"Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul." Dorothy Day
"It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate – you know someone’s fingers have been all over it." Julia Child
"Our toaster has two settings: too soon or too late."
Sam Levenson
"Fun-sized Snickers? Who’s this fun for? Not me. I need six or seven of these babies in a row to start having fun."
Jeff Carlin
"Do you know on this one block you can buy croissants in five different places? There's one store called Bonjour Croissant. It makes me want to go to Paris and open a store called Hello Toast". Fran Liebowitz

Top Chef the Cruise…cannot wait!
But, in just 6 more days we will be setting sail on Celebrity Cruise/Bravo’s Top Chef the Cruise, from Miami. Completely stoked and just getting ready to tweet a howdy to Gail Simmons…

Bananas Foster is what inspired this recipe. Caramel, spice, and bold tropical sweetness abounds. When you have prepared a batch of these, there are numerous ways to put them to use. I like mine with ham steaks, or pork chops or tenderloin, they’re great with good French Vanilla ice cream, and will complement any fruit tart, or any slice of cake, or simply prepare a plate of roasted pineapple presented with knives and some whipped cream as a dessert.

A hodge-podge from the start, this wonderful salad is one of those “play-with-it” salads. If you started with just the crab and some salad dressing, and simply added stuff that you thought would taste good with those two items, you could possibly end up with a crab salad version similar to the one below. Don’t hold back, have fun with this one; it’s a great salad to have for supper on a warm summer evening and unless you are such a purist that you refuse to eat mock crab, try it with the mock crab first before you go out and spend too much for lump crab meat. Note: If you can, make this a day ahead of the day you plan on serving it; I think it gets better by sitting overnight.

Other versions of this dish below have been called “Safari Supper” and were served often as a standard in my home for years. Many were the conversations that took place before, during, and after the preparation of the basic recipe. My version is a little sweeter, a little “peanutier”, and with a little more kick. Play with any or all of it; it’s very flexible in terms of flavor layers. Have fun and enjoy!

Cornbread & Cornbread Pudding (2 versions)
Be it that wonderful “homey” nature of cornbread; or that textural thrill of crunching through the crust; or the nutritional and health benefits of corn; the history of corn having sustained centuries of civilization; or, that “I-just-plain-like-because-it-makes-me-feel-good-when-I-eat-it” thing, but, I consider cornbread to truly be one of those comfort foods that should be on the list of “The Top 10 Comfort Foods I Would Never Be Without”.

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