Sometimes in my office conversations go horribly wrong.

Terry: I knew you would have something to say about this.
Tata: Nope.
Terry: It’s a tennis ball and a dog toy.
Tata: I see that, yes. Nope.
Terry: It says “Tough Ballz.”
Tata: I see that, yes. Nope, still nothing to say.
Terry: It’s one ball, really. For ninety-nine cents, it was well worth it.
Tata: Do you have a dog?
Terry: No. Yes. Maybe.
Tata: Few things on earth could entice me to discuss this object in my place of employment.
Terry: “Tough Ballz.”
Tata: Not those neither.

Sometimes they go right. Lupe’s children fuss about eating vegetables. I offered her a really cheap, simple recipe taught to me by an ex-boyfriend who should boil. Slowly. But the recipe is good.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Acme had a sale on root vegetables. These sweet potatoes were 10 lbs. for $10, so four tubers came to about $2.38, if I remember correctly. Stop laughing! Now I am about to say something with which people will take issue: candied yams are yecchy and sweet potato casseroles with marshmallows are a shitty waste of good food. Those are technical terms, so tag me in comments if you are confused by complex professional jargon.

Cut off the ends. You’re not going to eat the fibrous ends and though you should floss, I recommend you do that with waxed string from free-range floss farms. I peel the sweet potatoes because Pete is delicate and hates to think of the poor little vegetables and their furry little faces. Your sensibilities may vary. The peels are actually good for us but they do change the flavor of our dessert topping or floor wax. It’s up to you.

Slice them at least an inch thick and as evenly as you can. Perfection is not aesthetic: your concern is cooking time. I like to cut them into healthy slices that remind me of filet mignons, though for the life of me, I cannot remember the last time I ate one of those. Forging ahead, then: you can slice them thinly if you like but the outcome will not be the same. Thick slices, my darlings! You will not regret it, or maybe you will, but if you do, please seek professional help.

Drop your sliced sweet potatoes into a big honking bowl. Here’s the fun part: have a look at your spice rack or cabinet. Chances are really, really good that your spices and herbs are aging gracefully. You probably like the spices you’ve got, so get ’em out and sprinkle them generously onto your potatoes. Add some salt and pepper. Drizzle olive oil over your potatoes and toss them. That mess smells good, doesn’t it?

Lay the potatoes out on a cookie sheet. They’re going to stick, so line it with foil. These are sitting on a Silpat, which I inherited from Dad’s kitchen and love with my whole black heart, but they are expensive. Bake for an hour or so. After a fork inserts gently and easily into the largest slice, remove from the oven. Let the sweet potato slices cool a little or you risk a trip to the hospital. The outsides of each slice will be crisp. The insides will be naturally sweet and custardy. You should figure one sweet potato per ravenous adult, and that will seem like a lot of food right up to the moment you don’t put any away for later.

In other news: the farmers market by Siobhan’s house evidently sells red batatas, which form the basis of my Rwandan co-worker’s cooking. I can’t wait to try them.

I’m having trouble thinking the funny thoughts. Let’s change the subject.

It’s cold, it’s dark and we’re saving our pennies for holiday treats. We’re all filled with festive ennui – unless that’s just me and I’m projecting. You’re probably just fine. Stop laughing! I’ll let you in on a secret: I can’t actually cook. Getting dinner on the table is not the same thing, but even doesn’t seem like it’d disqualify me from getting a show on Food Network. Apropos of nothing, this is my favorite breakfast, coincidentally a fine dinner, lunch or afternoon snack. The recipe is imprecise, and you should make it the way you like it because it will be more deliciouser for you. Prepare this at night and breakfast is waiting when you get up.

1 big ass eggplant or two, peeled and cubed

If you’re about to argue you can’t do that: shove it! You can so!

