It's like, a heat wave.

My word. June strutted out with a lasting impression. We've got a full-on heatwave out West. It's that kind of heat, that muggy, oppressive heat that crosses over into kind of sexy. I mean, you just can't help it if it's so hot that you must walk, or rather, sashay, around in nothing but a slip and and something cool to drink in a glass beaded with sweat. You may even have to put said glass up to your forehead or the side of your neck to further assist in cooling off. I'm just saying...

The Egg Man

Eggs. They are the new black. Or at least the new bacon. Eggs can be used in every type of meal in countless ways: sunny side up, scrambled, frittata'd or used to coat bread for French toast for breakfast, on top of a burger at lunch, deviled eggs for a snack, over roasted asparagus, in an avgolemono soup or used to make a pasta for dinner and even baked into cakes, cookies, whipped into meringues for dessert. You can have them soft, medium or hard boiled, or go for the sixty-two degree version. The options are endless.

Blais Runner.

Chances are, you have probably heard of Richard Blais. Most likely from television. Most likely from reality television: Top Chef, Top Chef: All Stars, Life After Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef, and his own show on the Science Channel, Blais Off.

Never be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic...

June is here. Which means Summer is this close. Which also means my birthday is coming up*. I like June. June is usually warm enough to comfortably wear tank tops and Summer dresses, even in the evening, without the fear of needing another layer. But June is also not yet the dog days of summer, where one feels the need to hop from one air conditioned space to the next, without ever really being exposed to the outside. June is green, not brown. June is not anticipatory and hopeful, like April and May, or exhausted and wilted like August. Rather, June is confident, pert and happy. June does cartwheels. And June is pleased as punch to be right where it is. In June.

We Got the Beet.

Growing up we had a Patrick Nagel print hanging on a wall in the dining room. It's exactly the one you're thinking of. Or maybe not. A lot of them have that woman in them. You know, the woman on the cover of Duran Duran's Rio. I never much cared for it. Oh, I loved the album, just not the print hanging on the wall in our dining room. My dad really liked that whole style; that very 80s, minimalist, pastel thing. My dad really liked the 80s, in general. And the 80s liked my dad. They made sense together. He was newly single, very handsome, a great cook, liked to travel, play tennis, hang glide and party. And, of course, he was into the art.

Pucker Up.

I've been thinking about the handful of fruits and vegetables that we use in cooking but would never just pop into our mouths, fresh. I mean to say, foods that require a significant transformation for them to be edible, like olives, rhubarb and cranberries. Olives have to be fermented or cured, rhubarb has toxic leaves and is almost always macerated then baked. And cranberries, have you ever tried to just eat a cranberry? Not pleasant. And acorns. It has never even occurred to me to eat an acorn. Yet, it is a nut. Squirrels eat acorns. And throughout history acorns have been used, ground up to make grain flours and even used as a coffee substitute for soldiers in both the Civil War and World War II.

Cookin' It. Livin' It. Lovin' It.

Even though we have a very, very long history of written correspondence via the good old post office, for the past few years Paz and I have been taking turns sending each other 'care packages'. They are kind of, but not necessarily, for birthdays, Christmas, and the like. The ones from me show up on time – unless I accidentally send one to her childhood address where a bunch of frat boys now live, or I mess up the postage, for no good reason at all. The ones from Paz, well, they show up when they show up. I received my last birthday package on the first day of Fall. My birthday is in mid-June. And so, fittingly, she gave me my Christmas package while I was visiting home last month. In April.

Swimming Into the Spotlight.

Yellow Umbrella, or Yellah Umbrellah as many Richmonders call it, has been serving up choice seafood in Richmond's West End since my whole life (they opened in 1975). I only learned about the place a few years ago but it quickly became my The Go-To for extraordinary – and sustainably harvested - fresh fish (when I was in town, of course). I also always had to grab some of their remarkable prepared cheese grits right before checking out. Random, right? Not in the South.

Back to the Future

Prohibition Era Vibe Meets Post Modern Cuisine at Belmont Food Shop

I was back in my old stomping grounds last week. Spring in Richmond is breathtaking. Dogwoods, daffodils, azaleas, and zillions of tiny inchworms falling from the sky onto everything. Falling onto everything. That was a new one for me. I thought they were sort of cute and endearing and the whole thing seemed very biblical, or like the end of Magnolia, but with inchworms not frogs. Then I Googled 'inchworm' and changed my tune. Take a macro look at one of those bad boys and then see how cute one is inching its way up your sleeve. But still, Fred was way girlier about it than I was.

A Project, of the Sweetest Kind.

My word! Everything is so crazy right now. Work has hit some random fever pitch, my chores have stacked up and are looming, I haven't had any time to make my weekly batches of pimiento cheese or deviled ham salad for Lindy & Grundy, Fred and I are going on a vacation tomorrow, which means my packing agita began days ago, and, oh my GAWD - I had to remove a large tick from a dog (ticks are one of THE scariest things in the whole world to me).