Pork Butt

again! But with wonderful sides: roasted fennel, carrots, and shiitakes, and rye berries. The last is the newest addition to my whole grain stable, and it's a good one: mild flavor, texture much like barley. Said to be a good hot breakfast cereal too, but I made mine on the "brown rice" setting on my rice maker.

Grilled Mahi

with roasted brussels sprouts and barley with Aerogarden dill.

Leftover Pork Butt

with barley and roasted cauliflower.

Oscar Night Dinner

Every year we have people over for dinner on the night of the Academy Awards. We also collect ballots, and award a small plastic hippo to the person with the most correct votes. The small hippo is just an effigy of the slightly more substantial plastic hippo that stays at our house, adorned with the initials of each year's winner. Why a hippo? The reasons are receding into myth, but a hippo it is and ever shall be. This year we served barbecued pork butt, homemade onion rings, coleslaw, and potato salad. The first two dishes were made by my spouse, and were exemplary in their kinds. I made a carrot cake and decorated it as shown at the last minute, in a fit of inspiration. "Who drew that Thurber-esque hippo?" my mother asks; I did!

Whole Wheat Egg Noodles

with sauteed shiitakes, chopped-up parboiled rapini, and parmesan.

Trout

with brown rice and shredded sauteed brussels sprouts.

Purple Cardigan

Everyone around me is bemoaning the continuing cold weather. I am bemoaning the approaching warm weather and the attendant close of wool-knitting season in the south. Once the mercury hits 70 degrees it's nothing but cotton, linen, and hemp until next winter. Thus, I'm blowing through my wool projects as quickly as I can; I just finished this one a couple of days ago. I'm very happy with it, as it shows my advancing knitterly skills (in detailed ways that no non-knitter would even believe could matter to a sane person) and my increasing ability to pick projects I'll actually want to wear when they're done.

Pumpkin Blueberry Cake

Yesterday I made Rose Levy Berenbaum's pumpkin walnut ring (from The Cake Bible). As usual, I treated the recipe as more of a guide, substituting whole wheat flour, leaving out nuts, and using some unidentified squash pulp I'd frozen a few months ago. On a whim I also threw in a cup of blueberries, and it turned out delicious. As you see, I made it yesterday and half of it is gone already.

Lamb Chops

seasoned with salt (a little too much) and rosemary (fresh, with flowers). Also brown rice and fried brussels sprouts. I believe I hav the only five-year-old in the state who exclaimed last night, as she approached the dinner table, "Yay! My favorite kind of brussels sprouts!"

Whole Wheat Egg Noodles

with spinach and pesto.

Pasta with Rappini

Or rapinni? My Italian-speaking friends, help me out! Anyway, we had pasta with chopped up parboiled rappini, garlic, and sardines. I didn't tell my spouse about the sardines until after he had tasted the dish and pronounced it excellent. I assured him I only tricked him because sardines are so good for us.

Pork Steak

My favorite spondee! We had it broiled, with brown rice and spinach. Spinach: how I love it. Comes in a bag, washed and ready, takes five minutes in a pan with hot butter, is delicious. You know why you cook it with butter? Because dairy neutralizes spinach's natural oxalic (I believe) acid, which is what makes your teeth feel furry if you cook it in, say, olive oil.

Halibut

with brown rice and spinach.

Superbowl Guacamole

I don't remember learning to make guacamole; I think it's possible that, as a Californian, I simply osmosed it during childhood. I made a big bowl for tonight, which will probably become dinner. I mashed up: 3 ripe avocados, two chopped-up bunches of cilantro, the juice of two lemons [should have stopped at one—ed.], half a red onion (diced), a box of cut-up cherry tomatoes, and a hefty pinch of salt. It will be better after a few hours have passed, but heavens, it was good right at the start, too. A question: why did I use cherry tomatoes? Because they were displayed next to the avocados in the store. It was a silly choice; lots of extra work for little extra flavor.