It’s not quite Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night, a holiday I’ve talked about before. But that’s coming. In the meantime, here’s an ingenious way to make use of summer’s bounty: no-noodle lasagna.

You know how to make lasagna, right? No need for me to go into it?

The layer of red sauce…
followed by a layer of noodle…
followed by a layer of ricotta, perhaps mixed with an egg and some chard or spinach…
followed by a layer of mozzarella…
followed by a layer of red sauce…
followed by a layer of noodle…
…and so on and so forth until your kitchen looks like it has been the setting of a massacre?

You know this. You’ve done it. I’m not gonna’ tell you to make lasagna. I will simply tell you what I have long-considered the biggest pain-in-the-patookis about lasagna.

To my mind, the biggest pain-in-the-patookis about lasagna is not the massacre-setting. It is those danged noodles. Unless you are gonna’ let the lasagna sit overnight (something I never quite plan for, because I am not a planner, and which always makes me nervous, anyway, since I tend to mix an egg with the ricotta), you must first boil the noodles, and then lay them out in such a way that doesn’t make them stick together, and now there’s an extra pot to clean, and dang it, those noodles stuck together anyway…

And now. Now I have found a solution to that problem. And this solution also happens to be a solution to the too-much-zucchini problem of summer. And? If you happen to be one of those South Beach types? You will also find this to be a solution to the carbs-are-gonna’-kill-us problem.

Forget those sticky, pot-messying noodles! Just layer slices of zucchini wherever you would have placed a noodle. Cut ‘em to somewhere between an eighth-inch to a quarter-inch thick (don’t worry; you won’t be exact, and you don’t need to). Follow any lasagna recipe whatsoever, replacing the word “noodle” with the word “zucchini.” And yes, I mean raw zucchini. No need for that extra pot! No need whatsoever!

It works:

Your six-year old, who claims not to like zucchini, digs it. Your husband likes it fine, and says he misses the noodles only when you are fool enough to ask the question, “do you miss the noodles?”

(note to self: do not ask such a question next time).

Your two-year old happily rejects it, as she happily rejects all food, and chooses instead to clomp around the house in your sandals:

When she is silent for too long, you discover that she has decided to try on every shoe in the house:

As you clean that up mess, your six-year old finishes her lasagna, and decides to start making herself a smoothie:

Which she does remarkably well, actually:

Even if it does make her look creepily like Batman’s Joker:

But back to the no-noodle lasagna. Like any lasagna, a big pan of it makes enough for dinner, plus a bunch that can be separated, frozen, and saved for a rainy day:

Oh, wait. It IS a rainy day:

No matter. You’ll save for the next rainy day.

The only problem with this recipe, is that the zucchini contains enough water that a bunch of liquid gets left behind in a pan:

If you were a planner, you would have planned ahead for this. You would have covered your zucchini slices in salt and water, then let stand for 2 hours to draw out the vegetable’s water, then rinsed well before using.

But we have already established that you are not a planner, you shall never be a planner, you do not for the life of you understand this word, plan, this word that others mention with such frequency, and such enthusiasm.

No, you did not plan ahead. So, instead, you decide the extra liquid is nothing that a big hunk of crusty bread can’t fix.

Plenty more zucchini recipes to follow. Because those zucchini keep coming, as fast as we can use ‘em.

There’s an interesting article, Got Osteoporosis?, by Emily Yoffe, on Slate magazine. It’s about our bones, and all the things we might be doing to ruin them. You probably think you already know the article’s conclusion, but you would be wrong.

I’ll cut to the chase: the article suggests that perhaps drinking milk isn’t the best path to healthy bones.

Yoffe highlights smarty-pants researchers like Mark Hegsted, retired Harvard professor of nutrition and T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, who believe that the standard calcium recommendations may be…well…wrong.

(even if these recommendations do lead to bare-chested photos of David Beckham.)

Here are two of the ideas at work among the dairy-doubters:

1. Our high rate of osteoporosis and bone fracture are not the result of insufficient calcium. They are instead, the result of too much animal protein. There are plenty of population studies to suggest that as consumption of animal protein increases, osteoporosis and bone fracture also increase. Which may explain why in America — where a whoppin’ 70% of our diet comes from animal sources — 8 million women and 2 million men have osteoporosis, and we suffer 1.5 million fractures annually.

