We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
What would Italian cooking be like without their foods from the Americas?
Eg: tomatoes, potatoes, squash, baccala, corn (for polenta), bell pepper, chocolate, etc.
If you drive east from Milan on A-4, all you see are cornfields. It almost looks like Massachusetts, except for the Alps in the distance and the stone barns and farm houses.
A daughter and her (seemingly) true love are heading off for ten days in Japan tonight. This daughter been to lots of places in the world, but never Asia. (I have never been further east than Turkey, and have no desire for further.)
She emailed me and asked whether I had any travel advice for Japan. I told her all I know: "Omakase." It means that you want the sushi chef to surprise you with some spontaneous creations with his best stuff. I survived five years of lousy sushi, ended up calling it "bait." Now that I have found a superb relatively local joint, I am back on sushi.
As far as Italy is concerned, the way Mrs. BD and I lose weight in Italy is by sharing meals. One antipasto each for lunch, and one antipasto, one primi, and one secondi for supper to share. Lots of good tastes, lower volume. And lots of walking.
It's the time of year when my family's food interests turn to mollusks and crustaceans. It seems to be in their blood.
Oysters preferably on the half-shell, and cherrystones only on the half-shell. About that red seafood sauce with horseradish, for shrimp and clams and oysters etc - it is vulgar, overpowering stuff, but we love it anyway. It is the American wasabi.
Crabs: up north, we prefer them in their moulting soft-shell form, lightly sauteed in olive oil, butter, parsley, a touch of garlic, and white wine: three per person - it's the frugal way to eat the magnificent east coast Blue Crab because you eat the whole darn thing, shell, feathers and all - a perfect combination of crunch and succulence. I know how you pick at them on the Chesapeake - and that is damn good, but too much work.
Lobsters: We eat them as a gala treat but not too often as it is easy to grow tired of them. Always buy the big ones - one 6 lb. lobster has double the meat of six one-lb. lobsters (which are mostly shell). If they have the big ones, get the biggest and let them steam 'em for you. The story that the big ones are tougher than the babies is pure myth and an evil lie - the only tough lobster is a live one without the rubber bands. Plus the big guys are as dramatic on the table as a Thanksgiving turkey or a crown roast of lamb. Oh, did I mention that you never boil a lobster - you steam them. Boiling them washes half of their favor out of them. Toss the shells in the freezer, afterwards, and use them in your next fish stock.
Clam chowder - you have to have your own family recipe, but red clam chowder is disgusting.
Steamers? The best. Just use a few cups of water, and keep the clams above the water. Don't overcook 'em, or they will get too chewy. And do not dip them in butter - it overpowers their salt-marshy goodness. Best part? That broth. When you drink that hot broth out of a heavy mug you feel like you are reuniting with Mother Ocean - and you are. Left-over broth? To the freezer, for fish stock, along with steamer clam shells, fish heads and bones, lobster shells, etc. Wow.
And a simple oyster stew with heavy cream and paprika is nirvana - you must use large oysters, and never overcook them - just until they warm up and the edges begin to curl. The Oyster Bar (since 1913) makes the best oyster stew in the world in their custom-made, 100 year-old oyster stew steaming machines. Worth a trip to NYC and Grand Central Station just to sample their world-wide oysters - and that simple, heavenly stew. Poor-Boys and fried oysters? They aren't a bad thing at all, but only with those southern, less subtle oysters which come shelled in a container. The kind we use for oyster stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey.
And what is the finest oyster in the world? That's right, the ethereal Wellfleet Oyster, bathed in the fresh water from the Herring River. But don't try to cook him - it's a crime to do so, or should be. But we have done it - shame on us. Oysters Rockefeller from Wellfleet oysters.
Wines for these splendid delicacies from the sea? Champaigne is my first choice, and a Viognier is my second choice. Third choice - a French Chablis. Chardonnay with shellfish? No, no, no: try it and find out - they do not mix. Red wine with seafood? Certainly, if you feel like it. Who cares? Red surely is good with fish. I, for one, will not eat salt-water fish with white wine, but shellfish - for certain. Champagne with steamers? Very cool; very refined. Many prefer beer, though. (Steamers are the East Coast Buffalo Chicken Wings - only better.)
