We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Forgive the break in food blogging. Our beloved George, whom you might remember, has finally passed away after a long illness. He was 20 years old, and he was with us for 10 years. He was our Sugar Bear.

Foodie posts will resume soon . . . I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


—The Lake Isle of Innisfree, by William Butler Yeats

Tater Tot Hot Dish

When I did the story about The Apple Dumplin', my thought was to make it the kickoff to a new series about typically Midwestern food and cooking. Sometimes it would be about eating out, as on that occasion, and sometimes I'd feature home cooking.

I didn't grow up in the Midwest (though I've lived here for almost 30 years, so some stuff has rubbed off on me by now). Thus, I don't have childhood memories or a Midwestern family cooking heritage to draw on. But I know people who do; heck, my esteemed partner is Iowa born and bred. And research can be done. So I have a lot of ideas.

For my first post about cooking Midwestern-style at home, I present tater tot hot dish. In talking with friends, I'd heard about this homey dish. The standard ingredients include some kind of meat (usually ground beef); a can of cream soup (cream of celery, mushroom, asparagus, even tomato); often vegetables (frozen peas, or green beans); those delectable nuggets of shredded potato known as tater tots; and cheese.This is a quick and easy dish to make for a weeknight din—er, supper. The only time you have to use your knife is to dice the onion.

Tater Tot Hot Dish
From Susi Huls of Royal, IL

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, diced
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 can cream of celery soup
1 32-ounce bag Ore-Ida brand tater tots
1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese or slices of Velveeta

Preheat the oven to 375 ° F.

In a large skillet, cook the ground beef and onion over medium heat, breaking the meat up with a fork or a spatula so you don't have large clumps. Season well with salt and pepper (I used maybe a half-teaspoon salt and the same amount of pepper). When the beef has just lost its pink color, remove the skillet from the heat. If there's excessive fat in the skillet, pour it off (I found that I didn't need to do this). Stir the can of soup (as-is; don't add any water) into the meat mixture until well blended.

Lightly oil a shallow baking dish or pan (I used an oval Corningware dish that's about 9 by 11 inches). Spread the meat mixture evenly in the pan, then top with frozen tater tots to form a solid layer. Top the tater tots with the shredded cheese.

Bake uncovered at 375 °F for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the tots are golden and the cheese is melted and bubbly.This was a very tasty meal (I served it with steamed green beans, since Susi's version of the hot dish doesn't have veggies in it). Neither Keith nor I had ever had TTHD before; we decided it was very reminiscent of roast beef hash, and in fact I think diced leftover roast beef would be great in it.

Did your mom (or grandma, or aunt) make tater tot hot dish for you in your formative years? If you grew up with this dish, was it made as in this recipe or differently? Do you have other Midwestern home-cooking secrets? If so, do tell.

Thanks very much to my friend and coworker Susi for sharing her recipe and allowing me to reprint it. Look for more Midwestern meals in the future!

Green Onion Market: Kimbap and Now Sushi, Too

Hi all, an update about the new sushi restaurant mentioned in this post. The folks at the Green Onion had told this reporter that they planned to open today (Thursday, March 26) but, alas, it is not to be. Sushi Rock is probably not going to open until sometime next week.

I'm sorry to have built you up for a spring-break-week opening only to let you down. You can call Sushi Rock at 217-337-4285; when someone answers, it'll be a good bet that the restaurant is open! ~Lisa

Have you ever had kimbap? It's a Korean snack similar to the Japanese sushi roll. So if you like sushi rolls, you will probably enjoy kimbap, too. You can get kimbap, packaged and ready to take out, at the Green Onion Market on South Neil Street (across the parking lot to the south from Old Time Meat and Deli).The kimbap I got for lunch on Monday had bulgogi inside (bulgogi is Korean BBQ beef) along with spinach, shredded carrots, fried egg, thin slices of fish cake, and pickled radish. A light yet filling little meal at the great price of $4.49 for 12 pieces. A vegetarian version of the roll is also available.The Green Onion should really have "deli" appended to its name, as it has a huge variety of made-at-the-store prepared foods you can pick up and go with.There's kimchi soup, many types of salads, including octopus and daikon, tofu jorim (tofu cooked in soy sauce), and much more.And there are also sweets. For dessert, pick up a personal-sized container of green tea or mochi ice cream.