The basic idea is that the animal protein, which is high in sulfur-containing amino acids, requires the body to buffer the effects of those amino acids. Which it does by leaching calcium from the bones. So, while we may consume large amounts of calcium, we piss that calcium away. Literally.

Says Campbell:

The correlation between animal protein [intake] and fracture rates in different societies is as strong as that between lung cancer and smoking.

Yowza.

2. Getting too much calcium at a young age may permanently damage our ability to absorb calcium efficiently as we age. In other words, we absorb the calcium early on, and develop nice, dense bones. But then, as we age, all that early calcium harms our ability to absorb and keep calcium. It seems perverse, but it appears to be supported by a number of population studies. Says Hegsted:

[H]ip fractures are more frequent in populations where dairy products are commonly consumed and calcium intakes are relatively high. Is there any possibility that this is a causal relationship? …It will be embarrassing enough if the current calcium hype is simply useless; it will be immeasurably worse if the recommendations are actually detrimental to health.

Campbell points to the Chinese, who consume less than half the calcium we’re told is necessary, most from plant sources like leafy green vegetables. Only 10% of their diet comes from animal sources, although they consume more calories. Yet the Chinese have only one-fifth the incidence of hip fractures than Americans.

(Cambell also notes that rural Chinese girls begin menstruating much later than Americans — typical age is 15 —that Chinese women have only two-thirds of the estrogen circulating through their bodies compared with Americans, and they have far lower rates of breast cancer. Connection? He thinks so).

But in the end, Yoffe notes, this whole argument — Drink Milk! No, Don’t! — might be like shouting into the wind. With all the sodas we Americans are guzzling, and with all the sodium with which we’re smothering our foods, and with all of the exercise we’re just not getting, this whole darn dairy-no dairy argument is like opera companies and symphony orchestras fighting over teen audiences.

“While they’re fighting,” quips Yoffe, “they forgot to notice the audience is at American Pie.”

Which means we’ve got plenty more weakened, fractured bones to look forward to.

Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go eat some yogurt and cheese. No I’m not. Yes I am. No, I’m not. Yes I am…

And so on.

1. Escarole Soup No-Go. That escarole soup that I have made several times with chicken broth? I tried it with vegetable broth. You would think that the two would be similar. You would think, “ah, no difference whatsoever!” or at least “any difference is miniscule! Tiny! Insignificant!”

You would be wrong. Do not make this recipe with vegetable broth. The chicken broth mellows the bitter flavor of the escarole; the vegetable broth enhances it. If someone could explain to me the scientific reason for this, I would be impressed.

Vegetarians, I’d do No-Chicken broth before vegetable stock. Consider yourself warned.

2. I’ll Take the Poop, But Not the Inflammation. The Dirty Jobs episode where they show tilapia eating fish poop wasn’t enough to scare me off of the mild, white, ubiquitous fish, but this might be. It’s long been known that farm-raised tilapia had low levels of omega-3s. But it apparently also has very high levels of long-chain omega-6 fatty acids. This combination (low omega 3s, high omega 6s) promotes inflammation, making the fish potentially dangerous for anyone at risk of heart disease, arthritis, asthma, or other health problems that are vulnerable to inflammation. Inflammation damages the blood vessels, heart, lung and joint tissues, skin, and the digestive tract. According to Floyd Chilton, professor of physiology at Wake Forest University, tilapia is even worse for your health than a big ol’ hamburger or bacon.

So what can you eat safely? Not much, says Chilton, thanks to a large-scale corruption of the American food chain with cheap corn feed. It’s the cornification of our diets that has altered the fats in beef, chicken, eggs and farmed fish. Good thing the government doesn’t pay farmers to grow even more of this crappy cheap feed. Oh, wait.

3. Apparently, God Didn’t Smite Nebraska Beef the Last Time. Are you all following the most recent e. Coli outbreak? 5.3 million pounds recalled? People sickened in five states? All because there was dirty, tainted poop in their meat? I just realized that it all came from Nebraska Beef. Now, how do I know that name? Nebraska Beef, Nebraska Beef, Nebraska Beef…oh, that’s right! They’re the group that sued the church last year, after a bunch of church-goers were sickened, and one killed, after eating dirty meat from Nebraska Beef! The company actually had the balls to sue the church for not cooking the meat to a high enough temperature. They should have known our product is filthy! said Nebraska Beef in so many words. Those stupid Jesus-lovers should have acted with more caution around our nasty product! Apparently, having avoided being turned into a pillar of salt after that incident, Nebraska Beef found no reason to clean up their act.

