Comfort Foods and Indulgences

A "hot dog bar" is the perfect solution to not feeling guilty about serving "hot dogs" at your next gathering.  Let's face it, we all love outdoor grilling (especially for a crowd), however, if Ribeye Steaks for 20 are not in your budget, this is a great, creative alternative. Have your guests contribute the side dishes and you will have a great interactive, food-friendly party. Of course, you can also scale it up or down by the quality and types of hot dogs and buns you serve.

There will obviously be some pre-prep work, but that's better than slaving over a stove during the party. I would set a large table with cute bowls for the ingredients of each hot dog combination. Then I would print instructions on how to assemble each one.  Your job will be to have lots of buns and hot dogs coming off the grill.

There is something here for everyone's taste and the kids can still have their plain ketchup and mustard dog...no need to make something different.

Years ago I lived on Aquidneck Island (home to Newport, Rhode Island) and every June we’d head over to Quonset View Farms, high up in the middle of the island where the cold fog off the ocean just kisses the plants and fades away in time for daily sun baths. The soil must be pretty special there, too, as I swear I’ve never tasted strawberries so sweet and juicy. At Quonset View, it was hard to get out of the field without eating most of your berries.

Ever since then, I haven’t really been able to eat much in the way of commercial strawberries, which tend to be hard and white in the middle and short on flavor. I wait 11 months for the real deal. It’s kind of torturous, but pretty blissful when the local berries ripen. I try to pick enough to freeze some for later months, too, but they never last very long.

My longing was made even worse this year by the fact that Rebecca has been selling strawberry plants at the farm stand where my garden is. Every day that I pass by these beauties, another berry ripens on one of the plants, red and juicy and drooping seductively on its green stem, just begging to be eaten.

Every Friday growing up I had a tuna sandwich in my lunch box.  The bread was usually soggy by the time lunch came around, caused by the use of too much mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish.  Friday was also the only day I was allowed to have a soda pop accompany my lunch.  It was usually RC Cola in the can, wrapped in tin foil to keep cold.  The RC Cola also kept my sandwich cool, a bonus as far as I was concerned.

While I still love tuna with mayo and pickle relish, I like the idea of capers, lemon and oregano taking the tuna to a different level.  Add the sliced tomato and provolone cheese blistered by the broiler....whoa, now that's a sandwich.

You must try this, it was quite a hit around here!

Culinary historians have traced the first cake “brownie” to the 1906 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, edited by Fannie Merritt Farmer. This recipe is an early, less rich and chocolaty version of the brownie we know today, utilizing two squares of melted Baker’s chocolate. Food historians don’t know if Fanny Farmer obtained the recipe from another source, printed it as is or adapted it, or provided the name.

The second recipe, appearing in 1907, was in Lowney’s Cook Book, written by Maria Willet Howard and published by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston. Ms. Howard, a protégé of Ms. Farmer, added an extra egg and an extra square of chocolate to the Boston Cooking-School recipe, creating a richer, more chocolaty brownie

Be sure to test for doneness before removing the brownies from the oven. If underbaked (the toothpick has batter clinging to it), the texture of the brownies will be dense and gummy; if overbaked (the toothpick comes out completely clean), the brownies will be dry and cakey.