Also note that the Green Onion Market will cater your next meeting or party.And, as if that weren't enough, starting Thursday (March 26), you can enjoy a sit-down meal or snack at a new restaurant that the owners of the Green Onion are opening called Sushi Rock. The restaurant is located on Green Street (in the heart of campus town, where Record Service used to be). I took a couple of photos of the menu so you could have a sneak preview.

Some yummy stuff on there, eh? Egg rolls and spring rolls, kimchi, edamame, sushi rolls, tempura, several varieties of teriyaki and udon (noodles), galbi (Korean-style short ribs), and bento boxes—oh, my! And the space inside looks very attractive.Hope they've been able to hire some managers, waitstaff, and bartenders, seeing as how they're opening day after tomorrow.

In sum: If you want to grab something light and healthy to go, and you like Korean food, head over to the Green Onion Market on Neil St. and get yourself a package of kimbap and anything else that strikes your fancy. If the weather's nice, you could take it to nearby Hessel Park to eat.

To sit down and enjoy any number of Korean and Japanese treats, check out the new Sushi Rock restaurant on Green St. Looks like Sushi Rock will have a very "soft" opening, indeed, sneaking in during spring break and all. You might want to go over while it's nice and quiet on campus and help them say Hello World.

Food Poetry 7: Linguini

Hey everyone—it's spring! Let's celebrate by drinking in the sunshine and feasting on poetry.

Here's a poem by Diane Lockward from her book What Feeds Us. As usual, I found this delicious bit of verse on The Writer's Almanac. Many thanks to Diane for allowing me to reprint it. If you devour this poem and are left wanting more, go on over to Diane's Web site.

Linguini

It was always linguini between us.
Linguini with white sauce, or
red sauce, sauce with basil snatched from
the garden, oregano rubbed between
our palms, a single bay leaf adrift amidst
plum tomatoes. Linguini with meatballs,
sausage, a side of brascioli. Like lovers
trying positions, we enjoyed it every way
we could—artichokes, mushrooms, little
neck clams, mussels, and calamari—linguini
twining and braiding us each to each.
Linguini knew of the kisses, the smooches,
the molti baci. It was never spaghetti
between us, not cappellini, nor farfalle,
vermicelli, pappardelle, fettucini, perciatelli,
or even tagliarini. Linguini we stabbed, pitched,
and twirled on forks, spun round and round
on silver spoons. Long, smooth, and always
al dente. In dark trattorias, we broke crusty panera,
toasted each other—La dolce vita!—and sipped
Amarone, wrapped ourselves in linguini,
briskly boiled, lightly oiled, salted, and lavished
with sauce. Bellissimo, paradisio, belle gente!
Linguini witnessed our slurping, pulling, and
sucking, our unraveling and raveling, chins
glistening, napkins tucked like bibs in collars,
linguini stuck to lips, hips, and bellies, cheeks
flecked with formaggio—parmesan, romano,
and shaved pecorino—strands of linguini flung
around our necks like two fine silk scarves.

Weeknight Takeout: Farren's Pub

It had been a big week, and neither of us felt like cooking. Furthermore, someone had left a comment on a recent post with a plea for help in it. Seems this person (who didn't leave a name) has parents coming to visit from overseas, and these parents are "big fans of juicy burgers," but Anonymous is a vegetarian and has no clue where to take them. Anonymous wondered what the best place for a burger is in town.Keith and I talked it over and decided that our vote would probably go to Farren's, the underground pub that's now in the shadow of the massive M2 development. Locals have been raving about Farren's burgers since the place opened almost 10 years ago. And we concur; the charbroiled beef patties, made from USDA choice top round that's ground fresh daily, are hard to beat.

It had been too long since we visited Farren's, so just before leaving the office on Friday evening I called in our order: two bacon cheeseburgers (you can choose from Cheddar, American, Swiss, or blue cheese—we opted for Cheddar); one order of fries, and one tossed salad with homemade blue cheese dressing.