4. Oh, Just Lighten Up, Ali, Won’t You? Me? I can make salad people. Saxton Freymann, on the other hand, can make art. Check out his slide show, from the New York Times, for a little antidote to news about icky food. His food isn’t icky. It might even make you smile.

5. I never found my underwear. For those who are wondering.

I’m not ashamed to say it. This recipe was borrowed from Elise at Simply Recipes, which might more aptly be named Simply the Best Damned Recipes You’re Gonna’ Find on the Web.

She calls it Sauteed Swiss Chard Ribs with Cream and Pasta. I call it easy-peasy-yumilicious.

When last we left, we had used the chard leaves for a quiche tart. We had wrapped our leaves in a wet towel, and stored them overnight in the refrigerator. There were ten stems, about three cups chopped. This is slightly more than Elise calls for, but to my mind, more chard is always good chard.

This one is easy; so easy that you can make it in little more than the time it takes to make pasta, while wearing your bathing suit, still wet, after a late afternoon trip to the community pool:

Which is all good until you discover that your underwear is missing. But that doesn’t happen yet. Not yet.

First, we do exactly what Elise tells us. We chop the stems into inch-long strips:

We drop them in boiling water and let them simmer for three minutes:

Then we drain the stems, and melt butter in a saucepan. Elise says a quarter cup; I say “ummm…a bunch. You know. Like this:”

We simmer the stems in the butter on low heat for four minutes. Then we add a cup of heavy cream and simmer until reduced by two-thirds (or, as I put it, “until it’s thick enough that you want to put it on pasta”):

While it’s reducing, cook up half a box of pasta.

It is at about this point that you decide to change out of your bathing suit. When you do, you discover that your underwear is missing from the bag you took to the pool. You realize with horror that it must have fallen out of your bag, poolside, when your kids went digging through your things in search of crackers. The underwear you wore that day, the ones that are missing, are big white cotton Hanes Her Way briefs. Granny panties.

You imagine the other mothers who had been at the pool that afternoon — the one that wears adorable tennis skirts; the one in the movie star sunglasses; the one that took pole dancing lessons — picking up those panties and shrieking with laughter.

“Oh. Mah. God,” says Tennis Mom, dangling them from her manicured fingers.

“I mean, have you ever seen anything like these?” sniggers Sunglasses mom. She lifts her glasses to inspect the underwear more closely, then cooly puts the glasses back over her eyes, shaking her head.

“It would be funny…” starts Pole Dancing Mom.

“If it weren’t so pathetic!” cackles Tennis Mom.

Then the three of them place your underwear on the end of a long stick and parade around the edge of the pool, whooping with laughter, while their children dance merrily at their feet and the whole community looks on.

But back to the recipe.

When pasta is done, which should be right around the time that the sauce is nice and thick, mix together. Add salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with some fresh parsley, chopped, just to make it look pretty (if you used only ruby red stems, that would look nice, too):

This is quite good. The stems became slightly sweet in the cooking, which paired beautifully with the very rich cream/butter sauce. And it is rich, so you won’t want heaping servings of it. We paired it along with a huge green salad and some bread, which was perfect.

One thing I will do differently next time: chop the stems smaller; they really are tasty enough to deserve a place in every forkful. Smaller pieces would help spread the love. I might also try this as a sauce for fish. But everyone ate this meal happily, especially with a few extra sprinkles of kosher sea salt.

By the way, the next morning, you rush to the pool as soon as it opens, to see if you can scoop your missing granny panties out of the Lost and Found box. They are not there. You sigh, envisioning them atop a flagpole somewhere nearby. Soon — any minute now — you will drive by and see your underwear fluttering high above the community, that wide expanse of white cotton flapping in the breeze, a beacon of your inner granny for all to see.

You may no longer have your pride. But at least you’ve got chard.

See the part that's cut off? That's because a huge chunk of my crust broke off. You'd never know, would you? Except that I'm telling you.

Chard is in at my CSA:

Oh, chard. My love. One of my many true loves. You are so lovely to look at. So tasty on my lips. And…so good for me. Isn’t that the sign of a good relationship? That it brings out the best in a person? In that case, our love is good love, chard baby. The best.

I’ve said before that I like chard, because it seems like two vegetables in one: velvety green leaves, plus hearty stems of various colors.

