If the traditions of past years have held, two of the three or four issue of Bon Appetit you actually need to buy each year will be on sale soon:

(1) You must get the July issue, which focuses on grilling.

(2) August tends to feature "no-cook" recipes: salsas and so forth. Meals that require little or no use of the oven or range. My advice would be to get a blender, and use these recipes all year long. (Oh. You don't live in California. I'm sorry.)

(3) Whatever your favorite comfort-food issue is: October, with its winter-squash fever; November, with its turkey and sweet-potato fetish; December, with its extravagant whistling in the graveyard of high winter. (Oh. You have real winters; I'm sorry.)

Personally, I'm just waiting until my husband and I get married to the third person who is In The Mood To Cook. I shall keep her company, and give her tips. I'm not perfectly heartless, you know.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Zucchini muffins that are as good as banana muffins? Show me.

And . . . any Real Gardeners on the north side of Glendale, California should feel free to contribute the raw material I might need for this Scientifical Project.

In all fairness, of course, anything with dried cranberries in it is unlikely to suck. But banana muffins, and banana bread, occupy a special place in Paradise. They just do. As do corn muffins with cranberries, and any quick bread that isn't overly sweet . . . and yet features blueberries . . . that is a no-problem breakfast. I'll take two.)

As soon as A the H and I find the third partner for this marriage, our gustatory lives will really take off. She just needs to handle the gardening, and go to the farmers' markets, and do all that other stuff that needs to be done before noon.

And then, my dears, I shall cook. Oh, will I cook.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Glenn Reynolds cites a NYT news report that suggest white wine may be just as healthy as red.

Hooray! And just in time for my newfound love of pinot grigio! (This is inspired partly from the heat, which seems to suggest something out of the refrigerator, and partly from my brand-new light-colored carpeting.)

But then, alas, Reynolds passes along this bit of anti-lush bigotry: "Drinking a bottle a day will not make you five times better than a glass . . . ."

Of course not: it's only four and a half times as healthy. Let's stick to the facts, Professor.

(Yeah, yeah: I know that the health benefits of alcohol decrease after one drink a day for females, or two drinks a day for males, depending on the study. I read one article that suggested six drinks per week is the optimum for women, and that they could be "saved up" for up to 48 hours, making two or even three drinks a day permissible. But I've only seen that in one place, and I'm pretty skeptical.

This is also interesting in that my mother's doctor has asked that she refrain from drinking because of her fatty liver; she mostly complies, though I'll sometimes pour a little of my beer into a juice glass for her, or place my margarita where she can drink some of it, or hand her a quarter of a glass of wine to drink with dinner. There are, after all, quality-of-life issues to consider.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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