black beauty

My ardor for cooking is unflagging. It has survived many things… smoke alarms, microscopic galley kitchens, chunky cheesecake, missing ingredients, ill-timed meals… I haven’t substituted salt for sugar yet, but it’s only a matter of time given how scatterbrained and clumsy I tend to be.

But this culinary passion of mine has conquered all disasters, including the truly obnoxious existence of electric stoves with coils. Every apartment (that’s reasonably priced) has them, and I balanced sauté pans on them faithfully for 3 years until becoming a homeowner. Then, prettily housed within a blinding array of strawberry-dotted wallpaper, another kind of electric stove greeted me. A kind that has not been reproduced since the 80s, and for good reason -- the solid, cast-iron plated electric stove.

They take 18 years to heat up and 18 years to cool down. They look hideous. They’re impossible to clean. If they didn’t happen to be immovable, they’d be worse than the loathed coils.

Yet lo and behold! A light shineth in the distance, and that light was a brand-new Frigidaire glass-ceramic stovetop that is flat as a pancake and glossy with promise! Thanks to Conn’s and my husband’s prowess, I am now thrilled to announce that I can plop four frying pans on that baby with nary a wobble or shake.

Sigh. Frigidaire, I love thee! (Ahem… you, too, honey…)

olive oyl

I tasted tapenade for the first time in Paris, smeared on crusty bread and redolent of salt. And every time I’m in the condiment aisle at the grocery store, its blackish sheen, trapped inside a pathetically small bottle, catches my eye. Then the $7 price tag propels my feet onward.

(By the by, tapenade is this divine purée of black olives, capers, olive oil and anchovies that Europeans adore. Like olives and salt had the most delicious baby ever. Too creepy?)

Spurred by a random streak of inventiveness, and my husband’s recent obsession with gin-and-tonic-soaked olives, I bought two cans of olives -- green and black -- but couldn’t find capers or anchovies. C’est la vie. So I drained and chunked the little buggers in a food processor along with a clove of garlic and, voila! Out came a most delicious olive relish that cannot truly call itself tapenade, but makes my mouth just as happy.

It’s fabulous on a baguette, or try it on good bread with salami, ham and provolone and you’ve got a Muffaletta -- one of only two good things that came out of Louisiana. (The other being Harry Connick Jr.)

Mock Tapenade

1 cup green olives, pimiento-stuffed
1 cup black olives
2 cloves garlic

Blend all ingredients well in a food processor.

a fresh start

It may not seem a likely choice for a cold-weather culinary entry, but considering it’s 80 degrees outside and most of the trees are still fully clad in green leaves, iced tea is the ideal drink for a day like this. And it’s such a lovely, crisp thing to swirl in your mouth, to cleanse out all the fatty, rich foods you’ve probably been cramming in your mouth since November, that I just couldn’t resist.

My husband is a great tea-drinker, and when I type “great,” I mean, he puts most big Southern boys to absolute shame. Waiters tend to find him tiresome because he requires refills every ten minutes (not an exaggeration.) Our gallon-sized pitcher is well-worn with use, because he grows through A WHOLE PITCHER OF TEA PER DAY. I kid you not.

This quantity of tea, however, has not dulled his palate at all. Daniel is persnickety about his tea - he wants it lightly sweetened, preferably with Sweet-n-Lo, with a touch of citrus and a subtle-rather-than-strong flavor. Sigh. It took me a whole year to figure out exactly how to craft this fragile balance by the pitcherful (this is the picture of true love). I borrowed from Nanny’s method and tested multiple batches on the man himself until I came up with a foolproof way to make perfect tea. Even I’m hooked now!

Barely Sweet Tea

2 family-size bags Luzianne or Lipton tea
1 small bag of orange-and-spice tea
5 packets of Sweet-n-Lo

Dunk the tea bags in boiling water and let steep for about 4 minutes. Pour the sweetener in the bottom of a gallon-sized pitcher and pour the tea over it to dissolve quickly. Fill the pitcher with cold, clear water, pour over ice, and gulp.