Cooking And Eating....“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es”

  flatbeans, around a pile of shitake risoto,....surmounted with a cube of spicy tofu, crowned with a single pea, wearing a topknot drop of excruciatingly hot sriracha chili sauce,,,,,siphoning makhani gravy...... I added tiny cocktail straws to the beans....to 'butterfly feed' the pungent sauce to the tongue-tip, bypassing sensitive lips being blistered....

  My cooking is much like Dona Flor's, although I dress more like her sleazy husband as I combine flavors, textures, colors and composition ....or Lasse Hallström's Chocolat character...or, better....LIke Water for Chocolate's Tita, the offspring of my kitchen obsessions, unlike Babette Hersant's 'spread'...created, to open the libidinal labyrinths of isolated and repressed victims of their own slot-sized view of worldliness....reflects the general, and sometimes specific, state of mind that I'm in........ Today has been a very narrow color palate......brown, tan, orangey greenish....monochromes......I think this is a result of my clamping down, emotionally, over the interrogation of Christine Blasey Ford within the constraints of the eyes of propriety, custom and habituation.....Like Winona Ryder's character in Girl Interrupted, I know that the only way 'out' of the rut of madness and confusion, is artistic expression.......although I know

I cut up an herb-roasted chicken......sauted a large, chopped vidalia onion in safflower oil, added the chicken, red bell peppers, cilantro, pepper, cooked black beans, a handful of walnut halves, chopped basil, croutons with Italian seasonings, chole masala (ground coriander, cumin, pomegranate seeds, dry mango, black salt, red chili, bay leaf, black pepper, clove, cinnamon, fenugreek leaves and black cardamon........) hot chili oil and fresh sliced ginger.........cook for 3 or 4 minutes, in a wok...........dish it up, and serve with a fresh, exotic salad of lettuces, radicchio, cilantro, endive, cashews dipped in honey and covered with sesame seeds, & a dash of Prelibato white balsamic vinegar with a splash of cashew oil.............don't forget a glass of nutty white wine.........yummy! for dessert......coconut gelato with lightly salted pine nuts..... & a cup of coffee with heavy cream........

everything got into the swimming 'pot' this afternoon......yet another vegan party in a pot.....this batch even has candied prunes, basil chutney, pickled limes, fresh spinach, candied ginger, smoky chipotle lentil hummus, sliced black olives, leftover sushi rice, and some end-of-the jar Major Grey's mango chutney, all swimming around in a thickened tomatoey cilantro/mushroom broth.....

  After WW1, with millions 'dead or wounded'.....Edith Wharton wrote The Age Of Innocence and Emily Post wrote Etiquette......Watching a few minutes of RBG's 'Formal Funeral'......as pompous as it 'seemed'......I thought of how Diplomacy and Etiquette serve to 'tame' Human's more bestially instinctive combative behavior.... But, where does one 'begin' when the scenario is both highly complex AND was never designed for the common man, to begin with? In this 'picture' of a 'place setting'......are the instruments for courses of hors d'oeuvres, toast points and cream soup?.....and the prerequisite hygienic tools,,,,linen 'lap' napkins, finger bowls and gauze-covered lemon slices? Yet, when animals are aroused, its a combat zone......daggers, unsheathed.....dogs, snarling over 'floor' scraps......ants and rodents, making 'off' to their lairs in the walls.

  after all of last week's raw calves' heart, sheep's pancreas', and liver pate'......it's time for a 'clean out'..... grated, aged hard blue cheese, atop raw cabbages in a jalapeno/avocado/horseradish mayonnaise; carrots; spicy, dessicated corn; green 'yard' onions; toasted pine nuts and sunflower kernels; and sliced tomatoes, marinated in dill and Prelibato white balsamic vinegar........

 atop quinoa cooked in chicken stock and crushed jarred pimentos, then sprinkled with mediterranean herbs, garlic seasalt and a mix of green beans, tiny carrots and potatoes  pan-cooked in avocado/toasted sesame oil, with dill, chopped basil and ground orange and purple peppers.....

  It doesn't have to be that well-plated to satisfy a 4 am growling stomach...a grilled ....crunchy, extra, extra sharp cheddar cheese sandwich on 12-grain 'end pieces'...with some dribbles of the last of the plum/oyster sauce.....(inedible ring added, to elevate this peasant fatfest, without adding even more calories) ....having watched Iron Chef America's 'Duck Fat Challenge'.....this decadent iron skillet concoction was cooked in butter and....well, Duck fat!.... where's that glass of 3%? The Human Body's fat cells love 'company'.....you can starve them with grapefuit juice and lowfat yoghurt...but they will only hunger for bacon grease and butter, until they 'have their fill'..... 11am 'penance', after my palate demanded some macaroni with cheese and proscuitto at sunrise.......'take this!.....or it's tofu and bean sprouts for the remainder of this week, Mr. Fat and Sugar addiction! ' ......'Bullshit, with

crunchy Japanese panko-crusted chicken tenderloins......in one of three not so Japanese flavors.......with coriander chutney, with cilantro/green pepper paste, and here...a l'Orange, although skinless......My Kitchen abhors a clean stove top, an empty counter or sink........So, since there's a mess already......I'm in the mood for some crispy fried okra tempura and skinny green beans with dill ..........Martha Stewart made me do it...even though she was wearing the ugliest gold lurex top & gold necklace, with a pair of atrocious fake pearl pendant earrings on Chopped, yesterday.......and had the nerve to comment on the competitors' 'Presentation'.......my bare plates of tenderloins would have gotten the 'ax'........I've got to drizzle some goop around the plate, do the obligatory 'smear' and 'top' the chic with some pickled dandelion greenery.......Oh!.....there's the coriander chutney!...there you go, Martha!

