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

   Braised Bok Choy with a sticky plum and soy 'gravy',  sesame and sunflower kernels, pomegranate molasses,  powdered cashews and crushed pomegranate seeds.............

  The "Luncheon Challenge" today......a friend asked "Why, on earth, would you eat chicken liver, Reed.......it is totally disgusting!"......I took that as a challenge, of course.....to hold a mirror to his 'closed mind'...... By the time he 'got here'...20 minutes later...I had experimented with some new, untried, ideas.....hmmm.......got it!..... Chicken livers, breaded with white corn grits, dehydrated onions, basil, lots of dried rosemary, chervil and green onions (from my front yard)....then pan-fried in oil, sprinkled with coarse ground multi-colored peppercorns and Oliver & Taylor Tuscan 'barbeque' seasoning with Moroccan cinnamon and sea salt......over a 'bed' of brown rice......Served with a dipping sauce of ginger, carrot pulp/juice, sesame oil, tumeric and rice vinegar.... Response from my friend: "Well......I hate to admit it, but I really like this!"...... Task accomplished..... for those peo...

Merlin, wrestling with an old Teddy Bear, left its head on the kitchen floor, then brought in an enormous spider, to demonstrate his 'hunting skills'..... so, I commemorated this combination of events, adding a ValuJet pin that I found on the sidewalk, a chocolate-covered coffee bean, and the plastic spider that came in a bag of Dollar Store kiddiecorn........ to my griddle cake 'bear'..... There....Merlin.....we Humans like to play with our food, too!

  Toasted sourdough, spread with Benarian tamarind samosa chutney, piled high with shredded roasted turkey breast, drizzled with plum sauce, and topped with clover sprouts and and drops of pad  Thai sauce and a bit of shrimp paste..... 

I become a dessert and sweets 'victim', yet again.......I'll just blame this proclivity on everyone in my lineage that ate the parsnips, boiled turnips  and roasted rhubarb......only to 'deserve' the rich desserts that follow eager anticipation........

'mortared' dissicated English peas with dried wasabe, nutty arborio rice cooked in chicken stock with a dozen herbs and butter; sliced 'French' style breaded chicken breast...cooked in wine, garlic, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, chives, parsley, cilantro and sun-dried tomato strips; 'garnished' with golden sauteed elephant garlic and yellow sea salt....

  the sweet potato that had been hidden under a magazine, is still delicious.......I'm cooking only with abandoned stuff.....the last of this and that......emptying bottles, jars, cans and bags of their contents and creating edible taste delectations from their remaining excavated or drained contents.....sweet, hot, sour and spicy, in complex combinations, is the usual 'default'.....Just yesterday, washing dishes, I listened to NPR.....Bee Wilson, discussing with Terry Gross, the forming and shaping of a child's tastes........The introduction of complex and unusual taste combinations to children, during early development, will more likely produce adults with wide range of tastes and more experimental approaches to novelty and their acceptance of the unfamiliar....This may account for the coolness of the Thai people, the dullness of the British, and the extreme omnivorousness of the desperate and the creative.....

6 minutes from skillet to bowl..........shrimp cooked in butter and sesame oil, with lotsa herbs and garlic.....on a bed of couscous.....Moroccan/French tastiness for mid-afternoon.......having declined "driving to Dunwoody", waiting for a table and shelling out $26 for, practically, the same thing.......

This morning I finally made a taco that, when bitten into, does not drop any of its components onto my lap, the table or floor......but, is still juicy and tender......the 'secret' is in the combination of asiago, mozzarella, fontana and cheddar cheeses....