Hi! Remember when I used to blog about food?

I take back all the mean thoughts I had about people who claimed to be too busy to cook. When you get home around 9 at night, you are too busy to cook.

However, I did make a picnic lunch for an outing to the Hollywood Bowl a week ago.

Buttermilk Bathed Fried Chicken was supposed to be a Roscoe's esque chicken, with plenty of spice (you soak the chicken in buttermilk doused with tabasco and then dredge in flour spiced with cayenne). It was not that spicy, but it WAS super greasy. I am wondering if it was the peanut oil recommended for frying? None of the fried chicken I made has been greasy thus far. To accompany it, I did not make waffles (which would not travel well) but did a Louisiana tribute with a potato salad recipe from River Road Recipes. It did not disappoint- it asked you to mush up the hardboiled egg with the mayonnaise-based dressing, which was brilliant. Jeff and I agreed it was the best potato salad I have ever made. And I am sure the Junior League of Baton Rouge has plenty of things it needs money for about now, so if you were thinking of ordering River Road Recipes any time, now is a good time.

This weekend we had more time, though, and I made steak fries after seeing the Dorky Yankees make them, and, oh, man, were they good. A couple of grilled ribeyes and some chard sauteed in lemon oil and it was a steak and potatoes meal for the ages. Jeff asked if there was any etiquette prohibition on eating the fries with ketchup, and I said, no, but there is a prohibition against ketchup bottles on the table, which led to him making fry sauce (1 part mayonnaise, 1 part barbeque sauce, 1/2 part ketchup) instead, since he had to get a ramekin anyway.

The fry sauce took away all the virtuousness I felt from eating the chard, and really, the chard was almost extraneous, but it was so, so good. The Zuni Cafe recipe is simple and can't be beat- and around this time my garden is full of mature chard (with the "scrunchy" leaves called for) so I think we'll have more of that, for sure.

Last night we tried to be more virtuous with a Cobb Salad, which is really not that virtuous at all. (Bacon? Hardboiled egg? Avocado? Blue Cheese?) But it was delicious. The real star was the tomato- I have this one type of heirloom tomato that I have been growing that may be the most amazing tomato ever. Each one is just bursting with concentrated tomato richness. I can't explain it, except you can eat them straight. Salted, even better. In a salad, with bacon and dressing and avocado and egg and cheese and romaine? To die for.