Easter Foods and Easter Outfits: Savory Fennel Shortbread Crackers

 

When we were little kids, Easter meant the Easter Bunny, Easter Baskets, Easter Egg Hunts, the Easter Pagent, and of course, your Easter Outfit.  Because that's what you wore to the Easter Pagent and to church on Easter Sunday.  New dress, new patent leather Mary Jane shoes, and a new hat.  Because girls still had to wear hats to church back then.

My mother was very proficient in the Needle Arts.  All of them.  Knitting, Crochet, Tapestry, Rug Hooking and Braiding, Embroidery, and Sewing.  She taught me all of them as well, and I am glad to see that some of these arts are coming back into style, because it would be shame to lose them. 

So, the first Easter we were in the new house (the one my Dad built with his bare hands), she made us each coats for Spring, and we wore them to church on Easter Sunday. 

Now I am an accomplished knitter, and I offered to teach Grace the Girl.  Grace is 14 and has School, Art Class, Viola Class, Piano Class, Orchestra Practice, Chinese School, French Class and extra-curricular Math Class.

She said, "Margot, I'd love to learn, but honestly I don't when I would have the time."

But I'm grateful that she loves to get into the kitchen with me.  We've made everything we could think of with Peas and Artichokes, both Italian Rites of Spring. 

There was one dish my Mother used to make for Easter that I have not made, but once I had it, it becames one of the most cherished tradition at Easter.  Apizza Gain.  Sometimes called Pizza Rustica, Italian Easter Pie, Pizzagaina.  It's your basic heart attach in a loaf pan.  My mother's recipe was pretty sketchy and I have found others out there, but essentially it's 4-5 pounds of cured meats, 6 pounds of cheese, more than a dozen eggs, a ton of black pepper and crushed fennel.  It was traditionally made on Good Friday and then chilled and served after noon on Easter Saturday to break the Lenten Fast. 

We would break it up into pieces and share it with family and friends.  Sitting around the kitchen table, eating slice after slice with wine.  The combination of cheese, fennel, a crust, and the black pepper tastes great with nearly any kind of wine. 

These days, however, we limit the amount of cheese and cured meats we eat.  Who can afford the calories?  Who can afford to make the dish?  It costs more than $100 to make this loaf.

But I love the tradition of fennel and the black pepper with wine, so I thought I would try savory shortbread, something that tasted like the black pepper biscuits you can find in Italian delis. I have been working on a savory biscotti, but just haven't gotten the texture the way I want it.   I've tried to replace the sugar in a sweet recipe with cheese but you don't get that crispness or chewyness you get with sugar.  Then it hit me, eliminate the eggs.  That basically leaves shortbread.  The result is these Black Pepper and Fennel Shortbread Crackers.

These are quick to make, and lovely to serve to friends who drop over on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the Spring, when it's just warm enough to sit on the porch in the sun and migrate to the fireplace when the sun goes down.

Update on Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 1:29PM by Margot

See the next article for my Appiza Gain Story.

Eastertime, Quite Divine Apizza Gain

Last Easter season, I had a small family group over to commemorate the Easter season, honor my much missed mother on her birthday, the promise of Spring.  I received this lovely thank you card a few days later.

Dear Margot, Chris & Grace

Thanks to your wonderful hospitality.  We all had a blast!  In fact, for you, a poem to show our appreciation:

Eastertime,

Quite Divine,

Incredible food,

Overflowing wine,

Sunshine.

The company warm,

Fireplace crackling, no hint of a storm,

Thoughtful hosts, grateful guests,

Truly the place to be.

Drinks chilled, laughter spilled,

Sharing in each others revelry!

March 26, we have to say,

Was the most enjoyable Holiday.

Family gathered for Food and Fun,

Happy Times for everyone

And yet with the hours flying by

Seems we'd only just begun

So . . . one final toast

To our gracious hosts

Hats off to you and thanks galore

It was a day we'll remember fondly

THATS FOR SURE!!

After School Snack: Italian Meatballs

At the beginning of our weekly team conference call, my boss starts talking about a dream dinner he had with a client.

Phil:  It was the best tomato sauce I've ever had. 

Me:  That's because you've never tasted my sauce.

Phil:  I'm always in search of a good sauce.  A good sauce, a veal meatball, and a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino.

He didn't specify the year, but you get the drift.

While we were finishing up the call, I sent him the link to my Grandmother's Sunday Sauce.