When I arrived 10 minutes later, our order was bagged and ready to go, even though the place was hopping on account of the Illnois men's basketball game on TV. I paid at the bar (a bacon cheeseburger will set you back $7.75, by the way) and was in and out in record time.The burgers were very tasty. Thick slices of delicious bacon nestled under the melted Cheddar, and the buns were nicely grilled. I found my burger just on the edge of being overcooked; next time, I'll order it medium-rare. Keith had no such complaint and found his burger to be perfectly cooked.Burgers come with tricolor tortilla chips on the side, but you can order French fries instead if you like (for an extra charge), which Keith did. I noted that the fries had become soggy during their stay in the styrofoam box, but my darling husband allowed as how he liked them just the way they were and in fact he polished off every last one (and no, Keith is not receiving remuneration of any kind from the staff or owners of Farren's).

My side salad was wonderful. Crisp and fresh mixed greens, bite-sized pieces of tomato, and onion were sprinkled with finely shredded cheese. The made-in-house blue cheese dressing was to die for: creamy, perfect consistency, a little garlicky, with many small chunks of cheese throughout. And don't worry—the dressing comes on the side in its own container, so you can control the amount you put on your salad. I poured a generous amount on mine just so you could see it in all its glory.Although this post is all about the meaty burgers, note that for Anonymous and you other vegetarians out there, Farren's menu offers plenty of choices. For one thing, there's a yummy-sounding black bean burger you could try, which comes with a Cajun remoulade. And there are several vegetarian sandwiches to choose from. You can have tacos made with black bean burgers instead of ground beef or chicken, there are salads that don't involve meat, and the majority of the appetizers are meatless as well.

But back to the beef and Anonymous's cry for help. My suggestion is, take the parents to Farren's for burgers. Now, dear reader, this is where you come in. If you had burger-loving friends or family coming to town, where would you take them? Would you second the Farren's motion, or do you like other burgers better? Please help Anonymous out by leaving your recommendations in the comments.

Farren's Pub and Eatery
308 North Randolph Street (behind Nitaya Thai restaurant)
Champaign, IL 61821
217-359-6977
Open daily for lunch and dinner

Champaign Taste Featured on WICD

It may have a Friday the 13th in it, but this week seems to be lucky regardless. Can you believe it, yours truly appeared on television not once but twice. First there was the WILL cooking show, and then yesterday I was interviewed on the Sunrise show on channel 15 (our local ABC affiliate). Bridget Shanahan, co-anchor on that program, took an interest in this blog and wanted to do a story about it.

Thus, a couple of weeks ago we went to the Black Dog BBQ joint in Urbana, where we ate lunch and chatted about food and restaurants. Then at 6 a.m. yesterday morning I joined Bridget and weatherman Matt Brickman in the WICD studio to talk about cheap eats around C-U. I'm surprised I was even coherent at that hour.

Here's a link to the interview if you'd like to see it. It was a lot of fun, and I want to say a big thank-you to Bridget for featuring CT and having me on the show. Champaign Taste will be three years old soon, and this was a thrilling way to kick off our anniversary celebration.

"Chili, Soups and Stews" Show Airs on WILL-TV

You may remember that I put out the word about this show back in January, when WILL was asking people to send in recipes. Well, turns out mine was one of the recipes selected for inclusion on the show. Thus, I and eight other cooks from the community sliced, diced, chopped, and puréed our little hearts out on live television this past Monday night.

The recipes we demonstrated included my spin on Portuguese kale and sausage soup; a Morrocan-spiced cauliflower soup; beef stew; an African-inspired peanut stew; a low-fat take on gumbo involving an interesting technique for making a "roux" without oil—and many more.

If you missed the show and are interested in catching it, it's going to be re-broadcast twice this coming weekend. Here are the dates and times:

Chili, Soups and Stews
WILL-TV (channel 12 in C-U)
Saturday, March 14, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 15, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

If you're wondering why a 3-hour cooking show was necessary—it isn't quite that long. There's a pledge drive going on over at WILL this week, so the nine cooking segments are separated by pleas for support. If you love cooking and want to donate to our local public television station, calling in a pledge while the show is on would be a great idea (and would make us cooks look very popular). A pledge of $60 or more will get you a DVD of the show plus the accompanying cookbook, in which you'll find all of the recipes. If you aren't interested in donating to WILL, you can still watch the show; just hit the Mute button between recipes.

Oh, and my segment is second to last, so don't expect to see me with my big knife and my two enormous Le Creuset pots until toward the end of the show. I hope it's worth waiting for.