Many recipes actually encourage cooks to use leaves only; just trim the stems off! they say. So blithely they say it! Trim them! Discard! It always seems so wasteful, and like they’re missing half the point. Would you chop your beloved spouse in half? And if so, which half would you keep? The head or the nether-regions? Not easy to choose, is it, oh recipe Gods? Sure, the leaves cook up faster than the stems; I usually just separate them, then allow the stems to cook for a couple of minutes before adding the leaves. Always worked for me.

Still, this week, I decided to play by the rules and separate the two. With the leaves, I made a tasty chard tart. But, because I cannot bear to discard the stems, I cannot bear to discard any part of my beloved chard, I used them as the basis for a pasta cream sauce. Let’s start with the tart.

Now, some of you may look at this tart, and think, “that’s not a tart, that’s a quiche!” But really. Don’t you like the word “tart” so much better than the word “quiche”? “Quiche.” The word does not have the same appeal. “Tart.” Oh yes. Just using it makes me feel saucy.

Besides, I think of quiche as being super egg-y, with a few vegetables mixed in. This recipe is far more about the vegetable than the eggs. So I choose to call it a tart. But you can call it quiche if you like. Let us not quibble. Let us cook.

Ingredients:
1 pie crust
2 honkin’ cloves of garlic
2 garlic scapes, chopped (optional; I used ‘em because I had ‘em)
Chard leaves (10 leaves, yielding about 9 cups chopped), well-rinsed, dried, and chopped pretty small
1/4 cup rice, slightly undercooked, and drained
2 eggs
Quarter pound of gruyere cheese, grated
Salt (I forgot to measure; try a quarter teaspoon, then sprinkle on some kosher sea salt after it’s cooked if you need more)
Few shakes of black pepper
Olive oil

Directions:
Wrap stems in a wet towel and set aside for another day.

Preheat oven to 350. Chop garlic, scapes, and chard leaves. Sautee garlic in olive oil. Once garlic is soft (but not browned), add chard (and scapes, if you’re using them) and cook until wilted. Once wilted, combine with other ingredients and mix. Drop into pie crust. Bake for about 35 minutes, until an inserted knife comes out clean.

The verdict:
I liked it. I liked it the first night, and I really liked it the next day, as leftovers (what is it about letting food sit overnight that makes it so much better?). I especially liked having the rice mixed in there — next time I might add even more rice, and forgo the crust altogether.

No longer afraid of green things, Merrie tasted it happily, thought the cheese was a little too strong and requested that I make it next time “with American cheese. White American cheese.” (I agreed, thinking, “Okay, then muenster it is.” She’ll never know). Wee Charlotte ate the crust. Then climbed out of her high chair onto the side table and threatened to jump, a devilish look in her almost 2-year-old eyes.

Blair ate it without much comment (he was too busy trying to coax Charlotte back into her high chair) but also happily ate it a second night.

Would I make it again? Yes. Next time, I might try it with goat cheese and fresh herbs, just for a change of pace. But I would make it because (1) it’s easy - the chopping was the hardest part, (2) it’s tasty, and (3) it’s chard.

“Today is blue day,” Merrie announced yesterday, as she clomped downstairs.

Indeed, the girl was blue. All blue. Bright blue T-shirt. Bright blue barrettes. Bright blue shorts. Blue scarf. And, the piece de resistance, electric blue cowgirl boots that we’d spray painted last October to complete her Supergirl costume. The only other color was a shock of red on her lips from some gaudily applied lip gloss. The effect was somewhere between smurf and rodeo clown.

Blue day started out fun — blueberry smoothie, blueberry pancakes. But by the evening, blue day had made me kind of…blue. Nothing big, just a series of unfortunate events, family style — a playdate gone awry, a beastly (still blue) six-year-old, a tantrum, a punishment, and an hour’s worth of screaming. I will never, ever stop hating you, Mommy!!! Neverrrrrrrrrrrr!! Charlotte, too, sobbing literally over spilled milk. A smelly dog with a herniated disc problem, also howling and sobbing. Runny noses. Too much noise. Blue mommy.

Very blue.

Fortunately, blue day was rescued, rescued rather quickly. It was rescued by a soup, a quick, simple, one-pot, wholly healthful soup. This soup starred, of all things, escarole.

Yes, escarole.

