Morels: A Tale of Two Dishes

I adore mushrooms. I even like the little white button ones, although I'll admit that they aren't the most flavourful thing going on their own. That, after all, is what butter and garlic are for, right? Wild mushrooms are always a treat, and I manage to enjoy cultivated specialties such as the oyster mushroom, the portobello, the shiitake on a fairly regular basis. Once in a while, I spring for chantarelles, when I can, or black trumpets. Special occasions, those, decidedly.

Two weeks ago, Saturday's Trout Lake Farmers' Market was, for once, not being rained out during the slow start to summer and, unlike my previous visit, this time I loaded up on enough cash to make sure I could buy all of the things on my list - not the least of which were the big, beautiful baskets of morels that were on offer. It must be the end of the morel season, because I know that they are something of a spring mushroom (and that they require a fire-seared ground to grow upon), and the mushrooms were getting a teensy bit bigger, and a teensy bit more costly than two weeks ago. None the less, I plunged ahead, and lugged home my bounty.

My first dish, since I had more than enough for two meals, was a simple pasta - fettuccine tossed with a little garlic and cream, a little sauteed pancetta, and some butter-sauteed morels. Simplicity itself, really, even with a bit of parsley over top. It so happened that I had the pancetta on hand already, which largely decided the course of the dish. I also had some asparagus, but to my dismay discovered that it had hung about too long in the bottom of the crisper (I have not yet adapted to my new fridge, and its vagaries), and was no longer fit to eat. So, the originally planned dish would have been even more luxurious, if the asparagus had held up, but it was not to be.

I have had morels before, of course - always as an accent to a dish where some other flavour held the supreme place of honour, and usually paired with other mushrooms, wild or domestic, to round things out a little. It is certainly an unaccustomed luxury that allows for making a dish that is devoted entirely to the morel itself. Arguably, the pancetta in my fettuccine was something of a distraction, flavour-wise, but the morel pieces themselves were plentiful enough that one certainly still got the sense that it was, essentially a mushroom dish.

Still, the purist in me, the girl that perked up upon reading Colette's assertion that morels should be eaten like the vegetable they are, simmered in champagne (!) for best effect, wanted to have a dish that not only highlighted the morel, but featured it in such wanton abundance that I could revel in morel flavour; in short, it would have to be a risotto.

I cut the pieces larger than I did for the pasta dish. Some of them were only slit open lengthwise, to ensure that the interior was insect-free. Some were coarsely chopped - there were a few monsters in there, truly, almost suitable for stuffing! All of them were sauteed until just tender in good butter, and then I simply proceeded per my usual Wild Mushroom Risotto recipe, omitting the porcini, or indeed any other mushroom than the morel.

Finally able to wallow unobstructed in morel flavour, I found it to be a curious sort of taste. It was earthy, certainly, but also...almost spicy? It is difficult to describe, but there was a sort of rich intensity to the flavour, while it still managed to remain subtle - almost familiar, but not in the way of other mushrooms. It evoked forest floor (in a good way), and trees, and at the same time was utterly unlike anything I have ever tasted before. The texture was mushroom-spongy, but in a good way. That is, if you like mushrooms, it was lovely, and if you find them an organoleptic nightmare, perhaps you should steer clear. The rough edges to the honeycomb caps made for an almost tripe-like look to the paler of the individual pieces, and sat strangely on the tongue before collapsing in buttery submission.

I'm looking forward to morels again next year - I suspect the season is truly over now, in the throes of July's suddenly summery heat - and perhaps next year, I will feel profligate enough to simmer my mushrooms in champagne, watching the bubbles dance through the honeycombed caps, as Colette assures us we must.

Palle Tackles Pasta

As strange as it may seem, given that he has cooked braised rabbit, Provençal daube, merguez sausage, an assortment of chilis and even his own hot sauce, this is Palle's first Italian pasta dish.

In what has become his usual research style, working without a recipe, he contemplated some favourite Italian flavours, and came up with prosciutto and radicchio. After that, some online surfing led him to asparagus, flat leafed parsley, garlic, and olive oil, as well as some simple preparation methods, and he set about making dinner.