For those of you who saw the show and have asked where to get the lamb Italian sausages featured in my recipe, here's the lowdown. As I hope I mentioned on the show but can't remember for sure, the sausage is made by the folks at Country Cottage Farm in Fisher, IL, and you can buy it right now at Strawberry Fields grocery on Main Street in Urbana and at the Common Ground Food Co-op store in Lincoln Square (east entrance). At both stores the sausages will be in the freezer case. Once the Urbana farmers' market starts in May, you can buy the sausages and other fine lamb products from Deb and her husband there.

Crock-Pot Carnitas

I just realized that I never got around to writing a post about the carnitas I tried my hand at—well about a year ago now, I guess. Don't know what happened there, because they were a big hit chez CT. Carnitas means "little meats," which refers to the way the long-simmered pork falls apart into small pieces. I'll have to make the traditional carnitas again sometime and share the recipe.

However, the slow-cooker carnitas I just made, while they didn't have the kind of crispy exterior you get when you make authentic carnitas, suited us just fine. The secret has to be the cut of pork; if you try this dish, be sure to obtain a pork shoulder roast. We had one from Triple S Farm; it had a bone in it (but the bone wasn't too big) and it weighed in right at 3 pounds. It came out of the Crock-Pot and shredded like a dream. And the "juice" it had cooked in was delicious. It's very quick and easy to get this dish into the Crock-Pot, and it can cook all day while you're at work.Crock-Pot Carnitas
Ever-so-slightly adapted from Crockpot Carnitas - Pork Shoulder Recipe on About.com

2- to 4-pound pork shoulder roast
4 garlic cloves, peeled, each clove cut into four pieces
Salt and black pepper
Smoked paprika
1 fresh jalapeño pepper, cut into four pieces
1 bunch fresh cilantro
1 bottle beer (12 ounces)
Corn or flour tortillas

With a knife, cut small slits all over the roast and insert the pieces of garlic cloves. Rub the roast with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. Place in Crock-Pot with the jalapeño pepper and the cilantro. Pour in beer.

Cook on high 4 to 6 hours until fork tender (or on low 9 to 11 hours). Remove meat and shred it. Skim excess fat off the top of the cooking liquid in the Crock-Pot, then return the meat to the pot.

Add a mess of homemade refried beans, homemade salsa, tortillas, and some fine Rice-a-Roni Spanish [sic] rice, and if that doesn't make you happy, I don't know what will.The recipe for the refried beans was courtesy of the Homesick Texan. We keep bacon grease in a jar in the fridge, which made the preparation a bit simpler; I didn't have to cook up bacon specially. If you have non-hydrogenated lard on hand, that would be even better (you can get lard at El Charro Taqueria and Grocery, by the way). I added a couple of small bay leaves when I cooked the beans.

If you try this recipe, don't forget to save the water the beans simmered in; you'll definitely need to add a good amount to the beans as you're frying them, and the flavor is essential. I used a cup of dried pintos, which turned out to be a good amount for two people with some left over.For the salsa, this time I whizzed a quarter of a medium red onion, a jalapeño pepper, two small cloves of garlic, and a handful of fresh cilantro in the mini-processor until finely chopped. I scooped that stuff out, put in three smallish, quartered "on the vine" tomatoes, and whizzed those till pretty smooth. Added the tomatoes to the pepper-onion mixture, stirred in salt, lime juice, vinegar, and a touch of cumin, and that was that.

Fiesta!

Dine Out on March 10 to Help Local Nonprofits

A quick post to let you know that if you go out to eat this coming Tuesday, March 10—and you do it at Luna, Kennedy's, or Siam Terrace—those restaurants will give a portion of the proceeds to the nonprofit of your choice.

Go to the relevant page on the Community Shares Web site to check out the details. Each of these local restaurants will donate a very generous 20 to 30 percent of their take at lunch, dinner, or both on March 10 to community organizations.

These are the member organizations; you can designate, at the restaurant, which one(s) you want your portion of the donation to help support, whether it's the Champaign County Humane Society, Habitat for Humanity, the Illinois State Museum Society, or any of a number of others.

A Breakfast Taste Test: Starbucks vs. McDonald's

The other day I read a New York Times article announcing the arrival of breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks this week. And I'd been seeing all of these billboards around town advertising lattes and such at McDonald's for the past couple weeks, at least. My inner Harriet the Spy smelled opportunity.

