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.
Readers know that my idea of a healthy breakfast is two coffees and sometimes a little nicotine. For adults, the idea that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" was debunked long ago. Growing kids, of course, need food all the time including protein at breakfast.
If you do heavy labor all day, it's another matter. All I do is to work out at the gym for an hour or so every morning, and some yard work on weekends (as little as possible because I have become bored with it), and take good walks on weekends. That is sedentary.
Sometimes, though, there are occasions for a hearty breakfast.
I have always liked kippers with some eggs. In Scotland, the kippers are about a foot long. Too much. The canned kippers that you find in US supermarkets are barely OK.
Another breakfast that some hate but I love: Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast (aka shit on a shingle). A classic prep school, and military, breakfast.
And the ultimate American breakfast (South and Midwest especially): Biscuits and Gravy. Every family has its own recipe, so I won't link one. Those Bob Evans restaurants make a fine one, but I don't think they let you in unless you weigh over 250 pounds. Grits on the side are good.
To stay multicultural, I can't omit the English Breakfast. Blood sausage:
For pottage and puddings and custards and pies Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies, We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon, If it were not for pumpkins we should be undoon."
Pilgrim verse, circa 1633
Pumpkins are just one variety of winter squash. Winter Squash have the virtues of being harvested in the fall, and easily storable for keeping through the winter in a root cellar as long as they do not freeze. All winter squash (Butternut, Acorn, etc) taste pretty similar and are more or less interchangeable in recipes.
Winter Squash, along with string beans, maize (which we call "corn" in the US, and many other foods like peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes) were first genetically modified for agriculture by American Indians.
Eastern Indians had large fields in which they grew winter squash, maize, and beans (which climbed up the corn stalks) together. In fact, one of the reasons the Pilgrims decided to stay in Plymouth was for the 50-acre and 100-acre planting fields that the Indians (recently dead probably from European diseases brought in by explorers and fishermen) had prepared there.
The Pumpkin of the Americas quickly became a popular crop in many parts of the world. Our Philippino nanny rarely made a Phillipino stew without pumpkin chunks in it. (Loved that Oxtail stew with peanut sauce, potato, and pumpkin, or her winter squash and string bean stew with coconut milk plus some shrimp or chicken chunks.) And people who have read Alexander McCall Smith's series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, know how popular pumpkin became in the African diet. As for Pumpkin pasta recipes, there are tons of them.
Mashed pumpkin with salt, pepper and butter is great. Same with steamed pumpkin chunks. A little chopped fresh Sage is good with them. Never boil winter squash. Steam or roast, or it will get too soggy.
As for the olde standbys, Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Soup, those are OK too but the spices tend to obscure the subtle flavors of the winter squashes used. (Re Pumpkin Pie, the Maggie's Farm advice is to go very light on the sugar, and serve with a spoonful of whipped cream, then drizzled with 100% Maple Syrup.)
I love calamari in a seafood risotto or anything else. However, fried calamari is a great treat. I like it with some hot pepper flakes, and I like the tentacle parts too.
The danger is over-cooking. Squid can turn into squid chewing gum if overcooked.
Best pizza I've ever had, at least recently. Pupette and I took Mrs. BD out to a fancy Italian dinner for her birthday but I just ordered the pizza there. Not ordinary pizza.
Very thin crust pizza, like a cracker, burned black on the bottom as I like it, with melted chunks of goat cheese and chunks of peanut-sized chopped and sauteed white truffle, (no sauce), cooked over firewood, then sprinkled with some dandelion greens and thinly-sliced fresh figs and the whole thing splashed with hot white truffle oil.
The smell of it was a meal in itself. I usually prefer a pizza bianco with wild mushrooms, but I suppose I am, unfortunately, a pizza snob. This was better than that.
Mrs. BD had their beef carpaccio as an antipasto. It was as good as you can get in Todi, but without the view. Pupette had their tuna carpaccio with dill and cucumber as her antipasto, then ate half my pizza with a bottle of Moretti. She lost 15 lbs. on her 14 hr/day film job, need to fatten her up before she returns to school.
Truffle oil - and truffle - is one proof to me of God's existence. My hope is that Obama or Bernie will make truffles free for us all, when Utopia arrives. I can't wait.
Pic is a beautiful White Truffle. Cost around $125./ounce.
That is actually "Shrimp-Shrimp", because "Scampi" is the Italian term for cooked shrimp or prawns.
In Italy and Sicily, it's just "Scampi." Not a common item over there though. More common are mixed seafood things with shrimp or prawns, squid, clams, fresh anchovies, cuttlefish, etc.
Readers know that the Soft-Shelled Crab (ie moulting Blue Crab) in all of its forms is perhaps my favorite food. My friends and I would catch them at the shore with bacon tied to string and bring a bucket of them home to Mom. She'd steam the hard-shelled ones, and sautee the soft-shells.
I love the soft-shells fried, sauteed, in a sandwich with mayo, Chinese-style - or anything. A perfect combination of juiciness and crunchiness, and you just eat the whole darn thing feathers and all.
I have the perfect method of producing boiled, peelable eggs.
Steam them. Put them in a vegetable steamer basket and bring the water to a boil. Top on the pan, reduce heat to where steam is barely escaping the pan. If you have four eggs cook 12 minutes. Add 1 minute for every 2 extra eggs.
Don’t do more than 8 eggs at a time. Do them in batches. Drain the pan at the timer’s chime and fill with cold water.