When I came home from work, he was setting up his mise, something at which he is far more meticulous than I tend to be, measuring out some fettuccine, lining up balsamic vinegar and chile oil, and the rest of his ingredients, and all that was required of me was to stay out of the way. It's always lovely to come home from work to a home-cooked dinner that seems to appear like magic on the table. This one was delicious.

Palle has gone from King of the Stirfry (pretty much the only thing he had really cooked from scratch when I met him) to someone capable of either following an attractive recipe or hybridizing his own to good effect. Now that he's not working 18 hour days, he has more time and inclination to cook. In this new kitchen of ours, we might just both be always in the kitchen. Fortunately, it's a pretty big kitchen.

Just What You Always Suspected

This is a vegan pasta sauce. It was delicious.

When I was growing up, the go-to food of vegetarians was presumed to be eggplant, and the only things staving off protein-deficiency were mushrooms. I went to school with people who would automatically assume that anything that had one or the other was automatically "weirdo hippy food" devoid of flavour and necessitating a special trip the health food store. While it's true that I harboured some silly notions about vegetarian food myself, when I was a kid, I eventually found myself eating a lot of vegetarian meals - not because of any stance on eating animals, but because I had discovered so many tasty, inexpensive meals that happened to be vegetarian.

Vegan food, however, was still random and weird-seeming, primarily because I could not fathom an existence without cheese. I love cheese to such an extent that I could not possibly see myself embracing a cheese-free lifestyle without absolute dire need, and I am pleased to report that such need does not appear to exist at this time. Still, I've noticed that quite a number of my meals, or substantial courses thereof, are turning out to be vegan. I blame the lentil salads, myself.

So, when it turned out that the last of the parmesan was petrified beyond belief (let alone grating) I simply shrugged and sliced up more basil. The thing of it was - much as I adore a good parmesan - this pasta sauce didn't need the cheese. It was exactly what I wanted - light-tasting, chunky, flavourful, healthy, full of herbs, and deliciously satisfying.

If that's hippy and weird, sign me up - at least part-time...

Chunky Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce

The secret to this recipe is in the browning of the mushrooms

20 - 25 very small fresh cremini mushrooms
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1 cup canned diced tomatoes, with juices
1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons dry white vermouth (or water)
salt & pepper, as needed
fresh basil, torn or sliced into chiffonade as you see fit
pinch of red chile flakes (optional)

Prepare your mushrooms by cutting the stems short and wiping with a damp cloth. If any are on the large side, you may cut some of them in half, but you want most of the mushrooms to be whole.

This comes together fast, so I usually start cooking when I've dropped my pasta. This is about the right amount of sauce for 225 g. / 1/2 lb. spaghetti.

In a large, non-stick sauce pan, over medium flame, heat the olive oil just until it crackles slightly when a drop of water is flicked on it. Add the mushrooms, caps-down, and let them sizzle, untouched for a couple of minutes, until the caps start to turn golden brown. Give them a stir, and let them sit in their new configuration for another minute or so, and then add the onion. Stir and saute until the onion is somewhat translucent, and then deglaze with vermouth. Add the vermouth all at once, and stir around briskly. Add the garlic and chile flakes (if using), stir, then add the three types of tomatoes. I try to have tomato paste in a tube on hand, just for recipes that use these small amounts. Let simmer for about five minutes, stirring periodically. If it gets too dry, add a little splash of water to keep it on the loose side. When it appears done, taste and adjust for salt and pepper. Add the basil and stir it through.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the pan with the sauce. Toss/stir well to combine, and then dish up. For a very Roman touch, add a little more extra virgin olive oil as a splash on top of the finished dish.

Taking it Easy

Just because this is listed in the Kiddie Feast section of Nigella Lawson's Feast, doesn't mean it isn't a delicious little supper for a big kid who doesn't want to work to hard to get it.

You don't even really need a recipe - everything you need to know is visible in the picture. A couple of hundred grams of pasta, a good handful of peas, and some cubed up ham. A little cream, to moisten, and a dusting of parmesan, to set it up nicely. Presto! Dinner in minutes.

