Ruby, I think I might actually like that, once every couple of years. But can I get it without the tricolor jello parfait on the side?

Occasionally I have reason to look through some of my mother’s cookbooks, and I’m floored to see some of the food featured in them, especially the "ladies’ lunch" stuff. The winner so far: a photo captioned "Frankfurters take on new glamour (sic) in this gleaming aspic". Maybe I should drag this over to the folks in the Hot Dog forum.

It interests me that in the midst of all of this heavy, overcooked, oversauced, overcomplicated mishmosh that previous generations took for "elegant" food, there’s a lot of good solid cooking knowledge. And those folks used everything. Leftovers, organ meats, preserves, homecanning – the term "home economics" takes on new meaning.

Bill