Two Thoughts

1. Insomniacs beware: it's not a good idea to look up Peak Oil just before bed. This is the reason I read books about the chemistry of sauces and the molecular composition of eggs: when the crash happens, I want to know how to make as many foods as possible FROM SCRATCH, meaning from ingredients that I myself can raise.

2. Though I adore all our wedding gifts, one of the best we recieved -- if you judge by the amount of time I spend gazing at it admiringly, and paging through it before bed -- is one I didn't even register for: the enormous yellow Gourmet cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl, whose oevre will probably appear in my dissertation which seems hellbent on analyzing food memoirs. If you follow the link to Amazon, you find that some peopel are all like "well James Pepin gave ADDITIONAL steps about omelets which Aldon Brown SECONDED and there's no Waldorf salad and there's only a shortish chapter on BREADS," but, whatever. I'm here to tell you: it's both spare and comprehensive, with plenty enough of recipes new (or newly formulated) to me to make me happy, and sexy enough (attentive to various peppers and other cooking trends) to fill in gaps in my already-extensive vegetarian cooking shelf. Plus: three DIFFERENT recipes for scalloped potatoes or "potatoes Anna," which give me something to cook in my adorable Le Crueset Tarte Tatin pan, another wedding gift (though one I picked out).

In the week-and-a-half since our reception, I haven't managed to write the thank you cards, but I have cooked:

1. Egglplant with cilantro-lemon vinaigrette
2. Flourless peanut-butter cookies (this partly to prove a point: K. didn't believe it could be done, even though it's the cookie we most commonly baked at my house, from a weird kid's cookbook I had; this recipe is a bit different and makes tiny bite-sized cookies)
3. Today, I am cooking Summer Vegetable Succotash, which calls for edamame instead of lima beans, and pattypan squash (I had to go with a different kind of yellow squash) and little Yukon potatoes.

Yes. I am a little brand-namey right now. Sorry.