2 or 3 zucchinis, chopped into big chunks
1 ginormous onion or two smaller ones or a red one or some shallots
3 or 4 bell peppers, colorful like a rainbow, cut into hunks
1 mess o’ garlic cloves, peeled
1 honkin’ can of whole tomatoes, or two if you’re going for quantity
1 teeny can of tomato paste
olive oil
1 or two bay leaves
sea salt
ground pepper
basil
tarragon
thyme
parsley
white wine, if the spirit moves you

couscous
water

plain yogurt or ricotta

Some of these sound like ingredients of a very familiar concoction and why not? Whatever! Let’s pick a pot: it’s got to be big enough to hold most of that junk on your grocery list with plenty of room for error. What error? How about you don’t pick a big enough pot and your breakfast takes a year to cook? Right, so: big pot, more surface area. Heat it up, pour in enough olive oil to generously cover the bottom of the pan, toss in your garlic and stir. Don’t let that burn. It will not be tasty. After a few minutes, the garlic will look different, so you should add onions. Stir, stir, stir. Add the eggplant. Stir, stir, stir. Sense a theme developing? By now you’re wondering if you should add more oil. I don’t know. I can’t see your humongous pot. But you shouldn’t worry, because the next step is to create an empty space on the bottom of the humongous pot, spoon in the tomato paste and mix it with some more oil, let that sit a minute, then mess everything around together, adding canned tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, herbs, salt and pepper because they are delicious. Add wine, if you use wine. You can use dried herbs and add them now or use fresh and add them closer to the end, but never, ever be shy about tossing in basil. It’s good for you! Let this come to a boil, reduce to a healthy simmer, stirring occasionally.

Half an hour later, you will check the doneness of the vegetables because I don’t know how big you cut them. Follow directions for the couscous you have. Most instant varieties involve boiling some water and a little oil, pouring in the couscous and removing the pan from the heat. It’s hardly even cooking. You can do that! Hell, if I can you can! Let it sit for five minutes. Fluff with a fork. I like to add some butter, but we’re talking about you here. When the vegetables are cooked through and still chunky, they’re ready. It’s probably about 45 or 50 minutes, but time is relative and I am easily bored and foraging in your fridge.

You have made a big old stew. Does it need anything? Add that.

To serve: pour some eggplant goo into a container, spoon in a healthy portion of couscous, top with a splooshy dollop of cold plain yogurt or mild ricotta. If you are handy with those recyclable food containers, portion out three or four of them and breakfast is ready when you get up in the morning.

If you have extra stew, which I bet you do, it freezes fantastically. Don’t try freezing couscous, or do if you’re feeling experimental. What the hell, science is funny, but not necessarily delicious.

Last night, Pete’s tenant had a houseful of children who are growing up bathed in the cool light of satellite television, which went out during a storm. I borrowed the little girl, leaving my car keys as collateral, and pulled a couple of Dad’s cookbooks down from the shelves. We studied recipes. We studied lists of ingredients. We gazed at the clock. A whole lot of breakfast recipes require rising time, and little girls, bored out of their sweaty little skulls, go to bed early. I slammed shut The Breakfast Book.

Tata: Do you trust me?
Samantha: Yes!
Tata: We’re going to bake french toast tomorrow morning.
Sammy: We what?

Mam’selle professes a desire to professionally prepare desserts. To this end, I have seen her – from a safe distance – mash up marshmallow, rice crispie thingies and Nutella, spoon it onto a plate, stab the chunks with toothpicks and toss the whole mess into the freezer. To my abiding regret, I ate one of these morsels. I may be diabetic now or developing a Hallmark Card fixation, I don’t know. I had a moment where I thought I might – Jesus Christ! – says something nice, but it passed. Whew! Anyway, we sliced challah rolls in half and slathered the insides with homemade apple butter. Then we mixed up spicy custard batter with lots of cinnamon, cloves and fresh ground nutmeg. On a lark, we added sugar-free raspberry syrup, turning the custard Barbie pink. Sammy was delighted as we poured it over the rolls and put them into the fridge to soak overnight.