Starbucks, as you know, has lattes. McDonald's is now offering lattes. Starbucks now has breakfast sandwiches. McDonald's has had breakfast sandwiches since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Starbucks is trying to promote the idea that their breakfast is a good value. McDonald's is all about value. Clearly, if Starbucks was going to try to go head to head with McDonald's on breakfast sandwiches, and if McDonald's was going to try to poach latte lovers from Starbucks, an investigation was in order. (In the end, I didn't sample the McDonald's latte, because I wanted to order as close to the same things as possible at both places, and the Starbucks breakfast sandwich came with plain coffee.)

I visited the Starbucks on North Prospect Avenue yesterday (for the first time). I found that at Starbucks you can do a lot of things besides just eat breakfast. You can buy a Neko Case album, or a New York Times. You can buy a plastic bottle of water, by which action you're supposedly helping people all over the world get access to water (how a million plastic bottles in American landfills help people everywhere get access to fresh water, I'm not sure, but that's what the sign said). You can buy a new coffeepot, or a bag of coffee beans, or a new coffee cup. Or a gift card. Or—well, you get the picture.Once you're done buying things, you can sit down. The environment inside Starbucks is pleasant enough: soft lighting, warm colors, upholstered furniture, framed pictures of South American coffee farmers. I must say that it felt surreal sitting there at 7 a.m., looking out the window and trying to avoid meeting the eyes of the people waiting in the drive-through line, while Chet Baker sang "There Will Never Be Another You" in the background. (I never saw that drive-through line move while I was there, by the way!)The interior of the McDonald's couldn't compete, obviously. The fake plants and "art prints" are tacky and there's plastic everywhere. I still got to listen to jazz, but it was more the Muzak than the big-name musician type. And you couldn't buy anything extra! No cups, no coffee beans, no CDs, no We Are the World promotional water bottles. That was a bummer. Wait—there was a newspaper stand outside, but it didn't carry The New York Times.

The breakfast sandwiches, what about the breakfast sandwiches, you ask. Here are my impressions: IT WAS A TOSS-UP!

It's true. The sandwich at Starbucks (which took quite a while to get my hands on, between the wait in line to order and the wait afterward) was very . . . okay.The English muffin was kind of whole-grainy and had good texture. The few pieces of bacon were limp. The egg just laid there, and it was an all-over yellowish color, which disturbed me a bit. Where had it been and what had been done to it before it got to my sandwich? According to the NYT article, Parmesan cheese is added to the eggs to reduce the smell. The smell? In my experience fresh eggs have no smell. Huh. The "Gouda" cheese (which looked and tasted a lot like mild Cheddar, to me) was pretty good. But the whole thing could have been hotter and didn't have a real fresh vibe to it—which is no wonder. The article notes that "although the eggs and cheese are mixed in huge vats, poured into tins, baked, frozen and shipped to distribution centers to be assembled, they wanted them to look freshly made to appeal to people who do not like fast-food outlets."

My McDonald's sandwich, on the other hand, was nice and hot, and the egg looked like eggs are supposed to; that is, with white around the outside and yolk in the center.The egg also seemed very fresh, as if it had just been cracked and cooked. The English muffin was textureless and basically flavorless, but at the same time, it was fluffy and also seemed fresh. The American cheese was, well, American cheese. There's a time and a place for American cheese, and breakfast, on this sandwich, is probably it. The Canadian bacon was not overly tasty, but serviceable. All in all, I found that I was more interested in finishing the McDonald's sandwich than the Starbucks one.

The coffee at McDonald's, of course, was not as tasty as Starbucks coffee. But it wasn't that much worse. Furthermore, the McDonald's breakfast came not only with coffee but also with a version of fried potatoes that I believe they call hash browns. Scoff if you will, but that oval patty was crispy and hot, and I found myself rooting around in the bag at the conclusion of my taste test to see if I had eaten it all. What is it about any kind of fried potato that's so good? When God invented the potato, and then invented oil, she really knew what she was doing.