Then change water and add some ice cubes to the water to bring down the temp fast and avoid the dreaded grey mantle of sulfur.
My Mom called me The Little Lemon-eater. I still like to eat lemons, whether slices or quarters, skin and all. Apparently some people like to put some salt on the pieces too. I need to try that.
The best lemons I have ever had were in Sicily, just off the tree. Larger than supermarket lemons, but thinner pith.
After they have been cooked with something they are good too, maybe even better. With some fish of course, roast chicken, and also veal scallopini or, back to Sicilian food, roast piglet. Piglet + lemon is a good combo. Try it sometime if you have a spare piglet around.
Best way to eat this grain. I like to grill it with the husk on until the husk is burnt, but the Central Americans tend to grill it with husk off. Done right, no butter needed - but salt always.
This grain was genetically-engineered in Central American centuries ago. Agronomists have made it sweeter now.
Cod is perhaps my favorite fish (besides Grouper). Sadly, their populations on George's Bank, the Grand Banks, and around England have been overfished. Tragedy of the Commons. You can no longer be confident that you can catch one off the Maine coast.
I found a few Cockle shells on the bay beaches of Cape Cod. I have no idea about how plentiful they are, but they are not a commercial shellfish despite tasting the same as clams.
I am in a life phase when I prefer steamers to oysters or littlenecks. Who knows why tastes change? Mrs. BD and I used to love digging them up in the salt marshes. You can get happily covered with good marsh mud.
I think maybe I have had enough lobsters and oysters for one life. God knows, I have tried to. Photo at Pearl, on Wellfleet Harbor. Fun place. Great live music, excellent seafood, good people-watching.
Mussels were not commonly considered food in the US until after the war. It's a shame they were overlooked for so long. The Indians ate them, as do crabs and diving ducks.
Mussels have a remarkable capacity for holding on to things. Photo shows mussel farming, on ropes, in deep New Hampshire waters.
Our Atlantic Blue Mussel is the edible variety - not the deeply-striated Horse Mussel. I can eat pounds of them, steamed in white wine and shallots, but Mussel Soup is good too. In my experience, kids love mussels.
Try cookin' up some mussels this weekend, with some good bread fried in olive oil to sponge up the juices.
Not new, just new to me. We've posted about all of the varieties of Italian pestos (?pesti) in the past but this one is worth trying: Olive Pesto. Marcella says it's best with grilled or fried vegetables.
Chop one hard-boiled egg roughly in blender. Add to blender 6or 7 pitted green Italian olives, 2 tablespoons capers, 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and plenty of ground pepper. Blend briefly - it should have some chewiness and some creaminess.
While I will confess that I do kinda like that overly sweet "mint" jelly they have at the supermarket, I have grown to prefer the much more interesting taste of homemade Mint Sauce with legga lamb.
We bought two big ribeyes at Costco a few weeks ago. They were Top Choice, not Prime. I measured them - 3 1/2 inches thick. I forget the weight, but I have never cooked a steak that thick. (I should have put the ruler next to the photo.) For us, that's 4 meals.
Readers know that pan-seared is the only way to go with good steak, especially ribeye. Chefs agree. Here's a good discussion of the topic.
Thing is, you can't really pan-sear a piece over 2 inches thick. My chef consultant suggested pan-searing the heck out of it in butter + olive oil, then finish in the oven. She said 130 (F) in the center with the meat thermometer, which I could not find. I thought we had two.
So I seared all sides of it in the cast iron pan (very smokey), and put the pan in the oven at 400 degrees. Winging it. After 20 minutes, I checked the inside and the meat was not even rare yet. It took a while to get medium-rare. When I checked it again it was perfect. I do remember that meat keeps cooking for a while after you remove it from heat.
Best pizza I've ever had, at least recently. Pupette and I took Mrs. BD out to a fancy Italian dinner for her birthday but I just ordered the pizza there. Not ordinary pizza.
That is actually "Shrimp-Shrimp", because "Scampi" is the Italian term for cooked shrimp or prawns.
Readers know that the Soft-Shelled Crab (ie moulting Blue Crab) in all of its forms is perhaps my favorite food. My friends and I would catch them at the shore with bacon tied to string and bring a bucket of them home to Mom. She'd steam the hard-shelled ones, and sautee the soft-shells.
Even in a bad tomato year people get plenty of Cherry Tomatoes.
No, Eve did not eat an apple. It's called poetic license by the translator.
A pal sent me this:
"Trash fish"? No. Sea Robins are 
My Mom called me The Little Lemon-eater. I still like to eat lemons, whether slices or quarters, skin and all. Apparently some people like to put some salt on the pieces too. I need to try that.
Grilled Corn on the Cob
Aren't 
Mussels were not commonly considered food in the US until after the war. It's a shame they were overlooked for so long. The Indians ate them, as do crabs and diving ducks.
The Gin Martini. It's the best. These days, I only indulge in this treat about twice yearly. I can't handle alcohol the way I used to.
A Sicilian classic
Yes, a Grilled Cheese Sandwich is great, especially with some ketchup for dipping. The bread ought to be almost burnt and crunchy.
While I will confess that I do kinda like that overly sweet "mint" jelly they have at the supermarket, I have grown to prefer the much more interesting taste of homemade Mint Sauce with legga lamb.
We bought two big ribeyes at Costco a few weeks ago. They were Top Choice, not Prime. I measured them - 3 1/2 inches thick. I forget the weight, but I have never cooked a steak that thick. (I should have put the ruler next to the photo.) For us, that's 4 meals.