Then I got inspired, and actually wrote down the my recipe for Italian Meatballs.  

I originally learned to make meatballs the way every Italian girl learns.  My Aunt Helen would make her meatballs early in the day, and when they were cooked, she would leave them in a bowl next to the pot of Sunday Sauce that was simmering.

Right next to the back door where everyone came into the house.  

By the time it was dinner, she was lucky to have half of them left.  She never learned.

I watch a lot of cooking on TV.  And I can say that I have yet to see a good recipe for Italian Meatballs.  Mostly its the technique, but when you only have a few ingredients in your recipe, they had better be good.  Using "seasoned" bread crumbs out of a can, or parmesan cheese labeld "processed cheese fool" will never get you a good Italian Meatball.

Deconstruction: The Rueben

This time of year the bars and taverns are really hopping on Saturday afternoons.  March Madness.  St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  Hungry Fans.  By I’ve now had enough of Bad Rueben Sandwiches and Green Beer to make it worth staying home.

 

How bad?

Watery sauerkraut out of jar or a bag, makes for soggy bread.

Fatty or thick cuts of corned beef make for tough eating.

Sauce that tastes like “special sauce” makes it taste institutional.

So I set out to perfect The Rueben.

 

It took a lot of research and taste testing on Saturday afternoons to figure out the best of all possible sandwiches, but I finally got it narrowed down and perfected.

 

What’s best?

 

Very lean, very thinly sliced Corned Beef.  Just enough meat on the sandwich, not too much.  About 3 or 4 slices thick.  More than that is just too hard to bite into

.  

Nutty Emanthaler Cheese shredded on top and bottom

.  

Dijionaise Sauce. It’s a more sophisticated thousand island dressing.  On the side.  I don’t like anything with mayonnaise in it cooked.  It just separates into a greasy mess.

  

Gramma Daly's Cole Slaw with black caraway seeds instead of the sauerkraut.   On the side.  Mayo in it, remember?

Sweet Bread and Butter pickle chips.  The kind in the refrigerator section.  Better yet, Jalapeno Pickles.  From Homesick Texan Cookbook.

And the best Rye Bread you can find.  Not likely found in the bread aisle of the grocery store, but at a bakery or farm market.  Grilled like you would make a good grilled cheese sandwich, with a thin spread of soft butter on the outside of the bread.

Grace has an exchange student from France staying with her who is excited about being in the US for St. Patrick’s Day.  Won’t she be surprised to find out our traditional Irish Fare is actually Jewish Deli Food?

Fast Technology, Slow Cookers: Thai Pork and Coconut Rice

Back in the 80’s, I once had the pleasure of hearing author Tom Wolfe speak at a business conference.  As a newbie in the telecom/datacom world (see MCI Mail and the Days of Corn and Crab Soup), and as a fan of Wolfe’s many works about societal introspection, I couldn’t imagine what he would have to say to a group of techies that would resonate.

But that he did.  While he meandered around a number of subjects keeping the audience in side-splitting hysterics, he eventually found his way to what he considered the newest of technologies at the time:  cable TV and Car Phones.

From his comedic perspective, he lamented that he couldn’t understand why televisions, which you primarily left in your living room, were not connected to anything to get their reception, while telephones, which you needed almost anywhere you were, were plugged into the wall?

Gasp!

He then blatantly predicted that in the next 20 years, these two technologies would flip-flop.  The audience gave him a standing ovation.  I’m sure his research assistants were standing in the wings grinning.

A decade later I’m working at Sprint.  Sadly, their reputation has become somewhat tarnished, but I did spend 12 years there, and I learnt a thing or two.  In fact, they were the first company to build a nationwide cellular network, long before anyone else. 

But I digress. 

At one of our big Corporate Rah Rah events, our CEO spoke at the event.  He made a prediction as well.  He said, “Right now, if you leave your house and you realize you don’t have your wallet and your keys, you go back and get them.  In the not too distant future, we will add to that list our cell phones.”

At the rate of current technology adoption, it was probably by the end the conference.

Fast forward yet another decade.  I get this email in my mailbox this morning:

Dear Family and Friends...at least the ones I had saved to my iPhone,

Do you remember when phones were attached to a wall, post, phone booth or a night stand? Well, for good reason, you could always find them.

Today, in my haste to catch the ever so late 6:15 train, I lost my iPhone.  You know, the typical snoozing with intent to nap and dropped phone on seat. "Stamford, Stamford Station"...snort, snort and I was off.