How much did I spend at each place? My breakfast sandwich and "tall" coffee at Starbucks came to $4.24, with tax. The counter person first tried to charge me over five dollars, but I pointed out that the big sign behind her indicated that breakfast pairings, as they're called, actually go for $3.95 (and she quickly and graciously adjusted my bill; to be fair, they've only just started offering the breakfast combos, so she wasn't familiar yet). My sandwich, potato patty, and regular-sized coffee at McDonald's set me back $4.11. So, basically the same price for the same thing at both places. Yes, I got the bonus potato patty at McDonald's, but the sandwich at Starbucks was a bit bigger than the McMuffin, so it was probably a draw as far as quantity of food goes.

Do you ever get a breakfast sandwich on the go? If so, what do you like? You may remember that I've also tried them at Atlanta Bread Company and at Howbowda Bagel. The sandwich at Howbowda is my favorite of all of these breakfast meals, but that may not be a fair comparison because I didn't try an egg/meat combo sandwich there, only the lox and cream cheese one.

Where to Get Knives Sharpened in Champaign

Updated October 2010: Bart is moving to Florida this month; he sold his knife-sharpening equipment to Do It Best Hardware on Springfield Avenue in Champaign, and you can get your knives sharpened there (217-356-6454). They charge $2 per knife.

Do you have the dull-knife blues? I did, and for quite a while. Keith had gotten me some wonderful Wusthof knives a few years ago, but over time, they became as dull as my old Chicago Cutlery knives had been. Something had to be done.

There are reams of information online about how to sharpen knives. I'd thought I was sharpening when I used the steel, but then I found out that a steel doesn't really sharpen, it just realigns and straightens the edge. I knew I should learn how to use a sharpening stone, but I didn't feel like taking the time and trouble. My shame was somewhat ameliorated when I read that even celebrity types struggle with dull kitchen knives. But I still had dull knives. Then I found B. Sharp Sharpening Service ("stay sharp with us").

Bart, the man behind B. Sharp, will fix you right up. He works out of a shop at his home; you can drop off your dullies to him and he'll give you back sharpies. If you're sick and tired of mashing tomatoes instead of chopping them, give B. Sharp a try. At about $3.50 per knife, it's money well spent.

B. Sharp Sharpening Service
Champaign, IL
217-841-0769

P.S. Bart also sharpens saws, drill bits, lawn mower blades—just about anything you can think of. So if you have other sharpening needs, check him out.

Spaghetti Squash with Parmigiano-Reggiano

Sometimes I like to read Michael Ruhlman's blog Notes from the Food World. Ruhlman is a cook and writer who lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and he authored the book The Making of a Chef, which chronicles the training of professional chefs at the venerable Culinary Institute of America.

Anyway, a while back I came across his post "The Fallacy of the Quick and Easy Cookbook," a rant against books that present simplified versions of world-class chefs' recipes, promising that you can "effortlessly recreate" them in your own kitchen (in record time). I won't weigh in on the rant, since I've never cooked from such a book, myself. The thing of interest here is that in the post, Ruhlman gives us a truly quick and easy recipe for pasta that I wanted to share with you.

I made the dish recently, and I must tell you, it was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. Ever! And I didn't even have the best grade of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (or fancy high-end butter, for that matter). It was, as Ruhlman noted, an honest dish made with just four ingredients (pasta, butter, salt, and cheese). I added pepper as well.Now, this preparation is well known in Italy; it did not spring from the mind of Michael Ruhlman (as I'm sure he would acknowledge). In fact I realized that I had seen virtually the exact same recipe on my friend Simona's blog Briciole last year. Simona called it by its Italian name, pasta al burro e parmigiano, and it was a childhood favorite of hers. Her recipe is even simpler; the ingredients are pasta, butter, and cheese (no salt or pepper).

I was going to make the pasta again today and post about it, but then I spied the small spaghetti squash I'd gotten at the last farmers' market on the windowsill. Thus, I decided to do the recipe but substitute spaghetti squash for the pasta. It was, of course, a totally different animal, but it also was a delightful dish.

The squash, as I said, was small (about a pound is my guess), and I quartered it before cooking, so it didn't form the long strands you can get out of larger spaghetti squashes; what I ended up with resembled spaghetti that had been broken into small pieces. Even so, the combination of the creamy butter and nutty cheese on the tender mini-strands of squash was winning.

So here's my veggie version of pasta with butter and cheese. It's not as quick, obviously, as the original, because the squash takes a lot longer to cook than spaghetti does. But it's almost as easy.

