Iceberg lettuce

I haven't bought an iceberg lettuce since ... um ... ever. This is the lettuce I grew up with. My mum, bless her, put together the most depressingly unimaginative salads you ever saw. This lettuce, discs of sliced tomato, discs of sliced cucumber. That's it. Bottled salad dressings were kept in the refrigerator door. Setting the table in preparation for dinner meal involved grabbing all the bottles of salad dressing at once and carrying them by their necks clanging together like glass bells to the table. Everybody had their personal choice of dressing.

Then I forgot all about those childish ways.

Much later at a dinner party at a friend's house they did that -- collect a bunch of prepared bottled commercial dressings by their necks and brought them clanging to the table. I burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" Caught off guard, embarrassed, I couldn't answer. But it's still funny.

Now Althouse linked a story posted on NYT online by Mark Bittman, The Charms of the Loser Lettuces that included an attractive photo of iceberg. It looked great. Within the comments to the post on Althouse a member commenter, Paul, wrote sagely:

The reason Iceberg lettuce is such a good choice, in spite of being derided for a lack of nutrients in recent years, is that it is rich in intestinal flora and an aid to digestion. One more piece of traditional wisdom, albeit a small one, that the lefty boomers in their juvenile desire to remake and improve society tossed aside.

Jellybeans

I did not make these, of course, but this day after Easter I had the most inexplicable and urgent craving for jellybeans and I sensed I could get them at a very good price. I tried not to overdo it.

Scallops and angel hair pasta

An unusual ingredient there, anchovy paste in a tube. I know about 20 people who would have objections to one ingredient or another in this simple dish. I dated a woman who couldn't have garlic. "Oh, don't put any garlic in mine. I'm serious. I'll have heartburn for days if you do. Leave it out please."

Gimme a break. Now I ask you, how am I to make a standup marinara without garlic? Puhleeze. 

"Waaaah, I don't like anchovies. My whole body breaks out in hives for two weeks every time I see one."

"Waaaah, I can't have Parmesan because I'm lactose intolerant and cheese gives me heart attacks whenever I get within five feet and then I have to be hospitalized for weeks on end in a tent with a respirator."

"Waaaah I can't do scallops because shellfish make me bleed out my bum requiring a full transfusion, and I don't like that."

"Waaaah, I can't eat pasta because gluten causes my throat to close up entirely and I can't breathe and EMT's have to come and perform an emergency tracheotomy on the spot."

Finicky eaters always turn up their noses at the best things to eat for the lamest reasons.

My parents wouldn't have it. Too much expense, time, and energy went into meal preparation for them to brook a table of fussy children. They insisted we at least try something. Everything.

"SHUT UP an eat it!"

"BECAUSE I SAID SO! That's why."

"STOP CRYING, or I'll give you something to cry about."

Such cogent reasoning, how could we refuse?

How I do recall fondly those gentle ministrations, that tender careful loving guidance.

But I'd like to talk about the way the sauce magically comes together so mysteriously. The thing is, butter is like sauce already that's waiting for you to help it along. It's open to several approaches including vino if you happen to have a little extra. In this case, I heat olive oil and butter in equal portions in a medium-size saucepan. Add garlic to flavor the oil careful not to toast or burn it. Then squeeze in less than a teaspoon of anchovy paste. It spatters. Mix it together. Now your fat is flavored and already it begins to thicken. Add black pepper, and red pepper flakes for kapow. Add the scallops. They release some liquid and the sauce is complete. Transfer the pasta dripping wet directly to the hot pan. The water has starch that sloughed from the pasta and sufficient salt for it to taste like sea-water. The starchy salty water is used to adjust the sauce after the pasta is added to the pan. It changes at hand there as it mingles, considerably more as cheese is added, and yet further as it cools, so the pasta water is reserved to adjust all that.  No additional salt is added  because the anchovies have their own intriguing fish/salt flavor, the Parmigiano is salty, and the pasta water is also salted. So right there you have your Federally Suggested Monthly Salt Requirement for a bull elephant -- adding more would be painting the lilly, innit, gilding the already golden, as it were. Reserve some Parmigiano to finish the plate.

It's a shame to cut up giant sea scallops like this but it is necessary for this angel hair pasta.

Meatballs

I'm in scrounging mode. I do want to clear things out before I go shopping again. This could take awhile. My idea was for meatballs, only meatballs, but then along the way I broke down and boiled some spaghetti. Just a bit -- to round it off. I cooked them perfectly, most unAmerican of me, I stood there and tested, not done, not done, not done, not done, done, removed. Still a little bit hard inside. Now where do you ever get that? Italy! That's where.

I had about a pound of ground beef in a Seal-a-Meal bag, a pre-formed hamburger that had peas and shredded carrots, and four breakfast sausage discs that I wrapped and froze and forgot about. The hamburger patty with peas and the sausage discs had slight freezer damage.

I used a lot of my own sourdough breadcrumbs and a lot of egg, three super duper jumbo eggs. I keep feeling sorry for those chickens. That's gotta hurt. Worcestershire sauce, S/P. I fried diced onions with crushed garlic in olive oil before forming the meatballs because I didn't want them to shrink after being formed. This amount turned out to be a large bowl full. The meatballs were boiled directly heated prepared canned tomatoes, and canned tomato sauce, just enough to mostly cover them. Usually I fry them first but this time I didn't. I wanted them to stay round so I forewent the layered Maillard reaction of frying.

Grated Parmigiano Reggiano and cut parsley added to the meat mixture.

Now I have a whole bunch of sausy meatballs that I will have pastalessly at my leisure.

Curried shrimp and grits

It's impressive what I can find when I start scrounging around. In this case shrimp so huge they scare people. Everyone who see them goes, "Are those shrimp?" And I go, "Yup." Naturally, I cut them up into manageable pieces and that rather defeats the whole purpose of getting them big  unless you consider the chore of peeling their shells simplified by being large. They're actually too big even for sushi.

Alas, for I am gritless. But I do have popcorn and I do have a coffee grinder. 

I used chicken broth for the liquid in both the grits and the sauce. Butter in the both the grits and the sauce.

The sauce is like a gravy. Tablespoon butter into a hot pan. Tablespoon of flour. Brown the flour to develop a brown roux. You have the grits cooking in another pot. That will determine your timing. Add the flavoring powders, in this case, prepared curry and powdered chipotle. Honestly, it could be anything. Heat the seasonings in the roux. Add garlic chopped finely if you're not using garlic powder, and diced onion. Coat them with the roux. Before the garlic burns, drop in one cup or more of chicken broth. Stir. The roux comes off the garlic/onion and thickens the chicken sauce, no lumps or anything. Add shrimp. Do not cook the shrimp, just heat it and remove immediately. Bang, you're done.

Add grated or chipped cheese, Parmigiano here, to the grits off the heat. Do not cook the cheese (it's a processed food, it could separate). Add chopped parsley or whatever you wish that's fresh, cilantro, basil, pretty much anything.