Image: a favorite Cape Cod salt marsh in Wellfleet, MA, full of steamer clams. You can fill a wire basket in 20 minutes, and come home hcovered with the black gooey happy marsh mud, looking something like this:
One of the most refreshing summer drinks ever invented.
Take a highball glass or large water glass filled with ice cubes, then fill halfway with lemonade, then sweetened iced tea to fill so it looks a bit layered. Slice of lemon. Straw. That's it.
Add some gin or vodka and it's a Dirty Arnold Palmer, but it really isn't necessary.
Lots of folks think bluefish are barely edible, but they are fit for a king when cooked the day they are caught, full of rich juicy fishy goodness. Mix in a bowl: mayonnaise, lots of chopped fresh ginger, some soy sauce, some salt and pepper, and chopped scallions. Coat both sides of the bluefish filets, then throw on the grill.
The secret to cooking many fish on the grill is to put a layer of aluminum foil on top of the grill, then cut a bunch of slits in the foil with a knife - it allows you to turn it without crumbling. Don't overcook - just 'til it flakes. Sprinkle with more chopped scallions when done on the flesh side, and serve with potato salad and green salad, crusty bread, martinis and champagne, and go to sleep happy, fulfilled, and thankful for God's bounty.
I've been using this recipe ever since I found it in John Hersey's 1987 bestseller "Blues" - a very fine and delightful book about fishing on the Islands - and about Life, of course. They might have it in that good bookstore on the main drag in Nantucket, but I'd be surprised. Anyway, they should.
The Bluefish is the favorite fast-food snack of the giant 500-1500 lb. Bluefin Tuna - a fish which I find inedibly dry and dull except as sushi. However, if you can find "toro" - the fatty belly meat of the Bluefin, which only can be found where Bluefin are regularly caught in Montauk, Cape Cod, and the Islands, season it with salt and pepper and throw that on the grill and it beats the best Kansas steak by a mile.
Ask your fish store up there to save you some. Be careful and use low coals, because it will flame up and burn far more than a steak. The Japanese pay through the nose for it, which is why we can't find toro at our local fishmongers. They ice it and put it on a plane to Japan, and probably eat it raw, which is a shame and a waste because good Yankee smoke and flame reveal its deeper character. Indeed, as with people.
A tip from a reader - you can do swordfish belly meat too - never tried it but it makes good sense.
Every once in a while I get a hankering for a good rare steak. My preference is for Ribeyes (sauteed rare in butter, at max heat, with red peppers) and T-bones on charcoal or wood - or on both.
The best T-bone I think I have ever had was in the steakhouse on the ship last month. Grilled perfectly, of course: burnt on the outside but still trying to walk away on the inside. The chef told us it was a Sterling Silver steak.
I can recommend their meat to you (and I have eaten in plenty of steaks over the years in the great NYC steakhouses).
Saddest thing is that I couldn't eat the whole thing. It was a thick steak, full of tasty fat. I have deliberately shrunk my stomach by eating small to try to avoid the middle-aged fat thing.
— My special thanks to D.M. for the nice contribution he made this morning to my Help Keep Doc From Gnawing Off His Right Foot fund. While the hospital has been real easygoing about the debt, the independent lab that did the in-depth blood work is already talking 'collection agency' for my being a whole month behind. On that note, it does seem in recent years that companies have become a lot more short-fused than in the past. My electric company gives you a whole 20 days before they cut your power, and without any further warning.
— I won't be posting much over the next week as I'll be saving up the goodies for when Bird Dog goes on vacation on the 1st. Who leaves for vacation on a Thursday is anybody's guess, but I figure he and the missus are headed for the Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit Predestinarian Baptist All Revival Revue & Clam Bake in Wopaskisquipsiecola, Mass, which starts on the 2nd.
As for the following, I turned yet another person on to this great drink the other day, so figured it deserved a repost.
Personally, I think coffee is one of the most putrid things I've ever tasted. I simply can't understand how it ever became popular in the first place. You'd think someone would have taken the first sip and gone, "Yuck! Ptooie!", and that would have been that.
On the other hand, I adore its effects.
If you feel the same way, try mixing it with chocolate milk. And I don't mean just adding a dab of chocolate, I mean making it half-and-half. It's called a 'mocha' ("mo'-kah") in the bar world and, while I wouldn't call it "great" tasting, it sure beats the hell out of straight coffee.
