Ha! Liz’s comment reminded me that I once had a book entitled something like “The Cooking of Madame Maigret” and was purportedly based on the delicious foods served up to Simenon’s famous detective when he would come home exhausted from solving all those cases. There are lots of food descriptions in the Simenon books, if I remember correctly, although it’s been years since I read them and I lost the cookbook somewhere in my many moves. French food, of course.

The “little tree” thing is far from new - I’m 54 years old and it must have been 50 years ago when my uncle told me broccoli looked like little trees. I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for that particular uncle for that reason.

However, as a young mother in the La Leche League I saw other moms trying to pass off circular liver cutouts as “cookies” and I was so grossed out that I vowed never to rename food for my kids, and in fact did the opposite, telling my older son he wouldn’t like cheesecake in an attempt to keep it all for myself!

I have blown lots of diets because a book I’m reading contains well-written food descriptions, but I do agree with Gopnik that you can’t idly make a bouillabaisse, and certainly can’t drop unwashed mussels directly into the soup!

OTOH, or maybe in addition, several years ago I was going through a terrible life crisis, and one of the biggest losses was that I literally couldn’t cook for at least six months. Every time I tried my mind would start racing, going over and over the details of my emotional pain, and not only would I make a hash out of the food prep (heh-heh) but I would become a quivering wreck. I guess cooking doesn’t require quite enough concentration, or a lot of it is so repetitive, like chopping, etc., that it allows your mind to do other things, and that was bad for me at the time.

I can’t believe that wouldn’t violate some city ordinance, or at least make my neighbors very unhappy!

If the kids actually buy and eat the healthy food that gives us something to be proud of here in Pennsylvania!

I couldn’t agree more about the importance of food traditions, especially when there are young people in the house; they seem to love ritual and a structure to hold on to.

But what would you use for popcorn?

We were in Spain for 2 weeks this fall (Catalonia region) and I’m sure they use lard in their pastries there, the ones we would normally use butter in, like croissants, Danish, and the like. I got a definite whiff of pig, as opposed to dairy, from my morning pastry, and I don’t know, I just didn’t like it there! Otherwise I agree with what you say here and I’m going to look for the goose fat at W.F.!

We love jalapenos on our pizza, but I gagged all the way through that Julie/Julia book, and eating pizza in bed was just part of it (sure I do it but I’m not proud of it!) I’m not surprised that Julia was irritated by the whole thing.

How many does this recipe serve?