....with 4 aged cheeses, sliced scallions, shitake mushrooms, red bell peppers and chopped marjoram, thyme and beet greens....iron-skillet cooked in butter and truffle oils......with a pair of deep-fried semolina puffs, filled with savory herbed clotted cream and topped with peppery cilantro, brushed with walnut oil......some 'dribbles' of hoisin, mixed with oyster sauce and aged, powdered La Chinata smoked paprika, coarse-ground peppercorns and turmeric....... 5:00 supper.......with cardamon expresso...and cardamon bun.....

Most of us have that 'most loved' food....usually, a version or replica of a childhood memory......Mine is a plateful of thin, crunchy baking powder biscuits, split...while hot....then spread with apple butter and 'filled' with a scramble of eggs, red bell peppers, sliced scallions, diced herbs, 2 or three kinds of grated cheeses, chopped cilantro and parsley, and fresh spinach & shitake mushrooms...sauteed in herbed butter.........When I was five, breakfasting with 5 cousins, 5 aunts and uncles, my grandparents and a couple of their friends that usually stopped by on Sunday mornings for some of my Grandmother's delicious cooking......I 'had' only one...and, usually, wished that someone 'wouldn't show up' and I'd have 'another'....and that was still problematic, since my ravenously hungry cousins were 'hawk-eyed' on the platter of biscuits, also..... Since "EVERYONE' wanted the 'extra' biscuit, but were ta

As a child, lychees were only available, already out of their outer skins.......in jars and cans....I found them, as a ten year old,  and later...into my adulthood,  to be slimy and disgusting.....decades later,  I came across some 'fresh from the tree' lychee 'nuts'......sliced one open......and, voila!.....super delicious.......  This was like finding a greenish banana, after years of having only blackening, over-ripe ones...

 Chinese cabbages pan cooked with red chili peppers,  lemongrass, garlic, kaffir lime peel, roasted sunflower seeds, shallots, ginger, white vinegar, and hot & spicy sweet chili sauce........

  HOW WOULD HANNIBAL L. IMPROVE ON GIBSON'S CLASSIC BRUNSWICK STEW?     I ADDED SOME FAVA BEANS AND SOME HOT INDONESIAN SPICES TO THE MIX, AND SUBTRACTED THE PIG FLESH, TO 'SHAKE IT UP' FROM THE OLD STEWS THAT I GREW UP WITH, AND HAD A COUPLE OF TIMES A MONTH AS 'TAKE-OUT' FROM 'Gibson's Barbeque' IN HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA.    

  So much for my sushi cravings this morning.....every teddy bear likes a flour burrito, filled with leftovers! This plain-looking 'roll-up' is packed with two dozen 'secret' ingredients, with it's 'flavor profile' directed by hot yellow Indian curry and jalapeno peppers, whole-leaf cilantro, scallions, spicy purple fingerlings, black-eyed peas in diablo sauce, sweet corn marinated in sourwood honey and tabasco puree, chopped pan-friend chicken with thyme, rosemary, orange sea salt and red curry, diced home-made pickled orange beets, curried lady peas and spicy okra chutney......rolled tightly in a bland-appearing camouflage of a Mexican flour tortilla, browned a bit in a hot pan 'painted' with walnut and truffle oils......Now....to make a sherbet from the leftover honeydew melon....hmm.......

  heavily herbed chicken cooked in ghee, then crusted with picante-asiago cheese and topped with super-spicy piquillo pepper and quinoa and red pepper sauce over mixed field greens with walnut oil, Rochefort cheese, sunflower seeds, walnuts and prelibato white balsamic vinegar......just what I wanted....exactly! The pan-fried oatmeal, ginger cookies were not so successful, and are being re-processed into something sweet, but still undetermined......

  Ritual green curry with flatbeans; enormous raisins; sweet/sharp/bitter onions; savory date chutney; short-grained rice cooked in plum juice and rasam in boiled quail's head stock; portabello mushroom slices, sauteed in clarified butter & hot madras curry powder; bamboo shoots and artichoke paste....in homage to Brian Cook and Luc Besson.....Wake up, lads!......Tongues will tell! .......Beverage, extra! Peel me a grape, for a 'palate cleanser'......and, don't eat the brooch!....it's just ornamental, like those red berries that even cardinals are wary of.......