I boil half a cup of water in the microwave, then drop in a heaping teaspoon of Taster's Choice, some sugar cubes, then fill up the second half with chocolate milk. I have no idea if chocolate milk mixes tastefully with other brands of coffee or not as I've drunk Taster's Choice from the beginning. So, if you try this and it tastes terrible with your own brand of coffee, at least pick up a tiny jar of Taster's Choice and give it a try.
The chocolate milk should be the type you prefer, but you should test all available brands. Like there are different types of chocolate in the world of candy (Hershey bars vs Mars bars, e.g.), there are also different flavors of chocolate milk.
Remember, we're not looking for a big "Mmm, delicious!" moment when you take your first sip. Simply not gagging and retching is a good start. What you're basically shooting for is whichever milk makes the putrid coffee taste the most palatable.
On the subject, one of my favorite things in the world is my coffee mug warmer. Your local hardware store or K-Mart/Wal-Mart might carry them. What's fun is that the chocolate milk in the mocha settles slightly over time, so if you baby the mug along for an hour or two, it slowly goes from being a coffee-with-chocolate drink to a hot-chocolate-with-coffee drink, getting slightly sweeter all the while. In that way, the mocha is kind of unique, as it's actually a 'dynamic' drink in that the taste changes slowly over time.
As a small side note, I noticed while digging up the accompanying pic that there appears to be a number of USB-powered warmers on the market, although I'd have serious doubts they're very effective. A USB line carries an extremely low voltage and I'd guess that it'd take forever to warm up (by which time your coffee has gotten stone cold) and it wouldn't get very warm when it finally did. The regular wall-current models keep it piping hot.
And, ironically, the one place where you might use a portable, USB-powered coffee mug warmer would be, say, on vacation using your laptop — and the last thing you'd want to do at that point is purposefully drain the laptop's battery!
I like this refreshingly hot, crunchy Chinese pickled salad in the summer. Here's how I make it:
Peel and then cut some raw turnips (real turnips) into small (1 inch) bite-sized chunks. Same with some carrots. I cut them in irregular shapes. Some cauliflower chunks. Being a turnip person, I make it about 50% turnip. Chopped cabbage, too, if you want. Blanch them all in boiling water for a minute (separately, in order of color, or you will end up with orange cauliflower). You might want to give the turnip chunks a little more time to boil, but it's all meant to be crunchy.
If you want, some (unpeeled) raw cucumber chunks in it to add color and fun, great, but add those chunks at the last few minutes before straining because soggy cucumbers are not good.
Mix clear vinegar with some salt and a teaspoon or three of sugar (to taste). Toss in some of those very hot dried red Chinese peppers, also some red pepper flakes and/or fresh jalapeno slices, and some thin slices of fresh ginger root. It's fine without the ginger too.
Throw the roots and vegetables in a garbage bag or bowl with the mixture, cover, refrigerate 6-24 hrs, stirring it up occasionally. It should be meaningfully spicy, but it doesn't have to be.
I love cucumbers from my garden in the summertime. I harvested my first few this weekend.
Is anything more refreshing than a hot cucumber fresh off the vine?
I guess I prefer them as a dominant component, and not as a minor ingredient. Mixing tomato with cucumber is an insult to Mr. Cucumber - except in a Greek tomato, cucumber and feta cheese salad - which is hardly a salad. More like a fine simple plate of food, with olive oil drizzled over it.
Cucumber sandwich: 2 or three 1/4 to 1/2 inch-thick lengthwise slices of peeled cucumber - try to minimize the seeds. Sprinkle a little salt. Put on bread with some mayo. This version is definitely not a lady's tea sandwich.
Cucumber and onion salad: My Granny made this all the time in the summer. Sometimes with shrimp in it as a light lunch, but I like it plain. I don't think she used the oil, but maybe she did. I make it without oil and with the clear-colored vinegar, sugar to taste, and definitely let it sit in the icebox an hour or so to absorb the flavor.
Yet another cucumber slaw: A favorite. Peel and seed them. Shred in Cuisinart. Always drain shredded cukes in a colander with a bit of salt and some weight on top for 20 minutes before making slaw or it gets too watery. Shred some carrots too. Toss together in a vinaigrette with a little salt and pepper. Really nice with lobster and fish, but also terrific with barbecue.