I especially like Nigella's instruction to drop frozen peas into the pasta water a minute or so before draining - makes for a very tidy sort of recipe, without need for a separate sauce pot or frying or blanching steps. Very civilized, really, and just the thing when you're recovering from being flattened by a devastating head cold.

You don't have to eat it straight from the pot, of course. But I certainly wouldn't blame you.

Meatball Minestrone

I love soup. I cannot think of a culture that does not have some sort of soup. It can be an eloquent, evocative way to capture a sense of a particular cuisine, or a memory of a place. It can also be a tasty repository for things lurking in the refrigerator, slowly measuring their last useful gasps of usability until metamorphosis turns them into - if neglected, well, sludge, but if lovingly tended - a warming, welcoming breakfast (think menudo), lunch, or dinner.

As someone who grew up with "heirloom soup" in the winter, an ever-evolving pot of plenty into which most leftovers eventually found their way, I've always thought as soup as a somewhat ambiguous term, and was amused by people who made "mushroom soup" or "barley soup" because at any given time there might be mushrooms or barley or both in the heirloom soup. Even a soup that started off quite specific - chicken noodle, or oxtail, perhaps - would mutate quickly and, I thought, inevitably. As I grew older, I began to have an appreciation for the carefully thought out soups that highlighted a particular item. I've always had a fondness for minestrone, which somewhat bridges the gulf between the two philosophies of soup.

People will tell you that there are very particular things that one needs to put in (or omit from) a "true" minestrone, but these things vary by region and are often contradictory. Many minestrones are vegetarian, using plain water as the cooking medium instead of stock, and deepning the overall flavour with a rind of parmesan, and others will start with pancetta or bacon, and move on to a chicken broth. To achieve this particular minestrone, I went with a fairly classic approach, chose from the "acceptable" vegetables (since I had them on hand) and then spoiled it all by adding beef meatballs at the end. I'm not a bit sorry - the whole thing turned out just as I wanted.

Meatball Minestrone

2 tablespoons olive oil (or duck fat)
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 fennel bulb, diced medium-small
2 carrots, diced
1 small zucchini, diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 cup of small cauliflower florets
8 cups water or vegetable stock
1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can of cannellini beans, with liquid
1/4 cup tripolini or other small soup pasta
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
white pepper
salt to taste
small, cooked meatballs from 1 pound of ground meat (I bake mine in the oven for 25 minutes, rather than frying them)

In a large soup pot or dutch oven, heat your olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, fennel, carrots and celery, and stir well. Season with a little salt and white pepper, and stir for a few minutes until the vegetables begin to go translucent.

Stir in the water/stock, tomatoes (with their juices), zucchini, cauliflower, and herbs to taste. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer gently, covered, for about 30 minutes.

Stir in the cannelini beans with their liquid, and the pasta. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until the pasta is al dente and beans are heated through. Add meatballs and stir through. Adjust for salt and pepper to taste before serving, and garnish each bowl with some fresh basil or a a dollop of basil pesto.

A Tangle of Prawns

I have a great fondness for easy dinners, despite my appreciation for elaborate or difficult food. This particular dish was a second go at Nigella's Lemon Linguine, which she explains is simple enough to make even when "the thought of cooking makes you want to shriek." I've never been afflicted with that malady, personally, but I have occasionally wanted to "lie down in a darkened room" instead.

Happily, simple and easy dinners can often be made with things you've got literally lying around in the pantry/freezer/fruit bowl. I have reduced the ratio of pasta to sauce from Nigella's recipe, and added some garlic-butter-sauteed prawns (I confess, from a package of individually frozen, pre-shelled, cooked prawns) to relieve what I had previously found to be a dish more suited as a side than as a main course. This absolutely did the trick.

Lemon Prawn Linguine
Adapted from Nigella Bites

serves 4

1 lb. dried linguine
2 egg yolks
1 cup freshly grated parmesan
2/3 cup whipping cream
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons butter, divided
parsley, to taste, chopped
1/2 lb. precooked frozen peeled prawns
1 - 2 cloves crushed garlic

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add a good pinch of salt and the linguine, and cook until just barely al dente. Drain, reserving about a half-cup of pasta water.