Spaghetti Squash with Parmigiano-Reggiano
After the recipes Pasta with Parmigiano-Reggiano on Ruhlman.com and pasta al burro e parmigiano on Briciole.

1 small spaghetti squash (about 1 pound)
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 to 2/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Place a vegetable steamer basket in a large pot and add water until water reaches the bottom of the steamer. Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil.While water is heating, quarter the unpeeled squash and scoop out the seeds and icky parts. When the water boils, put the squash quarters into the steamer, cover the pot, and steam for 20 to 25 minutes or until the squash is just tender.

While squash is steaming, heat the oven to 200 ° F. Cut about a half-stick of butter into four pieces, put the butter into the bowl, and put the bowl into the oven. Coarsely grate 1/2 cup or more Parmigiano-Reggiano.

When squash is tender, remove it from the pot to a cutting board, draining off any excess water. Wearing an oven mitt, rake a fork over the cut surfaces of the squash until you have released the flesh from the skin (the squash will be in strand-like pieces). Remove the warmed bowl from the oven and put the squash into it, then add a good amount of the cheese, plus some kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Turn the mixture over a few times, then serve immediately, topped with more grated cheese if desired.This buttery, cheesy squash would be great with roast pork or chicken or on the side of some kind of bean or bean-and-rice dish. Or you can do as I did and just eat it all by itself—for a late breakfast, no less.

In the Champaign-Urbana area, you can purchase Parmigiano-Reggiano at a number of stores: Sun Singer, Euro-Mart, World Harvest, and the Art Mart, in particular. Spring for the best grade of cheese you can afford for this recipe. To grate the Parmigiano, I used my trusty Microplane coarse grater (got that at our local Bed, Bath, and Beyond store).

Thanks to Michael Ruhlman and my friend Simona for demonstrating the true meaning of quick and easy cooking. Please try Ruhlman's version or Simona's version of this pasta dish as soon as possible. I promise you will be very glad you did.

Novel Food: Spring 2009 Edition

It's time, once again, for another edition of the literary/culinary event that Simona, of the blog Briciole, and I started in the fall of 2007. Simona had introduced me, that summer, to the mystery novels of Andrea Camilleri, which are set in Sicily and feature Inspector Salvo Montalbano. As Simona and I talked about the food that is so prominent in those novels, we realized it would be fun and interesting to replicate some of the dishes and write about them on our blogs.

Thus was Novel Food born. We branched out from the Montalbano novels, and ever since we've been making foods associated with the books we've been reading—and inviting others to join us.

To give you a taste of what these events are all about, here are a couple of examples of previous NF events: The very first one, Novel Food, Autumn 2007 Edition; and the most recent, Novel Food Winter 2008 Edition.

If you'd like to join us in cooking from books, all you have to do is make a dish or dishes from a novel you've either recently read or know and love, write up a post about the dish and book, and send us the info. Here's the step-by-step:

1. Prepare a dish of your choosing that has a connection to a published literary work (novel, novella, short story, memoir, bio, poem).
2. Publish a post about it on your blog by Saturday April 4, 2009 (midnight, Pacific Time), referencing the Novel Food event. Include a link to this or Simona's announcement. If you wish, you can use the Novel Food logo.
3. Send an e-mail to me (champaigntaste AT gmail DOT com) or Simona (simosite AT mac DOT com) and include your name, blog name and blog address, and a permanent link to your post. Please include the words "Novel Food" in the e-mail subject line, so we can more easily retrieve the message in our inboxes.
4. Non-English submissions are fine. If possible, include an introduction in English.

Don't have a blog, but want to participate? You can! Send Simona or me an e-mail telling us about your book and the dish you created in response to it, and include a photo if possible. We'll include it in our roundups.

Note: If you don't receive an answer to your e-mail or a comment on your post within two days of sending me or Simona the e-mail, please contact us again: sometimes messages get lost in cyberspace.

For this edition of the event, since I've just received the latest Inspector Montalbano mystery from Amazon, I may go back to our source of inspiration and make a dish from that novel; I always love cooking Italian. On the other hand, I've also recently read and loved a novel called Mercy, so an African dish might be in the making. Look for my post in April and the roundups featuring the foods that other bloggers were inspired to make on CT and Briciole soon afterward.

We look forward to seeing what you've been reading and cooking! You can send in your submissions any time between now and April 4.