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

  whole wheat pasta with corn salsa, shaved truffles in oil, oil-cured tomatoes, crushed pine nuts and red bell peppers......mixed green & red bell pepper + pimento salad with carrot/ginger/garlic dressing.....and potato chips with calamari, shrimp, green bell peppers and hot red peppers........

LIGHTLY TOASTED GOLDEN PECAN WHOLE GRAIN BREAD, SPREAD WITH YELLOW CURRY SAUCE, THEN  GENEROUSLY SPREAD WITH BABA GANOUSH, COVERED WITH THINLY SLICED BAKED HAM, SPRINKLED WITH TABBOLEH... .... FOR A CAFFEINATED AFTERTHOUGHT ,     an afternoon wake-up for another chilly, wet afternoon.....an expresso with Tia-Maria and cinnamon, in a cup decorated with the 'five of hearts' and 'six of clubs'.....representing 'abandoned loves' and 'compromised relationahips'....fenced by bittersweet chocolate-topped peanut/granola slabs and a few toasted coconut and cocoa chips... ..

  IT'  S AS MUCH ABOUT THE AESTHETICS AS ABOUT JUST 'EATING'.....NOT THAT DOGS CARE VERY MUCH FOR THIS DINING SCENARIO.......AND, MANY HUMANS JUST EAT FROM PAPER BAGS, WITH PLASTIC UTENSILS.....WITH THEIR CHOW DRIPPING FROM 'WRAPPERS',  INTO THEIR LAPS......WITH NEARBY DOGS, WHINING FOR BITS AND PIECES....

  An 'iffy' Fin de siècle Ayurvedic-ish concoction.......Absinthe pan cakes with diced prunes, Alandia Strong68 absinthe (or 'legal' Pernod, in a pinch), butter, cinnamon, thin-sliced toasted amonds, pecan and almond meal/flours.....beneath a sorgham/agave & salted caramel 'skinny syrup' mix... and a slab of unsalted butter......

  and grasshoppers, holly snails, and bamboo shoots, fortunately, are within yards of my back door......for a while, a  greengrocer sold his veggies from the back of a station wagon, parked on the side of Johnson Rd.....until a teenager, distracted by her Smartphone, collided with his 'food truck'.....a police report, presented in traffic court, led to his being fined for 'selling foodstuffs without a license' and impeding traffic flow on a major thoroughfare......Yet, I refuse to be funneled over to Dusty's Drive-through....

I couldn't resist...not that I wanted to.....a couple of Kroger 'mark downs'.....$1.99 for a huge bag of collard greens and $2.49 for a pound of hickory-smoked bacon......I cooked the greens in chicken stock, adding lots of chopped scallions, pomegranate liquor, ground peppers, Cajun seasoned salt, pulverized raisins, tobasco sauce, chopped garlic, rice wine vinegar, Mexican Valentina salsa picante and the tiny bits of honey-roasted cashew nuts that were left at the bottom of a bag......something that my grandmother would never have considered, of course...... thick, Prelibato red vinegar was dizzled over the cooked concoction......I decided to serve them with feather-light old-fashioned white cornmeal corn sticks, carmelized in the old Martin Stamping and Stove cast iron cornstick mold.......Now, I wish that I had made some black-eyed peas to accompany this N. Alabama-ish afternoon treat... The eventual destination.....after the cornsticks were all eaten......on a potato p...

  mistake of the day!......I should have just bought a box of frozen, "custard-filled", eclairs @ Kroger.......Instead, not paying enough attention....I bought a box of 'fresh' eclairs.....not noticing that they were filled with this overly-sweet, white slop.......A had one, anyway; but, even after gulping down a cup of strong coffee, that horridly sweet, chemical aftertaste still lingers! Yuk! I took the 'box' out of the garbage, where I'd tossed the inedible eclairs, and noted the list of ingredients!.....What! : and, to think, this crap is fed to young children, rewarding them on 'Special Occasions' with 'stuff' that will insure their early decline in health and general emotional well-being! Even brushing my teeth and gargling with mouthwash won't 'get the taste out'.....Even Trader Joe's has abandoned 'selling' of some of it's more 'healthful' desserts, because sales were too low....consu...