While the water is coming to boil, and while the pasta is cooking, prepare the sauce: In a large, slightly warmed pasta-serving-sized bowl (rinse with hot water), stir together the egg yolks, cream, most of the cheese, and the lemon zest and juice. Don't beat too vigorously, just combine nicely. Chop some parsley and reserve it until the end.

Rinse your prawns under hot water, and toss them in a non-stick pan with a tablespoon of butter and a crushed clove or two of garlic. Allow them to simmer gently until warmed through. If they are done before you need them, turn off the heat and let them sit in the pan.

When the pasta is drained, add back into the cooking pot, and add the other tablespoon of butter. Stir about until the butter is melted and lightly coats each strand of pasta. Gently tip the pasta into your serving bowl with the sauce, and stir about until the sauce is evenly distributed. If it is looking too dry, add a little of the pasta water until it becomes slick again. Repeat as needed, if needed. Add the prawns and their garlicky juices, and stir about. Add the parsley for a final little toss. Serve at once, topped with ground black pepper and the last bit of parmesan.

Summer Salad

Summer is indisputably salad-time. Appetites are a little supressed from the heat, and an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs cry out for use. Not only are our appetites a little down - we still get hungry, but seem to fill up faster - but our desire to do much work in the kitchen (or out of it) also fades. Fortunately, the summer salad is a perfect opportunity for some easy, make-head, delicious dinner options.

You could serve this as a side dish, and I often have, or take it as a potluck item that will stand out beside other pasta salads, or indeed, hold its own against many a main course, or you can cram it into pita for a quick bite on the go. Sometimes, if I'm really feeling worn out, I'll just sit down to a bowl of this in front of the television and let my brain turn criticizing advertisements, or snarking at the shows on FoodTV.

It keeps really well in a sealed, tupperware-type container, for about a week. Doubtless, you will have eaten it all up long before then. As an added bonus, this dish has under 30% of its calories from fat, so it's fairly healthy, too. The use of low GI ingredients (chickpeas and lemon juice) mean that it's value on the glycemic index is probably quite low - which means that it will fill you up without wreaking havoc on your glucose levels.

Chickpea & Orzo Salad
(adapted from Cooking Light's Simple Summer Suppers)

1 cup uncooked orzo
3/4 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 19 oz. can Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) - drained
zest and juice of one lemon
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon cold water
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 - 2 cloves minced fresh garlic

Cook orzo until done in lightly salted water - about five minutes. Take care not to overcook, as you don't want the pasta to become mushy. Al dente is the goal. Drain, and rinse with cold water. Drain thoroughly, and place in large bowl. Add drained chickpeas, green onions, dill, lemon zest and feta to the bowl of pasta, and toss gently to distribute evenly. Combine juice, water, garlic, salt, and olive oil, and stir well. Pour dressing over the salad, folding the ingredients gently so to coat everything thoroughly.

Try not to eat it all before it makes it into the fridge. You can serve it right away, but it's terrific very cold from the fridge - especially with a nice glass of crisp white wine.

One Noodle, Two Nights, Two Dishes

I've been eating more pasta these days. This is partly because I'm doing a fair amount of quick-cooking, and pasta responds very well to that sort of thing - where you make the sauce or, to be more Italian, i condimenti, from simple ingredients while the water comes to a boil and the noodles cook. It is also because pasta is relatively low on the glycemic index, making it a more desirable food (as long as I don't compensate by eating monstrous portions, but that hasn't been a problem) for me as I strive to find the right foods to offset my health challenges.

When I was first cooking on my own, I still cooked for a family of three or four people, in terms of quantity. It was easier, more familiar, and I liked to have leftovers the next day. When I started getting tired of chewing my way through an enormous vat of chili or large casserole, pasta was one of the first dinners that I turned to for simple preparations for one or two people. At that time, I was all about the fettuccine. Preferably in a creamy sauce, thank you, which you can manage if you have a schedule that involves full time school, part time work, no car, and a fondness for nightclub dancing non-stop for four-hour stretches.