Late this morning, Pete and I took a long walk through the park, where we saw lots of adorable little duckies doing adorable duckie things. The walk was difficult because we’ve both been sick so long that the slightest exertion leaves us breathless, so my incessant swearing was practically aerobic exercise. But look at these duckies, frolicking and playing, splashing and diving, quacking for all they’re worth: they seemed very, very happy and I slowly cooled to a slightly less homicidal state. You will be happy to hear I didn’t beat any children even a little.

As a general point, it is a goddamn shame that divorced parents, knowledgeable about food, nutrition and healthy practices, permit their children to gobble shitty Booberry and Count Chocula by the troughful, sculpt the Chrysler Building out of otherwise untouched custardy french toast and homemade stewed apples, then offer those surly children fucking Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in giant soupbowls, because real food is a little too goddamn real.

On the other hand, you know, duckies!

She calls me. It’s urgent. She doesn’t say hello.

Mary: Bread pudding?
Tata: Love it.
Mary: Stale bread?
Tata: The stalest. Thrifty. Good.
Mary: It’s not too stale?
Tata: The staler the better. Love custard?
Mary: Love it.
Tata: Add raisins, walnuts, fruit.
Mary: Not sure. Don’t like?
Tata: Use extra custard. All good. One more thing –
Mary: Ready!
Tata: Don’t let anyone talk you into using doughnuts. That shit’ll kill you.
Mary: Over and out!

I have every confidence that Mary, who tonight baked her first loaf of bread with her divine seven-year-old, baked a lovely, custardy, delicious bread pudding.

Next week: hard sauce.

Mom would be so proud!

Tata: (Singing. As usual) La la la la la! I have soup for lunch. It will be delicious soup. I am adding canned soup to leftovers. It will be delicious! La la la la la!
Joanne: (Heating Uncle Ben’s microwave rice) I like soup. I guess.
Tata: Soup is good for you. I have chicken soup. It is very chunky. La la la la!
Joanne: I wish you could get just the chicken and noodles.
Tata: Isn’t that called a casserole?
Joanne: No. Broth!
Tata: (Not singing anymore) You mean without vegetables?
Joanne: I don’t like vegetables in my soup.
Tata: (ZOT! Wires fried) Well, that explains the malnutrition.

Just to be sure, I called Mom.

Tata: What do you think of the prospect of soup without vegetables?
Mom: Is it a fruit soup?
Tata: Tomato soup is fruit soup.
Mom: You’re making tomato soup without tomatoes?
Tata: I had a comic encounter with a co-worker who said she liked soup without the vegetables.
Mom: …
Tata: And I said, “Uh, what?”
Mom: That’s what I said, only without all the words.

She’s like Miss Manners, only feral and with homemade soup stock.

The aforementioned cookbook edited by Marion Howells is Australian. Sort of. The stats:

First published 1970 by Golden Press Pty Ltd
10-16 Dowling Street, Potts Point, Sydney Australia
© Australian Consolidated Press Ltd 1970

This edition first published in the United States of America in 1971 by Crescent Books, A Division of Crown Publishers, Inc., 419 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016

This edition © Octopus Books Limited 1971

I probably received this book in 1975. The recipe:

Strawberry Hazelnut Gateau

4 egg whites
pinch salt
10 oz. (1 1/4 cups) castor (superfine) sugar
4 1/2 oz. (1 cup) ground hazelnuts
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 dessertspoons black coffee

Filling

1 lb. strawberries
1 pint (2 cups) whipped cream
6 oz. (6 squares) plain chocolate)
water

Beat egg whites with salt until stiff; gradually add sugar; beat until mixture is of meringue consistency. Fold in remaining ingredients. Spread n 2 greased and floured 8 in. springform pans. Bake in moderate oven, Mark 4 350ºF, approximately 35 minutes; release sides of pans. Cool on base of pans.