I have submitted the correct forms and paper work to Metro North (in triplicate) and they assured me that they have an 80% recovery rate...pick up at Grand Central within 5-7 days. I am truly optimistic.

Lucky for me, my company has supplied me with a biz cell phone and that is how you can reach me for the next 7 days.  I feel compelled to share my only vocal contact tool number....XXX-XXX-XXXX with all of you.   You can also reach me by email at forgetmyhead@nocellphone.com.

Now that the Holidays are over, the need to communicate will slow down considerably but we do still have snow and nasty weather to get through, more birthdays, Super Bowl and according to The Weather Channel statistics, 80 days before we're clear to Spring.

Sadly missing my "iConnection" to the world... Naked I tell you,

Susan

Good thing she didn’t have to rush home for dinner.  I had recently shared this recipe with her and she had some ­­­­­­­Slow Cooked Thai Pork in the crock pot to come home to.

Sweet Potato Corned Beef Hash: Dad’s Favorite, if he could remember

My dad has dementia.  The doctors say its mild.  That’s because they keep giving him this screening test, and he keeps acing it.  He just can’t remember what he had for lunch.  And that was an hour ago.

Or if he took his medications. 

Or how many glasses of wine he had. 

Me:  Dad, be careful, you’ve had too much wine.

Dad: I only have a half a glass at a time!

He’s an Optimist, though.  His glass is always half full.

Between the Dementia and the wine, the concept of volume is now completely lost on him.  Any glass, no matter how big or small, is only half full if there is even a half inch of space between the wine and the rim.

Add to that, he can’t remember how many half glasses he had, and now you’ve got yourself a problem.  Especially if that problem is over 80 years old, and still thinks he can drive.

We’ve been trying for more than a year to get his Long Term Care insurance policy to kick in, so we can get him some full time help in his house.  He’s lived alone since my Mother's death.  He was ok for a few years, but once the Dementia started to set it, he really went downhill fast.

We didn’t know what it was at first.  It started with him repeating himself every 15 minutes.  And then we started to notice he was drinking a lot.  More than he ever did his whole life.

Can’t say I blame him.  Dementia is a cruel thing.  The short term memory goes because what the person hears in their ear, can’t quite make it to their short term memory center, so it’s more like 4-5 minutes of memory is all he has. 

Watch TV?  Can’t follow the plot.  Watch Sports?  Can’t understand the plays.  Read a book?  Can’t remember what the last paragraph was.  Socialize?  Can’t follow the conversation thread.

But long term memory is different.  He can still remember how to get pretty much anywhere he wants to go.  So, go to lunch?  Sure thing!  He remembers how to get to Lenny and Joe’s, alright.

He just needs to remember to turn the correct way on Route 1, and Long Term Memory will get him home.  Right?  Well, as long as he makes the right turn.  One wrong turn, and he’ll end up in Rhode Island.

So when we took him into the hospital for what was supposed to be an outpatient procedure, but became an odyssey of two weeks and two days, we were glad to have gotten some home care help for him when he finally did get back home.  She was given instructions to take him wherever he needs to go, and that she is to drive.  So the plan was to have her take him to lunch on Saturdays, so she is driving, he can get out of the house, and have his wine with lunch and the family no longer has to worry about him killing or maiming others, or lawsuits.

His Home Aid made plans with him (and by plans that means she leaves him notes taped to everything in the house) to take him grocery shopping and then lunch the day after he got home.  He didn’t want to go shopping, so she went by herself.  When she got back, he was gone.

In a panic, she called everyone in the family.  Then she calmed down, and called Lenny and Joes.  She managed to convince the manager it was an emergency and got my dad on the phone.  He was there, having his wine and his lunch, just like always.  He just forgot to take his date with him.

Old habits die hard.

Then two days ago she got there at her normal 10am.  She’s quickly learning little tricks to figure out if he has been driving. 

At his age, and with his medical diagnosis (yeah we got some additional bad news as a result of his out-patient procedure), he can do anything he wants, or doesn’t want.  He’s earned it.  Except drive.  That’s the next battle.  How do you tell a man of his prior strength and accomplishments that not only does he need help, he has a terminal disease, and he can’t drive.  So, if he wants to drink his wine, I’m not going to tell him he can’t.  I just have to get him off the road.

Anyway, she gets to his house and notices a bottle of wine on the counter. 

Home Aid:  Ed, did you go out this morning?