Escarole isn’t anything new; this leafy green has been around for 5,000 years or so. The Egyptians ate it. The Greeks. Ovid mentions the stuff, as does Pliny. It’s a staple in Italian cuisine. But the truth is, this vegetable is relatively new to me.

Like all leafy greens, escarole is a great source of iron, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin K, and minerals. Unlike other kale or collards, it doesn’t require too much cooking. It resembles a kind of wide-leaf, tough, homely variety of romaine lettuce - just heartier and a little more bitter.

This soup isn’t anything unique; you can find a gazillion variations in cookbooks and online. But I thought this version was so, so good. Good enough to turn a blue day into something better.

Ali’s Greens-Saved-Blue-Day Escarole Cannellini Soup
1 head escarole, cleaned and chopped
2 TBSP olive oil
4 slices prosciutto, sliced thin (you could also try it with bacon; note variations for non-pork eaters, below)
2 cloves garlic
Small sprig of fresh rosemary
2 shakes red pepper
3 cups chicken broth
Juice of half a lemon
1 tomato, peeled and skinned
1 can cannellini or other white beans, including juice
Kosher sea salt, to taste
Topping: shaved parmesan

Soak escarole and gently swirl in water to remove any dirt from leaves:

Dry escarole and chop into 1-inch strips.

Sautee garlic and prosciutto in olive oil. Do not allow garlic to brown, otherwise it will get bitter.

Add chopped rosemary and red pepper.

Add escarole. Sautee until wilted.

Add chicken broth, lemon juice, and tomato. (If you’re feeling really lazy, go ahead and skin the tomato by letting it sit in the broth for about 20 seconds. I’m telling you: one pot’s the way to go here).

Let simmer for 10 minutes. Add beans. Cook another 3-4 minutes, until heated through. Add salt to taste (you might find you don’t need much; the prosciutto adds plenty of salt).

Add shaved parmesan to the top, and serve with crusty bread.

** for non pork-eaters: try substituting anchovies. Or, if you’re a no-animal type, you try a bay leaf, which you should remove before eating.

This is good. Really good. It retains a bit of escarole’s bitter bite, and is full of flavor, light, healthy, delicious. Blair loved it. Merrie enjoyed the bean-and-broth part, and I’m sure she got a little of the escarole in there. Charlotte liked precisely four spoonfuls of the bean and broth. Then she got a big hunk of escarole, declared “Mommy, I no like lettuce,” and refused to eat another bite. However, her credibility is highly questionable. The girl eats almost nothing, preferring instead to live on love, milk, diluted juice, and Elmo.

But I really, really enjoyed it — enough that I started to feel better, almost immediately. You just can’t say “I’m blue” while thinking “I just made a really tasty, good-for-me, one-pot soup.”

Thanks to escarole, my day went from blue to healthy greens, just like that.

I received this email from Crystal:

I need your help. We’ve started getting our weekly (CSA) vegetable shares and I don’t know what to do with some of this stuff. Do you have any suggestions for bok choy, yukina, or mizuna? How about something exciting with radishes? I love cooking and creating new dishes, but these massive bags of greens are stumping me a bit.

Ah, yes. I know that feeling, the one of staring down heaps of green. ‘Tis not a task for the faint of heart. Let’s all come together in a collective huzzah for Crystal as she embarks on this task, shall we? One, two…

Huzzah!

Sorry; I didn’t wait for three. I was kind of excited about the whole thing.

My own CSA also grows bok choy, yukina, and mizuna. I, too, once found myself stumped by these babies. That is, until I learned that in addition to being wildly healthful, they are also wildly versatile. All can be eaten in salads, steamed, sauteed, stir-fried, or cooked in sauces or soups. In other words, you can’t go wrong with them. The’re fool-proof! Failsafe! Serve ‘em hot, serve ‘em cold! Serve ‘em raw, serve ‘em stewed! There’s no wrong answer! That’s my kinda’ vegetable.

My standard for all of these has been to a quick sautee or stir-fry, generally prepared one of two ways: either sauteed with garlic, olive oil, a touch of kosher sea salt, and a sprinkling of lemon or vinegar; or stir-fried with an Asian flair (garlic, ginger, sesame oil, tamari, rice vinegar, and a touch of something sweet; I don’t measure, but I’ll figure out exact proportions if you like).

However, I, too, am ready for a little change.  I now present a kind of Recipe Roundup, Ali’s pick o’ the web for less familiar greens.