Remove from base, place a layer of meringue on serving plate. Spread with thin layer of chocolate, which has been melted with water. Spread 1/2 in. layer of cream over chocolate. Top with layer of sliced strawberries; reserve remainder for decoration.

Spread second layer of meringue with remaining chocolate mixture; place on strawberry layer, chocolate-side up. Cover and top with cream.

Refrigerate several hours, or preferably overnight. Serve decorated with reserved strawberries.
****************************************************************

The cookbook opens with two pages called American Weights and Measures. Even as a kid, I was troubled by these comparisons. You will be relieved to know that the answer to the pertinent question What the fuck is a dessertspoon? is A tablespoon, duh! I know I was! But the tables don’t explain why the list of American dry measures includes weights without mentioning why that would be important, and did you know that in American measures a half-cup is called a gill?

I love that the whipped cream has no sugar in it. The full, rich flavor of cream is a good balance with tart strawberries, semisweet chocolate and the melting sweetness of the meringues. I’ve never tried it with bittersweet chocolate but I’d be very careful not to serve that to persons expecting some form of conventional dessert.

A chocolatier worth his salt reads that recipe and sees a couple of things that shouldn’t work. Make it and see how you feel about it. One thing you should know: this is extremely messy to eat and you should put down a tarp in the formal dining room. It will never cut into neat cake slices so do not think this is your moral failure. Hand out your best spoons and cozy up to the scrumptious gateau.

Let’s say you have a friend called Plain Cheese Pizza. You and your friend get along great so long as everything else in your life is kinda hip, kinda now, kinda Charlie. You talk on the phone. You meet for beer and darts. You overlook your friend’s faults and glare at anyone who speaks ill. Plain Cheese Pizza has always been there, from earliest memories of school lunches to the latest of late nights. Your mother’s not thrilled but you have never had reason to doubt.

What about when something goes wrong? What about those times when you’re flirting with disaster, when nutrition goes out the window and takes your health along for the ride? Deep down, you’ve always suspected Plain Cheese Pizza was a fair weather friend, someone who would abandon you when times got tough. It’s a terrible disappointment, finding out the friend you love can’t be trusted to nurture and sustain you. This is how we grow. We accept the truth about our friends’ failings, love them anyway as we distance ourselves and look for more satisfying, dependable relationships. It hurts, but in the end, we will be happier.

There in the background, we find the one friend you could have counted on all along, if you’d just known what you needed in life. Now you know, and now you know that Wheat Crust White Pizza with its flavorful variety of vegetable toppings will always provide you with calcium, fiber, vitamins C and D, healthy fats, iron and other minerals. If you’re very lucky and choose your sumptuous vegetable combinations well, you can enjoy Wheat Crust White Pizza’s delightful crunch, satisfying crust, heavenly aroma and creamy cheeses without worrying about how you could have ever settled for Plain Cheese Pizza’s hollow promises. You will always be able to rely on Wheat Crust White Pizza, come what may! Apologize and give your heart willingly but know: there’s no reason to ever go back.

Your relationship will be even better when you stay home and make your own fun. And your mom is so happy! Did you know you could ever feel so good?

A few nights ago, Pete and I watched Christina Cooks on a PBS station, probably on WLIW Create, and I was trying to explain to him why this cooking show perplexed me. I’m smart!

Tata: I don’t…why’s she…what did she just…what’s in that pan?…that’s the first time I’ve heard her say vegetarian…Pete, did you see her toss pecans into that pecan bundt cake?
Pete: Nope, but I’ve seen guys direct traffic with less gestures.
Tata: I get emotional!

Pete did all his homework at the Culinary Institute, sometimes without a hangover. He has forgotten more than I will ever know about food. Yesterday, he called from his house.

Tata: What time will you be here?
Pete: In about 25 minutes. Why?
Tata: Dinner’s almost ready.
Pete: It is?

The note of panic in his voice is barely concealed when I get up and walk toward the kitchen. “Where ya going?” he asks, as if he expects I spent forty years foraging in produce sections and Chinese buffets. I can’t cook, right? That doesn’t mean I don’t, which brings us to this.