Dad: I don’t know.

HA:  How much money do you have in your wallet? (That’s how she keeps track of him.)

Dad:  $153

HA:  Well, you had $170 last night.  Where did you go?

Dad:  I went to get milk.

HA:  Ed, there’s no milk in the refridgerator.  Where did you go?

Dad:  I don’t know.

HA:  Ed, did you go to get wine?

Dad:  No. I had that wine.  (No, there are now two bottles on the counter, and there was only one the night before.)

HA:  Ed, you know you’re not supposed to drive, right?

Dad:  Who said I can’t drive?

HA:  Your doctors told you not to drive.

Dad:  Oh, that’s just something Margot made up!

So if you see my Dad out driving, please call me.  And then get out of his way, because he’s forgotten that I’m going to his house today to bring him is favorite leftovers from St. Patrick’s Day, Corned Beef Hash.

Little Sister's BBQ Ribs: Danger! Danger!

Danger Will Robinson!  Danger!

If that doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you, then you are too young to remember one of the more ridiculous TV series of the 60’s, Lost in Space.  I asked my husband what he thought of the series as a kid, and he loved it.  Given that he was just a little kid, he thought it was a pretty realistic adventure. 

I, on the other hand, thought it pretty hokey, but then I was a bit older than him.

Chris: " Yeah, you’re a lot older than me."

While it should have been “Stupid Will Robinson! Stupid!” it didn’t stop me from watching.  But then I would watch any science fiction programming I could find.

 What does this have to do with Little Sister’s Ribs?

Look, I got a shiny new smoker for Christmas!  It took Chris nearly four hours to put the thing together. 

About as long as it takes to make these Little Sister's Ribs.  

Bet he wasn't counting on that when he bought it for me.

Thankfully, my Gramma Daly's Cole Slaw, our typical side for these ribs, is a snap to make.

Spring Fever: Fra Diavlo Salad

It's never going to get warm.  Ever.

Just when you think you are done with this:

And ready for this:

You end up with this:

Hyacinths on the table, and a fire in the fireplace.

I'm sick of winter food.  Sick of braises.  Sick of roasts.  Dying for grilled food. Weather not cooperating. By the time April rolls around, I've made every winter dish in the book.  I want something that tastes of Spring.

I'd show you a close up, but it just looks like lettuce leaves.  Wet lettuce leaves.  But the taste?  OMG. Simple really.  Remember the Fra Diavlo Basil Oil?

Core and dice a couple of tomatos.  They don't deserve much more than that at this time of year.  Salt and pepper them, and pour some of the oil over them and let them macerate for about an hour.  Then toss with torn romaine lettuce and sprinkle with parmasean cheese.

It will taste like Spring even though the fire is going.

Artichokes: An Italian Rite of Spring

I'm fairly certain I came out of the womb loving artichokes.

So did all of my siblings.  I can’t even remember trying them, only loving them.  And jumping up and down in anticipation of eating them come Spring.

There were six of us, Mom, Dad, me and my three siblings.  So, of course, she bought four artichokes at a time. 

She made the classic, stuffed and steamed for two hours on the stove-top.  We loved them so much, she would make us eat our dinner first and serve them to us for dessert.  

My father, still a young Irishman, could not fathom what we liked about these angry looking stalks, and he would sit there watching us peel back and scrape the leaves. 

“How can you eat those things?”

He would try a leave, make a face, and it was over for another year.  Eventually he succumbed.  In fact, he succumbed to most of the Italian food my mother put on the table once she got tired of serving the meat and potatoes fare he insisted on.

My mother would sit and watch us take the leaves off down to the heart.  And then she’d say, “I’ll eat that if you don’t want it.” 

Four Artichokes, four kids, one naysayer, and one heart eater.

We have a new artichoke lover in the family, namely, Grace the Girl.  Tried them.  Loved them.  I gave her a few words of advice:

"If you see stuffed artichokes on the menu, order them.  You will love them."

"If you see a menu item with artichoke hearts in it, don't order it.  You will hate it."

I don’t stuff them anymore.  Too much work.  I learned to grill them when I lived out West (See California Grilled Artichokes in Recipes).  Served as an appetizer.  What a concept, huh?

Italian Sausage: The Art of Snacking

This is my husband’s idea of a snack:  

Italian sausage, just fried out of the pan, with a chunk of sharp cheese.  Maybe a little Sunday Sauce to dip it into.  Spear with knife, place directly in mouth.  The dish is for photographic purposes only.

