is being a holding place for the rubber mallet, the rolling pin, and some good silver serving pieces that come out at feasts. For some reason I actually looked into the drawer and spotted my honeymoon- acquired at Crate and Barrel “Croque Monsieur” iron. It cost about 3.50, probably 15 bucks in today’s currency, made in France, aluminum. I hadn’t seen it or touched it in twenty years. Given my minimalist approach to kitchen storage and practicality, why in Sam Adams did I still own this? (Well, I bought it a year after a romantic Paris spring, when I ate Croque Monsieurs from street vendors for lunch. Every day.) I have cast iron skillets and a panini grill, should I need to brown and melt sandwiches Oh frabjous day! I’d been feeling a mite peckish, and, what the heck, I had cheese odds and ends, soft butter, and some jalapenos. I buttered the shell-like aluminum crevices with love and a certain “Je ne regret rien” vibe, sliced cheese and jalapenos, found a couple of soon to go stale rolls, and clamped this primitive but pretty item together. Onto the gas flame it went. I’d forgotten that the lip around the edge seals the filling within – which skillets and panini grills don’t – and I felt 21 again. I want to hear about your kitchenware lost and found. When have you kicked yourself for selling a space grabber for 50 cents at a tag sale when you could use it Right Now? Have you, as I did last night, found a Sleeping Beauty and put it to use, thankful that it never hit the AmVets box? And what, against all price and reason, did you chuck because it just didn’t work?

ooh, that sounds good. flour or corn? ← A PMS classic, carbs and protein. I like the flooding part.

I'm no mental health expert, amateur or pro. To quote, (I believe) the "Book of Common Prayer," our food neuroses are an outward and visible sign of our inward and spiritual wonkiness. And as DivaLV says, at what point does a preference become a neurosis? I think Steven's mother's refusal to accept a free carton of brown eggs over white is a teeny weird, unless she's covering them with sequins and gilt and turning out mini Faberge egss a la Martha Stewart. Maybe she'd rethink her prejudice if she was told, as I was, that the shell of a brown egg is slightly thicker than that of a white egg, and is less susceptible to hairline cracks and salmonella. (I don't actually know if that's true.) I have a friend who won't eat scrambled egss, no matter how good, without hot sauce. I mean, he'll freak! That is certainly a preference, but he's so hysterical about it that it might push him over to neurotic status.

Oh Dearie Me. This is indeed an offense to your manhood, and a charcuterie tragedy. As my English grandmother would have said:"Keep your pecker up."

Martha Stewart Omnimedia has acquired the Emeril band for 45 million cash and 5 million in stock. That's for the shows, the books and the merchandise. He'll hang on to the restaurants. Read more :here

I second Chris's roast chicken idea. It's easy and somehow festive for a midweek meal. These days I'm in love with homemade chocolate sodas for dessert -- ain't nothing easier.

So Maggie, do you put that non-functioning dishwasher to other uses such as to store your baking sheets, pan lids, cooling racks, etc? ← I'm not that smart, but I'm going to move some baking equipment tonight. Thanks, Anna.

My kitchen is 5 X 8, and I'm gonna show you how cluttered and crazy it can be during dinner rush -- the flour on the counter is for rolling out the naan. I hope none of you will think less of me by showing you the belly of the Beast. (The dishwasher hasn't worked in five years, but we'll replace it when we have disposable income.) It'll be all sparkling and pretty, like your shots, in a couple of hours. We have decent counter space, and even with its tiny dimensions I've found that three friendly people can be productive. And yes, we hang everything.

Jackal's not a first-time blogger.

I think it's a loving thing if anyone, irrespective of age or gender, cooks for me. Of course it's great if it's a man. But here's the thing: all my best male friends, ex-lovers and husband are real cooks, not simply slap a steak on the Q guys. Heck, even my only brother is a caterer! The men in my life who cook outnumber the women, and I take it for granted: this is the world as I know it. It's delightful, but, well normal. In the spirit of role reversal, some men might find a woman staring at his undercarriage draining his oil sexy. (I think a Boston Cream Pie might get even better results.)

The vagueries of the kitchen design at my parents' house involves a kinda prune colored tile in the kitchen area which bleeds into a white-tiled surface in the en suite breakfast dining room. Mummy was always happy to have prep help --potato peeling, cherry pitting -- to be performed at the table. When hoverers descended when she was finishing the Cumberland Sauce, or the Pavlova, she'd yell :"Off the Purple (Floor) Now!" "Off the Purple!" has entered the family vocab when talking about boundary issues. I'm lucky. The "violators" of my space have been mostly male friends, lovers, and husband, all cooks. Two strong arms to lift the stock pot? A man to admire my pastry technique? Fond hands under my apron? It's all good.

The most interesting food shows have always been on PBS, for lo, these many decades.