Foodie restaurants love this ritzy Italian corn porridge they like to call “polenta.”

What?

I can take you to places in San Francisco where a plate of simple polenta, beautifully presented for lunch and topped with a spoonful of marscapone cheese, will set you back $12, not counting the side salad and a glass of Napa gewurtz to wash it down with.

Of course, being half-hillbilly, I find this ridiculous. (Delicious, and I’ll pay it, but ridiculous nonetheless.) Back in the day, in the two-room cabin I called home until I was 10, my mama made the exact same stuff, packed it with Velveeta, and called it cheese grits. Since we lived so far out that she only went into town shopping once a month, grits – served alongside some canned peas and a few pan-fried rainbow trout we caught in the creek – were standard empty-pantry fare in that last week before Mom went back into town.

This time of year, when it’s cold and howling out, grits (polenta, if you insist) are a great winter comfort food.

I do insist. Wikipedia:

Polenta is a dish made from boiled cornmeal. Although the word is borrowed into English from Italian, the dish (under various names) is popular in Italian, Savoyard, Swiss, Austrian, Croatian, Cuban, Hungarian, Slovenian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Corsican, Argentine, Uruguayan, Brazilian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, and Mexican cuisines, and it is a traditional staple food throughout much of northern Italy.

Maize or corn was a new world crop the Mesoamericans cultivated a long, long time before the Spanish arrived, so if the question is “Whose cuisine is more authentic, the guinea’s or the hillbilly’s?” we’re not even in the correct ethnic ballpark. That said, poor people all over the planet have subsisted on cornmeal mushes in the last 500 years. So. I get emotional! The last little tiff I had with Dad before his diagnosis a year ago was about why he was writing recipes putting heavy cream and asiago into polenta when good cornmeal, stock and fragrant herbs were all a home chef and her waistline needed. I agree with Sara that the upscaling of polenta is stupid. It’s a delight we can all afford and make for ourselves. On the other hand, Quaker makes Instant Grits, and if you need it right now, that crap’s microwaveable.

When Daria, Todd and I were kids, Grandma and Grandpa LongItalianLastName only took out the stock pot on special occasions. The thing about peasant food nobody mentions is that it takes all damn day to make and a lot of freaking effort, so: in modern life, for a family of modest means, the old ways can represent a substantial investment in keeping them special and viscerally important to the next generation. This is the farthest thing from ritzy. Grandma boiled salted water and added the yellow cornmeal. Grandpa, plainly in charge, wielded the polenta stick. Yes, we had a polenta stick, specifically for stirring polenta. It’s in my kitchen right now. Making polenta from scratch for a big group is no exercise for the faint of heart or weak of bicep. After Grandpa died, Grandma switched to quicker cooking polenta, which involved less machismo but the same amount of wood because the exercise was still the same: someone held the pot and someone stirred until his or her arms fell off, the goo was poured out onto the polenta board – also in my kitchen – to cool a bit. Then we ate, because by this time, we were all muscle-bound and starving. Now, I make this at home all the time because, you know, I possess the freakish upper body strength.

The thing about polenta made this way was the development of fantastic yellow corn flavor, which is a different corn flavor from grits. The difference starts in how the cornmeal is processed at the mill and continues in the kitchen. I don’t have a special palate or anything, but I’ve spent enough time in an Italian kitchen, in the South and in an Italian kitchen in the South to be able to tell the difference. This is also why I love the Oaxaquenian tamales. Same stuff. Different. Ooh la la.

On Christina’s Cool Products page, I was surprised to find DiBruno Bros., my favorite cheesemonger in Philadelphia, and Frey Wines. Sometimes, I understand the principles of the recipe Christina’s using, sometimes I don’t. She doesn’t seem to use dairy or alcohol at all, so maybe I don’t understand what she’s doing. Much. Often. I get emotional!

That happens a lot, actually.