Bok Choy

Personally, I love bok choy (an Asian cabbage, slightly spicy), because it feels like two veggies in one - the stalks stay firm and crunchy even when cooked, and the leaves wilt like spinach or chard. It works beautifully with ginger and garlic. Here are some other not-too-complicated ways to prepare it:

Elise’s Baby Bok Choy with Cashews. Haven’t made this exactly, though I’ve done similar meals. And trust me: you’ll never, ever go wrong with Elise.

Alanna’s bok choy salad with creamy vinaigrette. Alanna’s also a kitchen whiz; Alanna, honey, I’d love to cook together someday.

Or, if you’re looking for something really different, try bok choy in coconut milk.

Mizuna/Yukina

Mizuna is a Japanese mustard green, which you can often find in mesclun. It’s extremely cold-tolerant, so you’ll see it at plenty of farmers’ markets in northern climates. It has feathery green leaves, and has a mustardy tang. Yukina (also known as yukina savoy), is less well known, but is a variety of loose, delicate cabbage leaves. You don’t see many recipes for yukina, but fortunately, you can use yukina in all of the below recipes (and, frankly, in any recipe that calls for spinach, or chard, or other similar greens).

Calendula and concrete learned a little bit more about mizuna after accidentally growing it; she shares some nice links to recipes. I’d also point Crystal to wok-sauteed mizuna and chicken, via Whole Foods. Nah, better yet, try Nook and Pantry’s easier, pared-down version.

Many mizuna recipes are Asian in origin. But hey! We’re in a global village here! The world is flat, so let’s break out of Asia! Check out the Nourished Kitchen’s mixed potato salad with mizuna and sundried tomatoes (don’t worry; you don’t actually have to use homemade mayo).

Or, if you’re feelin’ eclectic, try mizuna and plum salad with parmesan, from the Kitchen restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. Yum.

Radishes

As for radishes. We all know them as plate garnishes, salad toppings, and the spicy healthful snack that our grandmother sonce served to us and which we never really enjoyed all that much. It’s time to take a new look at these veggies. They’re packed with vitamin C, they’re a powerful antioxidant, they’re chock full o’ minerals, and they’re a great source of folic acid, calcium, potassium, and dietary fiber.

Not a fan of radishes peppery kick? Then try cooking them. Wait, you can cook radishes? Oh, heck yes! In fact, cooking mellows their flavor. Try them grilled, steamed, or sauteed in butter.

And don’t forget those radish greens! Yes, the radish greens are plenty edible. (Note: the greens will dry out long before the globes, so you’ll want to use these earlier in the week). Try some radish leaf and potato soup. Or mix those greens into gingery meatballs. Mmm.

Crystal, let me know if you try any of them, and how they work for you.

In the meantime, I’m working on a great recipe for escarole soup. More later, friends.

We are in a long stretch right now. School over, camp not yet begun. Very little break from children.

Very. Little. Break.

(Overheard in my house this morning: “PLEASE. PLEASE just leave me alone when I’m in the bathroom. Please. I’m begging you. Just a few minutes. Please. I NEED PRIVACY JUST FIVE MINUTES OF PRIVACY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!”)

Actually, what I need is a drink. A stiff one. Which brings me to my new boyfriend, Mark Bittman.

Mark Bittman is my boyfriend not simply because his cookbook, How to Cook Everything, is one of the best kitchen purchases I have made. His recipes are simple to master, they call for few ingredients, and they rarely require precise attention to detail. (I’m not the only one who likes it; the book spent a whoppin’ 130 weeks on the Los Angeles Times Cookbook Hot List. His other cookbooks ain’t bad either).

Mark Bittman is my boyfriend not simply because he believes you don’t need expensive gear to be a good cook ($200-$300 should do it says my smart, frugal beau. To which I reply “You mean $221.95 - $321.95, honey!!! Can’t forget your cookbook, among the best evah, Sweetums!).

Mark Bittman is my boyfriend not simply because his recipe for a no-egg vanilla pudding is fast, simple, and super tasty, particularly when made with an actual vanilla bean and local, whole-fat milk (yes, this recipe uses cornstarch. Yes, cornstarch is processed. But I still put this in the category of more-or-less from scratch, and if you do, too, you should try it tonight. It takes 20 easy minutes, and you probably have the ingredients on hand).