Linguine is a noodle whose charms I have only come lately to appreciate. I would flippantly dismiss it as spaghetti that got squished flat, and concluded that I might as well eat spaghetti as linguine. Subtlety, you might well have guessed - not my strong point. For the first time, a few years ago, I bought linguine under duress in an attempt to precisely follow a recipe in a magazine. This may have been because I had also recently read up on how it is very important to Italians to marry the correct sauce to each specific pasta shape. I worried that I had been going about it all wrong. Certainly, fettuccine was well matched to my creamy concoctions, but the linguini - ah, how to even express how much more elegant it was! Like the Linguine with Roasted Fennel recipe, it was an olive-oil based dressing that I made for the pasta. The noodles were slick, plump and shiny, without being weighed down by sauce. Each one slithered onto the fork almost of its own accord. It wasn't dry or uninteresting at all, and the amount of olive oil needed was about the same as is used in most more familiar pasta sauces just to saute the vegetables. Clearly, I was on to something.

I still enjoy a good cream sauce, now and again, and of course I am no stranger to cheese. The simplicity of a slick of good olive oil, a few fresh herbs, and a few vegetables has become my standby easy dinner. What I put in it - depends on what I have lying about. I might toss some vegetables on a grill, or roast them in a hot oven. I might have some shrimp lurking in the freezer, or a jar of artichoke hearts, or I might not have anything more exotic than button mushrooms and some parsley, but it's amazing what you can do with them. Especially if you have a few treasures squirreled away to brighten up any dish - a little bottle of white truffle oil...a small box of beautiful Brittany Sea Salt...a good hunk of parmesan cheese. The variety is infinte, and up to the limits of your imagination or your pantry, depending on whether you're willing to stock for the eventuality.

Prescription cheese

Today, my doctor told me that I need to get more calcium in my diet, and suggested increasing my dairy. Despite daily yoghurt infusions and a fondness for cheese, apparently I still need more. I was still ruminating on the ways I could possibly get more dietary calcium - running the list through my mind and trying to figure out if I was missing out on any major calcium sources - when I realized that I knew exactly what to make for dinner: something so rich, extravagant and dairy-laden that I tend to only make it once or twice a year.

Macaroni and cheese is a quintessentially North American dish but, sadly enough, most people make it out of boxes if they make it at all. This is a darn shame. This version uses real cheese and real butter, and it tastes out of this world. Not only that, but it doesn't take longer than the boxed stuff (you just have to do a couple of things while the water is coming to a boil). In a little nod toward Rob Feenie's splendid mac n' cheese with its cap of Irish-cured bacon lardons and four different cheeses, tonight I walked on the wilder side of macaroni and cheese: I added a little blue.

Macaroni & Cheese
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated February 1997

Serves 4

125 g. elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup evaporated milk (not condensed milk!)
5 oz./140 g. grated sharp cheddar (6 oz. if you're not using blue)
1 oz. /30 g. crumbled Danish Blue
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (Tabasco is fine)
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

Put a pot of water on to boil. While it comes to a boil, in a small bowl whisk together the egg, 1/2 cup of the evaporated milk, the pepper sauce, salt, mustard seed, and white pepper. Grate the cheddar. That's pretty much your whole prep.

Add the macaroni to the boiling water, and cook according to preference - I don't need to tell you that's al dente do I? Drain the pasta and return it to the pot over a low heat. Add the butter and stir well until melted. Add the milk/egg mixture and stir until it starts to thicken. Turn the heat off, and start adding the cheese, a small handful at a time, finishing with the blue cheese. Do not turn the heat back on to make it melt faster, or it will separate out into a grainy, ugly mess that will make you cry. Be patient, stir for the couple of minutes that it takes, and serve.

This is bloody rich, so small servings are best, preferably with lots of veggies and maybe a slice of meatloaf or something. Hey, I need more iron, too, did I mention? I won't be having this weekly in the name of dietary calcium, but it's a lovely treat - and what better time?

Orzo is My New Best Friend

Orzo is my new best friend. Good thing, too, because suddenly it is everywhere – on every menu, at every picnic or buffet or wedding reception. I book a lot of food for events through work, so when I tell you that orzo is everywhere, I’m not kidding around.

For some time now, since before orzo’s sudden explosion in popularity, I’ve been meaning to try a particular recipe from the Cooking Light Collection #6. It is innocuously named “Creamy Parmesan Orzo” or "Orzo with Parmesan and Basil" or somesuch, in the side dish section of the recipe break-down.