Cucumber and Dill Salad. A classic, and the only reason to bother growing dill in the garden.
"Cape Cod Turkey" is Codfish. One of our favorite recipes used to be Baked Stuffed Cod, the way the Portuguese restaurants make it. I was reminded of this by our dinner a couple of Saturday nights ago at the Lobster Pot (still fun and crowded as usual, but maybe not as good as it used to be) in P'town.
Here's how I make this rustic, home-cookin' meal:
1. Thickest filets you can find of Cod, Scrod, or Haddock.
2. The stuffing (you don't need to stuff the fish, just put it as a bed under the filets, skin down): Plain bread crumbs mixed with chopped onion, shallot, shrimp, crabmeat, lobster, chopped clams, whatever. Obviously you sautee those added things in butter first, then soften the stuffing with clam broth or fish stock. Salt and pepper, and parsley.
3. The sauce: Sautee in plenty of olive oil: chopped onion, chopped garlic, maybe chopped leek, some chopped red or green pepper, then add chopped plum tomatoes, some tomato paste, white wine, oregano, a little rosemary - and cumin to taste. The comino is the key. I use plenty of it. Some salt and pepper, of course.
4. Dump some of the sauce into the baking pan. Shape the stuffing as a bed to fit under each filet, and mound it on top of the sauce. Place the filets on top. It is normal to top the filets with onion and green pepper slices. Salt and pepper, and a shot of white wine to moisten.
5. Bake 25-35 minutes at 400, depending on thickness of filets, until they begin to flake properly. Never overcook a nice hunk of fresh Codfish. Baste with pan juices or white wine while baking.
Make sure each plate has a good dose of sauce, with the stuffed cod on top. Serve with pan-roasted potatoes or boiled potatoes with parsley. It's often served with spaghetti, but that makes no sense to me. And no vegetables, please. Vegetables cause cancer - but everybody knows that. But if you have to add a vegetable, I think a sauteed sliced yellow summer squash might fit in well, along with some bread to soak up all the sauce. Bread is a healthy vegetable, isn't it? This hearty dish deserves a red wine, not a white. (Whites and champagne go with shellfish, but not with real salt-water fish.)
If you are off carbs, make it the same way but forget the stuffing. It's almost as good that way.
For several years, I've felt the need to drop most of the spare pounds I've been carrying. At six feet tall and weighing anywhere from 208 to 215, I was never obese but I was definitely overweight. My doctor would ask the same question every year, "You don't look like you're over 200, where are you hiding it?"
It was true. I am naturally thin and once I reached about 185 pounds, the difference between that weight and 210 was not terribly noticeable. Except to me. I was slower on the tennis court, my back gave me problems on a regular basis, and my clothing might still fit but was awfully tight. I used to play two man beach volleyball in tournaments, but there was no way I could even consider this after I passed the 185 mark. I would have been worn out in no time.
I'm pleased to say I recently returned to the 185 pound level and I have a goal of 178 pounds. I remember crossing the 200 line the day I was heading down to attend the Preakness, and feeling proud of that small achievement. So far, I've lost 25 pounds in about 16 weeks.
The only sure and healthy way to lose weight is diet and exercise. However, there are more diets on the market than you can shake a stick at and plenty of exercise gurus who want you to give them money. I chose to focus on reducing caloric intake rather than just removing carbs. I wasn't interested in changing my diet radically.
My method was to engage portion control and self-discipline. I downloaded an iPhone app called "LoseIt". It's free, and all you do is set your goals (I wanted to lose 1 1/2 pounds per week). It's simple. You log your exercise and the food you eat. It will calculate the carbohydrates, protein and fats as well as the calories. I've had an average intake of about 20% protein and 50% fat for the last 16 weeks. I've been going to the gym at least 4 times a week for an hour and a half and mixing bike work with lifting weights. Early on, I did more cardio, and as I lost weight I began to focus on muscle development (which can burn slightly more calories over the course of the day).
There are plenty of apps which do the same thing, and ultimately it will come down to desire, discipline and will-power. I haven't skimped, I haven't starved, and I haven't changed my diet dramatically. All it took was the realization that this would be a good thing to do for myself. I've learned that being aware of what you eat, and counting the calories, actually helps you eat less. Weight Watchers is on to something, it would seem. I don't see the need to pay anyone to help me lose the weight. Except the gym, and only because I sit at a desk for at least 40 hours a week, and usually more.