Mark Bittman is my boyfriend not simply because, despite selling millions of copies of cookbooks, he once declared his own kitchen to be “terrible… one of the worst kitchens ever,” and still had no interest in spending $30,000 to fix it up.

Mark Bittman is my boyfriend not simply because his philosophy on meat is the same as my own: the modern stuff is creepy. Eat less, and make it quality, says my Pooky.

He is my boyfriend for all of those reasons, it’s true. But this week, he is my boyfriend because he taught me how to make MUCH NEEDED sour cocktails without recipes. His column in the Times, Add a Splash of Ad-Lib, breaks it down and makes bartender-quality cocktails seem so, so simple.

His formula: Booze + something sweet + something sour = 80% of drinks. In the right proportions, of course, and he’s there to help with that.

Read this article if (a) you appreciate the occasional gimlet or kamikaze and haven’t the faintest idea how to make them, (b) you are going slightly mad in a  between-school-and-camp limbo, and you, like me, need a drink right about now, (c) you find premixed high fructose corn syrup-laden drink “mixes” just plain icky, and prefer simple cocktails with pure ingredients, and (d) you don’t smirk too much at the idea that you can call any liver-busting cocktail “pure.”

….We interrupt this blog for a quick note to my mother: No, mom, I will not be drinking vodka while home alone with the children. I promise. My readers won’t either. No, they won’t drink and drive. They are smart, responsible adults. I promise. I am, too. Yes I am! Am so!!!  Jeesh….

In that same article, Bittman compares making a good drink to making good food:

The parallels with cooking are clear. You can start with good ingredients, or not. You can start with someone else’s recipe (on which there are usually a score or more variations) or make the cocktail your own. The point — and this clearly comes from the perspective of cook, not bartender — is this: Why not make cocktails from scratch, ignoring the names and acknowledging your preferences? Why not treat the margarita like a dish of pasta with tomatoes, assuming a few given ingredients but varying them according to your taste?…it’s very empowering.

His post inspired some snarky responses, like this one from a guy who uses words like “egregious” and “bizarre” and “unconscionable” about the post (Dude! Lighten up! He’s talking to folks like me, who don’t have the slightest idea how to mix up these spirits and don’t want to resort to a T.G.I. Friday’s Blenders margarita mix! Besides, you don’t seem very nice. I’m betting my boyfriend is WAY nicer than you).

Now I’m off to shepherd small people to the local swimming hole. In between helping small people not drown, I will daydream about cosmopolitans and sidecars, all served to me by a loincloth-clad Mark Bittman.

It’s rare that I walk away from a post and think, “what have I done?” However, yesterday afternoon, while zipping in to pick up Charlotte from day care, I stopped short in my tracks and thought “Did I really talk about sex lubes while trying to explain a food additive????” My only defense, friends: spend a few hours looking up carrageenan, and you’re going to repeatedly find your way onto sites promoting the stuff for good lovin’.

Moving on: we’ve talked before about the insanity that is our mad cow policy. Not only that we test fewer than 1% of cows for mad cow disease, but also that our government has actively prevented a private company, Creekstone Farms, from testing its own product at its own expense. Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumer’s Union, has written a great op-ed on the subject, Stop the Madness, in the New York Times. Noting that 71 percent of adults who eat beef would pay more to support mad cow testing, Hansen writes:

In the Creekstone case, the Agriculture Department argued that the tests should be prohibited because if one company started using them, consumer demand would drive all companies to use them, and that would add to the price of beef. But…isn’t this how the laws of supply and demand are supposed to work?

While you’re there, you might want to check out another op-ed, Yes, We Will Have No Bananas (thanks, Jack, for the link) penned by Dan Koeppel, about a fungus that threatens to make bananas far more rare. He notes:

That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They’re grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they’re cut off the tree.

They are cheap, of course, because of monocropping (the near-ubiquitous variety of banana is the Cavendish, which Koeppel compares to a Big Mac: “efficient to produce, uniform in quality and universally affordable”), and because bananas are grown in countries where wages are low, and workers are denied health care or the right to congregate. That they are monocropped, and produced by rock-bottom growers, enhances their vulnerability. Koeppel encourages us to look some years in the future, after the Panama virus likely wipes out much of the existing supply. He says it’s time “we recognize bananas for what they are: an exotic fruit that, some day soon, may slip beyond our reach.”