I have to make twice as much as I need for any recipe.

Second generation Italian children learned this snacking strategy early in life.  Typically, as soon as they were tall enough to reach the stovetop.

My mother would make her Sunday Sauce on Wednesdays, because . . . well . . . Wednesday is Prince Spagetti Day.   Then foolishly leave it on the stovetop while she ran some errands. 

You could smell it the minute you walked in the door from school.   Go Directly to Stove.  Do not Pass Go.  Do Not Collect $200. 

By the time she had gotten home, we’d gone through half a loaf of Italian Bread, dunked bite by bite into the pot of sauce.  (Double-dipping had yet to be banned.)

If there were going to be meatballs with the sauce, she would leave them in a bowl to cool after she had fried them.  What was she thinking?  What little were left went into the sauce for simmering.

And yes, they must be cooked first.  None of this dropping raw meatballs directly into the sauce to cook.  It’s just wrong.

Sorry.  That needed to be said.

Fast forward about 40 years.  I’m married to an Italian Man.  Third generation, but raised by his grandmother and great aunts, so technically, he counts as Second Generation.

Some things never change.  No pizza pockets in this house.

Corned Beef and Sauerkraut: It's not the meat, it's the motion

I grew up with an Italian Mother and an Irish Father.  That made St. Patrick’s Day at our house pretty sad.  Nan (my mom) didn’t really know how to cook meat and potatoes, much less corned beef.   The traditional method was (and still is) to boil the pre-made corned beef brisket in water for a few hours, and then dump in big chunks of green cabbage and potatoes to cook in the liquid.

Yucky.

Mushy.

Greasy.

Fatty.

And the rest of the dwarves.

In an effort to dress up this beige mess, she would slather on a glaze of mustard mixed with brown sugar and bake it in the oven to finish it off. But you can't make chicken salad out of chicken poop, no matter how much mayonnaise you put on it.

Mostly, we ran out of the house.  We were kids and the cold outside didn’t daunt us, but the menu for dinner did.  

Fast Forward:  I now live in Connecticut, smack in the middle of New York and Boston, New Haven and Hartford.  Prime St. Patrick's Day territory.  

And worse, it's not even over on one day, it takes up nearly two weeks.

Turns out that most of the Bag Pipe Corps that march in these parades, actually march in all of them.  If all the parades were scheduled on the same day, they would get very small, very quickly.  

You can't throw a dead cat without bumping into Corned Beef and Cabbage on any menu within a 200 mile radius.

In fact, its not actually about the corned beef.  Unless you are going to brine it yourself, buy it in the grocers and just follow the instructions, which is:  cook in water in a slow cooker for about 6 hours.

Turns out, it's really what you serve with the Corned Beef that makes it interesting.  

Paired with some Homemade Sauerkraut, and baked sweet potato fries, corned beef has become meal we look forward to come Spring.

Hazelnut Biscotti: So easy a child can make them

Wanted:  

Blogger Editor for fun food blog.  Duties include recipe testing, photo 

shoots and editing. Author needs a self starter with some knowledge of computers and food.  No experience required.  Must be over 12 years of age.  

I got a respondent to my advertizement.

Ok, it was more likely an enticement and recruitment.

Doesn't matter, she works for food.

Grace the Girl is actually a wonderful kitchen slave.  And she made these Hazelnut Biscotti from start to finish, she edited the recipe text for me, and she helped me stage the photo and do the photo editing.  

I'd tell you I can now sit back and relax, but truth be known, she makes more of a mess in the kitchen than I do. 

Pasta Primavera: It's not easy being green

Or Khaki.  That’s what color the peas were that my mother served us as kids.  Right out of the can, heated in their own liquid. 

Serious Ick Factor. 

Then spooned onto your plate just when you thought dinner was going to be alright.  You weren’t allowed to leave the table until you ate your peas. 

Mushy to boot.

Having delayed their consumption until the bitter end, they were now cold as well.  My first attempt would be to bury them in a spoonful of mashed potatoes and swallow them whole, but that rarely worked.   I would end up just trying to figure out how to hide them in my napkin, the potatoes, my shirt sleeve, even in my mouth until I could get outside or into the bathroom and spit them out.

Flash forward:  I’m standing at the Farmers Market in CA, paying $7 for a basket of fresh shelled peas.

Flash forward some more:  I’m making chicken pot pie for Grace The Girl, having only met her a few weeks prior where I saw her demolish a chicken pot pie at The Griswold Inn.