When life gets out of control, and there is nothing to eat in the beautiful new Sub Zero fridge (10 year warranty) because nobody has gotten to the market, and you have a day job and the Mrs. has her hands full, it's time for a Thai delivery.
We have mother-in-law in the rehab center with a new steel knee, father in law staying with us, and my dad in the hosp with a new rod in his fractured hip needing rehab as soon as his post-op confusion resolves. Not to mention Father's Day weekend to bury my Mom's ashes at the farm, and not to mention other forms of family medical and other chaos too which I will not mention.
We have two excellent Thai places around, and both deliver. I alternate between the two, because they have different styles. Delivery fellow comes faster if you give a decent tip, which for me is $5. Tonight we're getting this:
Duck Spring Rolls Chicken Satay with hot sauce Penang Curry with Chicken (hot peanut curry sauce) Drunken Noodles with Tofu - plus extra hot sauce, and White Rice (brown rice is disgusting, detracts from the flavor of the dish, and is not fit for human consumption)
Few summer drinks are more refreshing than the Cape Codder.
I think it tastes best with a little lime squeezed into it, like this recipe. (Come to think if it, most things taste better with a little fresh lime.)
Try a Cape Codder tomorrow, at breakfast.
When you add some grapefruit juice, that's a Sea Breeze. That's healthy too. It would probably be just as tasty without the vodka, but what would be the point?
My mixology research revealed that the Cape Codder is one of a family of cocktails known as "New England Highballs." I didn't know drinks had formal categories. I am still learning about the world.
Are summer mixed drinks Chick Drinks, or for everybody?
To each his own. I, however, generally avoid mixed drinks and hard booze except for the very rare Bloody Mary, Martini, Scotch or Bourbon on the rocks. Too much ethanol in them for me for routine consumption. Beer is fine, and a glass of wine at night.
However, with summer coming on we will review a few popular cool drinks, beginning with the dangerously potent Long Island Iced Tea (there is no tea in it).
I happen to love biscuits and pork sausage gravy. I had a friend from Harlan, Kentucky whose Mom always made "Hot Dog Gravy" for biscuits, substituting Coke for water and substituting sliced hot dogs for sausage. That is not for me.
Yankees often do not know that you split your biscuit, then spoon a pile of the custardy stuff on top of the halves. Yum. If you don't fall asleep after, it will fuel a good day's work.
One of the Bird Dog daughters, and my lad, know that it is easy to please Dad with a selection of stinky, strong, expensive imported cheeses from The Grand Central Market in NY. At Sunday's Mom's Day cookout we had a killer cheese platter. Even a goat brie, which was a first for me.
All present were lovers of rare and strong cheeses. Since I have heard Steve Jenkins interviewed on the radio a few times recently, I began to pontificate about what I had learned from him. (He is the cheese-buyer for Fairway, the world's most prominent cheese pro, and author of the Cheese Primer.)
Jenkins preaches serving cheese with fruit, nuts, or honey - never without. To demonstrate his correctness on the topic, I pulled some hot pepper jelly (like this) and some fig preserves out of our dying fridge. Fresh fruit is good too, but I am partial to the preserves. I think everybody present was converted.
Our error was in offering the cheese board before the steaks, instead of after. The savoury course. Well, nobody's perfect.
A friend told me the other night that he was served hot pepper mashed potatoes at the home of a friend in Delhi. I did not know they made mashed potatoes in India. He said it was so hot he was in agony.
Well, I like hot but I respect the sanctity of ordinary mashed taters. Nonetheless, I have to try it.
Here's one recipe (photo from the recipe, but ignore the steak. I think hot pepper taters would go well with anything grilled). Here's another.
We like to eat lots of those skinny French beans. We steam them in Costco-style bulk, and they last a week.
Mrs. BD likes to dress them with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon (which is the Italian way with vegetables), but I prefer olive oil and wine vinegar. And salt of course.
Add a little crumbled goat cheese or Feta cheese, some bacon, maybe a chopped tomato, and you can make a fine lunch out of them.