The recipe is easy to make, fast, and shockingly good. The formula runs something like this:

1 cup orzo, uncooked
1 tablespoon butter
2.5 cups liquid (half chicken stock, half water in the original)
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons fresh basil leaves, minced, torn or chiffonade
pinch salt
fresh ground black pepper

Melt the butter over medium heat in a medium sized saucepan. Add the raw orzo, and stir around for a couple of minutes to get it well coated. Add the liquid, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 10 – 15 minutes (depending on what “medium” is on your stovetop), stirring frequently. When the liquid is mostly absorbed, and the orzo starts to “catch” on the bottom of the pot, turn the heat off and add the parmesan, basil, salt and pepper.

Serves 4 as a side dish. Or, two greedy people who like starch. *ahem*

The original recipe also included toasted pine nuts, which I omitted simply because I didn’t have them, but I also think that the dish did not suffer for their absence. Not only were we exclaiming over the deliciousness of the dish constantly throughout dinner (sorry, apricot chicken, tasty as you were, you paled in comparison to the orzo), we were also dreaming up ways to vary the dish quite endlessly. These were some of the speculated changes:

• Broccoli florets (small) added five minutes to the end of cooking
• 1 cup of sliced fresh spinach, exchange parmesan for blue cheese, and toasted walnuts
• Sundried tomatoes and kalamata olives with basil and parsley
• Medley of finely diced peppers and feta
• Exchange the water for milk for an extra creamy dish and add sauteed mushrooms

This is the dish that those packaged “Lipton Sidekicks” aspire to be, but fall short in sodium-frenzied starchy mediocrity.

Odd and Ends, or Primavera di Estate

Sometimes, what you have on hand is enough. In this case, quickly grilling some languishing zucchini and peppers while the farfalle pasta boiled up, and tossing with fresh herbs, a diced tomato, garlic and olives. And, just like that, dinner is ready.


I love it when thing work so simply, and so well.

Spring Cleaning, starting with vodka (Penne alla Vodka)

I should note, to start, that I'm using the vodka neither to make cleaning more fun (although it's a heck of an idea!) nor as an actual cleaning agent. The vodka became involved by dint of being a major player in a notorious little Italian-American pasta dish Penne Vodka which was my recipe o' the week - and not incidentally, dinner on Saturday night.

It's a simple dish. While you heat up the water to cook a pound of penne pasta, you simmer 4 cups of simple tomato sauce with a cup of vodka. By the time the penne hits the boiling, salted water, your sauce will have reduced slightly, and you add a cup of heavy cream. Just before the pasta is al dente, drop a half-cup of grated parmesan into the sauce, give it a stir, drain the penne, stir it into the sauce, and allow to simmer on low for a couple of minutes more to absorb some of the sauce and give you time to devour a salad. A little black pepper, and you're done.

A pound of pasta, generally speaking, will serve four people as a main course, which evens this out as a 1/4 cup of vodka, 1/4 cup of cream, and 1/8 cup parmesan per person. Not exactly light food, but neither is it of the heart-attack inducing alfredo sauce calibre. It tastes very rich, though. Rich enough, that in these early days of Spring, it makes you contemplate taking up jogging, or lettuce.

I've never been an advocate of starvation diets. I've been known to try a few cleansing programs, such as the cabbage soup cleanse, but with my - er, let's say "abbreviated" - innards, such haphazard approaches to eating can be quite detrimental. I am feeling inspired to eat a little more healthily, though. Fortunately, I have a giant bag of chicken burritos in the freezer, but that would get fairly dull after a few days. I am resolved to make an effort to cook dinners that leave me feeling energized instead of tired, though. Light, clean meals. Out come the lentil soups and the vegetarian dishes, for a dusting-off, scraping off of the barnacles, and refitting of the hull. Foods where there are no oils or other added fats, where the intrinsic nature of the ingredients is a little healthier. A week or two of that, and I should be able to fend off the next Cheezies attack.

Final pronouncement on Penne Vodka? Very tasty, a little rich, and a little monotone on its own; would make a fantastic side dish to chicken piccata, though.