Chris: “Chicken Pot Pie is her favorite.”

My mom made the best chicken pot pie.  She was a pie-maker and made the best crust on the planet.  The ingredients were simple:  chicken, chicken stock slightly thickened, peas and carrots.  I could have lived without the peas, but for this dish we were allowed to pick around them.   With the advent of frozen peas, this might not have been necessary, but our taste buds were too tainted to try them.

As I’m spooning filling into the pie shell, I realize I have put nearly an entire box of frozen peas into a 9 inch pie.  The last thing I wanted was to have this seven year old think dinner at my house was punishment, so I painstakingly spooned the filling back into the bowl, and picked out more than half the peas.

Grace:  “Peas are my favorite.” 

Of course they are. 

As Grace and I decorated for Spring with indoor Easter Egg Trees, we got inspired and made this Italian Classic:  Pasta Primavera.  The perfect dish to use up the last bit of frozen New Year's ham, and the first fresh peas of the season.

Update on Monday, September 5, 2016 at 12:29PM by Margot

I lost my kitchen slave this year.  Yup, Grace the Girl is away for a year on a foreign exchange program in Switzerland.  But I might have a candidate for a pitch hitter.  His name is Reeve and he is just going to be 12 years old this week.  His mom and I are very close friends, and she mentioned that he had fettuccine alfredo for the first time a few weeks ago, on his first trip to Little Italy.

Reeve:  Mom, i can't believe you've kept this away from me all these years.

Mom:  Maybe Margot will teach us how to make it.

Me:  Sure thing.  All you have to do is grate the cheese.

That is seriously the only real work to this recipe.  You can buy it grated, but you don't know what you're getting. You can grind it in the food processor, but that's chopping it, and it takes a long time to melt.  So, get your guests to do the hard labor.  Once they realize how easy this is, they probably won't show up at your house anymore.

August 28, 2011: Irene MacGyver

When my husband and I first started dating on a steady basis, we would spend the work week apart and the entire weekend together, mostly at my house in Stony Creek.  Inevitably, we ran out of restaurant dining options on weekends when I had not planned on cooking dinner at home.  Not daunted by lack of a plan, I usually find something I can throw together.  Chris couldn't fathom the idea that I could dig a few ingredients out of the freezer and pantry and put together a meal.  That’s bachelorhood for you. 

After a couple of these thrown together meals, he said to me, “What are you?  MacGyver?”

Now, I never watched that series, so I had no idea what he was talking about, and for those of you who don’t either, the premise of this series was a secret agent who carried around nothing but duct tape and a Swiss army knife and got himself out of all kinds of predicaments with a few common objects he found lying around. 

Chris:  “You have string, a tin can, a tomato, bacon and a spatula and you come up with chicken saltimbocca!”

Now, I can cook just about anything with tomatoes, bacon and some onions and garlic.  So, my skills were put to the test this past week.  Hurricane Irene, by the time she got to Connecticut, wasn’t even a Hurricane anymore.   But that didn’t stop her from wrecking complete havoc in New England.  Once we got our power restored, we found out there were many, many less fortunate than ourselves.  Loss of life, loss of home, loss of livelihood with no recompense.  Our thoughts and whatever we can do to help, are with them.

For more than a week, we had no power and no running water.  That’s what you get in New England when you have a well.  I spent my day just trying to bath, feed us, and flush a toilet when we needed to.

Chris got called into work under a great deal of pressure from Corporate Headquarters.  He’s not a First Responder, nor is he a utility worker like our next door neighbor who worked more than 100 hours in that week.  He’s in the marine business.   So, while I was hauling water up the stairs to flush toilets and throwing spoiled food out of the freezer, he was waiting on some clown who came into the store because he didn’t have the right boom vang, gib line and roller furling swizzle sticks for his sailboat.

So, what did I cook?  I have no photos.  It’s hard to take pictures in the dark.  I will re-create some of those recipes because they are some of my favorite end-of-summer dishes.   

I had an empty refrigerator, but I’m planbed on Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin and Peanut Slaw, Amatriciana, South Florida Seafood Stew and Grace’s favorite soup.  Oh, and the post I was planning for the day of the storm, from our dinner party the previous evening, which we cancelled.  Seafood Francese and Sparkling Pinot Grigio.  Disclaimer:  the contents of this refridgerator are for medicinal purposes only.  Do not try this at home.