It's been many years since we have bought either fresh or dried Thyme at the store. It's the easiest herb to grow in full sun and dry, lousy soil, and it comes back after hard freezes and cold winters. An advantage is that the leaves stay on the plant all winter, so you can just go out and scratch the snow off and harvest the sprigs you need. (I just throw the sprigs in with the leaves on, so my cooking often ends up with denuded Thyme sprigs in it.) Cooking with Thyme.
Another advantage is simply the smell it creates in a garden on a hot summer day. 4 or 5 small plants in the Spring will spread all over, only needing a little watering the first year to get started.
Thyme is the ultimate "savoury" flavor, but it's mild enough to make it difficult to over-use. I think it's basic to most stews and soups, Italian or otherwise. My chef friend uses it in muffins and biscuits, and on vegetables. She uses chopped Thyme blossoms on fruit cocktail. It has to be part of any bouquet garni.
Thyme comes in many varieties, some man-made and some wild. Most is Thymus vulgaris - common Thyme, with variants thereof. I assume it has Mediterranean origins. In the Massachusetts Berkshires, we have acres of Creeping Thyme as weeds in the less-fertile meadows, and my Mom always planted it between flagstones. Smells good in the summer when stepping on it, but watch out for the bees.
As a lady with refined sensibilities, Mom was always attentive to the small, charming details of life. There were always small vases of wildflowers around.
Made another Ribollita for Dad tonight (photo). Will deliver tomorrow - these things are always much tastier a day later. My ol' Yankee Dad loves Italian peasant comfort food.
I used a different recipe this time for the Ribollita. These greens are half Kale and half chopped cabbage, plus the whites of two leeks. I pureed about 1/3 of the Canellini beans, and had to use plenty of chicken stock to keep it from being too thick. Water would be purist but I like flavor, and I throw all chicken bones in the freezer for whenever I need to make chicken stock. Or I make it and freeze it.
There's over 1/2 cup of olive oil in there, and pretty much all the rest of the (frozen) Thyme I could find in the icy garden. Plenty of garlic, onion, celery, carrot, of course. Large can of crushed tomatoes - maybe a little too much.
Cheap and delicious, and fun to make. It is difficult to over-use thyme in soups and stews. That's where the "savoury" comes from.
Serve on top of small 1"-cube chunks of preferably-stale Italian or French bread in a soup bowl. A glass of Chianti Classico Riserva. Then take a nap.
What would Italian cooking be like without their foods from the Americas?
It's the time of year when my family's food interests turn to mollusks and crustaceans. It seems to be in their blood. 
One of the most refreshing summer drinks ever invented.
Re-posted - 
On the subject, one of my favorite things in the world is my coffee mug warmer. Your local hardware store or K-Mart/Wal-Mart might carry them. What's fun is that the chocolate milk in the mocha settles slightly over time, so if you baby the mug along for an hour or two, it slowly goes from being a coffee-with-chocolate drink to a hot-chocolate-with-coffee drink, getting slightly sweeter all the while. In that way, the mocha is kind of unique, as it's actually a 'dynamic' drink in that the taste changes slowly over time.
I like this refreshingly hot, crunchy Chinese pickled salad in the summer. Here's how I make it:
"Cape Cod Turkey" is Codfish. One of our favorite recipes used to be Baked Stuffed Cod, the way the Portuguese restaurants make it. I was reminded of this by our dinner a couple of Saturday nights ago at the 
NYC's 
Few summer drinks are more refreshing than the Cape Codder. 
Are summer mixed drinks Chick Drinks, or for everybody?
I happen to love biscuits and pork sausage gravy. I had a friend from Harlan, Kentucky whose Mom always made "Hot Dog Gravy" for biscuits, substituting Coke for water and substituting sliced hot dogs for sausage. That is not for me.
One of the Bird Dog daughters, and my lad, know that it is easy to please Dad with a selection of stinky, strong, expensive imported cheeses from The Grand Central Market in NY. At Sunday's Mom's Day cookout we had a killer cheese platter. Even a goat brie, which was a first for me.
A friend told me the other night that he was served hot pepper mashed potatoes at the home of a friend in Delhi. I did not know they made mashed potatoes in India. He said it was so hot he was in agony.
We like to eat lots of those skinny French beans. We steam them in Costco-style bulk, and they last a week. 
Made another Ribollita for Dad tonight (photo). Will deliver tomorrow - these things are always much tastier a day later. My ol' Yankee Dad loves Italian peasant comfort food.