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

Ginger tea, preserved orange and lemon peels in honey, with English walnuts atop chia seed, and cognac-marinated black raisin fruitcake fill the bill on a chilly morning......reconstructed from a taste-memory from last night's Muted-Colour Dream of High Tea at Harrods, 40 years ago......displacing a rather boring pre-dawn intention to have a poached egg on sourwood toast......demonstrating how dreams can enhance the ordinariness of a chilly, housebound morning, viewing...for the umpteenth time......Ang Lee's hyper-detailed romantic study of Jane Austin's "Sense & Sensibility"s focus on elegant dining at a well-appointed Table....guests, all in beautiful Jenny Beavan finery.......may I utilize your dessert fork, if you will, Zack MacLeod Pinsent, since you can, surely, nibble this...even while wearing white gloves?

  yet, Americans still awaken after sleeping on their fat asses, declaring "I'm starving to death!".....as they raid their fridges and stovetops  for yesterday's high-calorie leftovers..... This Thursday.....Thanksgiving Day.....a couple of hundred million people will be gorging on the 'products' seen on this table.....with little variation.......

a fat, fried chicken leg and a small salad was 'enough', this afternoon.....with 'room for dessert', later.......

I was, again,  thinking about the "meat processing plant" scene in ' GUN CRAZY'. ....wherein Peggy and John escape through a maze of  thousands of animal carcasses........which set me to thinking about the trillions of creatures we humans slaughter and consume.........There must be SOMETHING I can eat with impunity! Mass production of just about anything seems to lead to greed, chemicals and disrespect for living things......A case for back yard organic vegetable farming....and forget about the animals! The vast majority of the 74 billion chickens that we slaughter and devour spend their lives in total confinement—from the moment they hatch until the day they are murdered.....hundreds of millions spend their lives, confined to lay eggs......and on and on.... This number does not typically include the additional 6 billion male chicks killed annually because they are not profitable for the egg-laying industry.   ..I'm going on a speckled butter bean and rice diet fo...

blazin' hot luncheon of thick bean soup, with diced tomatoes, potatoes, speckled butterbeans, crowder peas, Italian flat beans, fire-roasted red peppers, raisins and apricots....seasoned with coriander seeds, cumin, coriander paste, ginger, cloves and powdered bay leaves......