That seems impossible — of course there will always be bananas — but then again, sometimes entire crops are simply wiped out. Poof. Gone. NPR recently did a story, A Not-So-Sweet Lesson From Brazil’s Cocoa Farms, about a once-wealthy Brazilian cocoa producer who lost everything, his whole plantation, when a fungus ravaged Brazil’s cocoa industry (cocoa production across the entire region plunged nearly 75 percent). I’m sure that idea — poof, gone — once would have seemed impossible to him.

We forget sometimes that we live as a part of an ecosystem. That ecosystem — even when all we see of it is the end of the line, the fluorescent-lit, Muzak-filled grocery stores — is so fragile. It may not seem fragile to us as we push our shopping carts past aisles of cereal boxes, but it is. It always is. That’s yet another reason I love my CSA, or a trip to farmers’ markets. It helps me to really get that, to understand my small place on this fragile planet.

And speaking of fragility: My buddy, Matt, at Fat Guy on a Little Bike, wrote a heartbreaking post about driving through his home town in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after the flood. It’s so hard to imagine. He’s got some links to photos, though I know that photos don’t begin to capture the three-dimensional reality of it all. He’s also got some information about how to make a matched donation to support the good people of Iowa.

The Ethicurean has done some reporting on the flood, too, examining what might be leaking into the environment, including Iowans’ drinking water, as a result of agrichemicals leaching with the flood water into drinking sources. It’s a grim picture. I spent years in Iowa. I love the place. Please keep them all in your prayers.

News days like this make me feel blown like an old flag by forces so much bigger than myself.

Yes, now I see I talk about sex lubes:

In the face of floods,
Disease, life’s fragility,
Sex lubes cheer, distract.

Maybe it’s time for a recipe or two.

Sure, you’re a sex lube.
(That’s out of the way. Phew.
Let’s move on to food).

Derived from seaweed,
(what could be more natural?)
You thicken. Bind. Gel.

You’re found in puddings,
Ice cream, jams, processed cheeses,
Toothpaste, icing, fro-yo…

And Silk soy creamer,
My preferred coffee creamer.
I sure hope you’re safe.

You come in two forms:
Degraded, Undegraded.
One food-grade, one not.

Most food experts claim
Undegraded’s safe to eat.
No problem, say they!

Degraded? Not so.
Degraded is evil stuff.
Brings GI problems.

Like..say… IBS.
Cancers of the GI tract.
Ulcers, colitis.

It seems simple, then:
“Undegraded is safe!” …But ‘natch,
There’s controversy;

Dr. Tobacman
Points out this sticky wicket:
WE might degrade it.*

Sheesh…our own tummies
Might just turn undegraded
Into degraded.

If this is true…Yikes!
Then the difference means nothing.
Avoid it, she says!

And others’ advice?
Dr. Weil , nature’s M.D.,
Says “best to avoid.”**

Dr. Weil, I must ask:
Would you smother your love bits
In the stuff? (I might.)***

Fit Sugar says “Eat!”
Eden Foods, Toms of Maine: “Fine!”
Dr. Minich: “Sure.”

Eat. Don’t. Eat. Eat. Don’t.
Who can keep up? As for me,
I’m cautious, not freaked.****

For daily Java, though,
I might switch to half-and-half.
I mean…just in case.

(As for the love juice,
it’s “soft, silky, not sticky!“
Beats Astro-Glide, too!

Awww, what can I say?
As I hurtle toward forty,
I’ll keep that in mind).

* Says Dr. Tobacman: “exposure to undegraded as well as to degraded carrageenan was associated with the occurrence of intestinal ulcerations and neoplasms. This association may be attributed to contamination of undegraded carrageenan by components of low molecular weight, spontaneous metabolism of undegraded carrageenan by acid hydrolysis under conditions of normal digestion, or the interactions with intestinal bacteria.

**From Dr. Weil: “Given this new information on carrageenan, I would recommend avoiding regular consumption of products containing it. While some brands of soy milk do contain the additive, others do not. With a little research you should be able to find a product that suits your taste and doesn’t contain carrageenan.”

***Mine, I mean, not his.

****Truthfully, I fell down the Google hole on this one and left feeling no wiser than when I started. All of the “don’t eat it” advice came down to Tobacman’s one (admittedly troubling) literature review. Which is persuasive. But then again, so are the letters in response. In the end, I’m deciding not to swear it off completely, but to try to keep it limited — mostly by trying to stay as unprocessed as possible. Which I was trying to do anyway. Even though it’s hard.