Hot Dog!

In America, we have a holiday for everything and today is National Hot Dog Day. I'll take it. It was a wonderful excuse to buy a dirty-water dog on my way home to walk Grace today and finish off half-a-can of baked beans from Sunday night's Cowboy Chili & Baked Bean Pot. (Of course, the real canine got to share; she was beside herself with joy!) (With apologies to Julio Iglesias and Willy Nelson) To all the 'dogs I've loved before: pølse in Reykjavik, that unbelievably delicious sausage on Yawkey Way outside Fenway Park, "monkey food" (hot-dog-and-bean casserole) at my Massachusetts cousins', beer-braised brats beside the river in Milwaukee...I've had a few memorable ones in my day.

Celebrating Bastille Day

Too hot today to do the can-can, so I pulled together a big pot of ratatouille from SIMPLE FRENCH COOKING. The eggplant prep was far easier than in other recipes: slice, brush with olive oil, broil on both sides 'til brown, chop in 1" pieces. These herbes de Provence Leigh gave me a couple of Christmases ago are still fragrant and put the Provençal sunshine in the stew. Bonne fête!

Summer's Here

With the arrival of summer on Friday, one's thoughts turn toward cold soups. In my recent ritual of Sunday soup-making (preparing for lunches in the week ahead), I've made split pea, lentil, Manhattan clam chowder, tomato, and more from JOY. Today, I turned to my old NYTIMES BREAD AND SOUP COOKBOOK for a classic vichyssoise. Easy once you chop the onions, slice and clean the leeks, peel and slice the potatoes. The advantages of a cold soup on a hot day do not include the hour or so the ingredients simmer on the stovetop. In the end, the velvety texture and fresh-from-the-garden scent, with its bright confetti of chives, icy on the tongue, is well worth the effort.

Kale--too much of a good thing.

You can't buy it by the leaf or by the ounce. You've got to take a big bunch and either throw it away or wrack your brain to find a recipe to use it in. Look up "kale" in the index of older cookbooks and you won't find much; it's a veggie on an upward, farm-to-table trend. I'm not saying it's not pretty.

I'm just saying, it's a tricky ingredient. I put it in a white bean and mini ravioli soup last night and it flopped all over the spoon, spattering vegetable broth everywhere. I hate when that happens. Tonight's saute with mushrooms, a shallot, leek, and dried cranberries was much more flavorful and easier to eat, though it doesn't look like much wilted. "Wilted" is not a good food word.

What was I thinking?

It was love at first sight when I read the recipe for "Chili Mac" in the sample pages of the next edition of the Taste of Home Simple & Delicious Cookbook. Actually, my thought was, "Oh, Chuck will love this!" Any hungry guy would. Elbow macaroni, canned chili, ground beef, cheddar cheese... the only work besides twisting the can opener this required was chopping a green pepper and an onion. I'm embarrassed to say I made it, but then again, there are days when the sun never breaks through the clouds, kicked-up slush gets into your boots, and there's nothing to do buy pig out on junk food. Actually, this wouldn't make a bad stuffed pepper or baked-potato topping: up the vegetable quotient and the guilt may diminish.

This leg has legs

After a very merry meal of roast leg of lamb for Christmas (with its glaze of red currant jelly, pomegranate molasses, lemon, and more sweet-savory flavors

), we made a navarin printanier from MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING. We often have this as Le Veau d'Or, but now that we know we can make a reasonable facsimile, I think we can enjoy their delicious sole more often.

What Is It About Chicken Pot Pie?

I am absolutely obsessed with mini chicken pot pies. I could eat one every night of my life. Tonight's was delicious: cobbled together from an on-line recipe that had a puff pastry topping which I replaced with the shortcut pastry from SIMPLE FRENCH COOKING. It called for basil, salt, and pepper which I enhanced with celery salt. It must be the Chicago in me, but that celery salt made it! A mini pie is like doll food: a tiny, perfect approximation of the adult version. Eating out of this little foil pan, I feel like myself at six, sitting cross-legged in Weston, CT, with Susie Rogers, pretending that we're at a dinner party, eating out of old bowls Mom didn't mind if we broke. During this mid-life crisis of my career crashing down around me, at least there's something that gives total satisfaction.