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

  a Wok Run with giant bok choy..........sliced it into strips, quick wok-cooking it in almond oil, then adding some chili oil, crushed garlic....lots of it,...hoi san sauce, oyster sauce, mediterranean herbs, some plum sauce, and a few leftover condiments from the fridge.......after the stems were tender, I served it with hot....as in 'spicy'..... mango/habanero salsa.......

  It has to be eggs with various cheeses, red bell peppers coarsely ground aromatic peppers and herbs, atop sourdough toast, slathered with any of many fruit preserves or apple butter........often, with thinly-sliced green tomatoes......  [ and #2 has to be 'Nut Butter...(almond/cashew/macadamia/peanut), sliced greenish banana, and blueberry preserves on fancy, toasted bread.......... ]

6:30 .....awaken the dead....so much for my plan to get a 'good night's sleep'.......caffeine and pastry fix.......with some arduous 'hands adjustments' on some antique vest pocket watches.....distracted, easily enough, by a 1951 adaptation of Patricia Hightower's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY......and, some Gabriel Yared and Nat King Cole.......wafting from the kitchen radio.....toppling dominos of not quite random poetic juxtapositions........

  stage 4 of today's experimental 'salmon cakes'.......the 'final edition' is smeared with ginger/tamarind/garlic paste and sprinkled with pungent sliced yard scallion greens, over lemony cole slaw with 'mortar & Pestled' celery seeds and ground yellow and red hot peppers and a touch of harissa powder......

  If you believe that 'Art' is totally apart from 'Reality'.....you are, perhaps, 'half right'......and if you think you're a 'Wit', make sure that you're not 'half right'......I just made some steamed dumplings, then looking at the bland, colorless gyoza, decided to toss them into a pan of bubbling hot Hoi Sin sauce.......they turned a more appealing color, but exuded the cloying fragrance of sweet, caramelized soy beans.....so I added some jalapeno pepper, garlic and habanero peppers.....now, my late afternoon lunch is just right.......I thought of the bland dumplings as analogous to 'ordinary' Reality....and the final, delicious chow as Art.....well, the way I make it...anyway.....When Life and Art coalesce....that's where the evolution takes place.....The where, changing, become the when for the next moment......understanding the grammar of thinking enables the expression, in words, of our grand illusion.....For those who

  Breaded eggplant ravioli caponata, alla Siciliana, with melted shaved Parmesan and Fontina cheeses...in memory of Eugene (Louis) and Mary Leone, who taught me pasta-making during their trip to visit my parents to present his 'plan' for a grand Las Vegas Mama Leone's......Louis squandered his family's hard-earned money on a foolish venture, and by 1959.....it was sold to some commercial New York 'Italian Restaurant' Chain.....Before meeting the Leone's, I had only eaten Chef Boyardee ravioli....from a can.......Alabama wasn't an Italian food Mecca, exactly....in the mid 1950's......

  kitchen mix-up......potato pasta 'eggs' with South Indian curried eggplant, grilled mushrooms, carmelized Vidalia onions and 'i don't remember what', topped with dry, aged grated roquefort cheese; pickled salad of okra, white onions and hot red peppers over cold spicy yam noodles; and mashed yams with garlic, mango/currant/ginger chutney and curried goat.....completed with leftover 'nutty', whiskeyed mincemeat in a whole wheat/walnut crust.....

a friend's food photos, I was inspired to coat beef tips with coarse, stone-ground corn grits, pan fry them with aromatic herbs, then pressure cook them in red wine, and serve with carrots, sauteed in spicy Asian orange sauce with hot peppers, & red potatoes cooked with corn and black bean and pepper salsa, flavored with chopped deep-fried rosemary...... talk about "depth of flavor"..... . !

After the 'deep clean-up' .....time to mess it up again!..... Currently, a bean-less Chili.....with sun-dried, oil-cured tomatoes, sliced water chestnuts, ginger-garlic paste, tomatoes with chilis and chopped green bell peppers, pimentos, tiny 'loaves' of spiced pork sausage, powdered mushrooms and garlic, herbs de Provence, dried onions, minced parsley & cilantro, red chili powder, smoked paprika powder, harissa seasoning, chopped parsley and cilantro.......served at just above room temperature, with a bottle of Argentinian Brasero Malbec....... hand me the check, Gordon! This IS perfect!

a 'take off' of old school fried cubed steak with chicken gravy....a ubiguitous Southern staple food.......I tweaked it by rolling the steak in a dozen French herbs, some garlic and Cajun spice mix...for salt and tang... and replaced the old milk gravy with a thick soup of white Nebraska corn grits, rosemary-infused cream and butter, pepper, asiago, white cheddar and aged yellow cheeses.......yummy....I want some more! Now....back to bed to rid myself of this long-lingering influenza, with a dessert of an ancient bottle of glyceryl guaiacolate and a box of kleenex......

 What People eat, and why they eat what they eat is, largely, just a collusion  of conservatively fashionable formality's congruency  with Advertising.....and the dictates of conformity with Normalcy, isn't it?...

in the wooden bowl.....spiral spinach, cured sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke pasta, boiled with dried fungi and white northern beans with polenta cakes, fried with blackened mint chutney, atop..........

the last of 'the stew of leftovers'..........moving on to squid ink noodles and new ways to utilize them......how about an ink noodle 'cage' over a bed of squirming octopus tentacles? Or, a dome of ink pasta over a lake of plastic "Gilly" heads, that...when removed.....is a lake of quince paste with pickled peppers....a peck of pickled peppers....and tiny adzuki peas in okra 'slime'...........Hmmm.....how can I describe that...like, on a menu....so that diners won't be totally disgusted?

.....one side is butternut squash, tamari sauce, yellow onions, edamame and grated celery against another, far spicier side of red curry, chopped Vidalia onions, bamboo shoots, miniature corn on its cob, yellow raisins, sliced shitake mushrooms, pink rice cooked in coconut milk, pumpkin mash, hot chilis, chopped scallions, ginger, lemon grass and garlic.......combine the two 'halves' to suit your personal tastes......a trip to Thailand via Georgia......