September 21 – September 27, 2026

Monday:                  Dinner at Alta Via with Al and Reshma

Tuesday:                  Ravioli with Red Pepper Sauce

Wednesday:          Korean BBQ Meatballs with Rigatoni in Zucchini Sauce

Thursday:                Dunnings Dinner (pictured above – herbed goat cheese appetizer from Sunday dinner

Friday:                      Memorial Vespers for Deni Griffith

Saturday:                Margherita Pizza with Sausage and Burrata

Sunday:                   Barbecued Chicken with Coleslaw and Texas BBQ Beans

Cooking for the Long Run

This week was a great one for food, beginning with a spectacular dinner at Alta Via, a great, albeit too spic for Beez, ravioli with red pepper sauce, incredibly savory meatballs and the rest of it. 

But I’m only going to offer a recommendation this week, not a full-blown recipe.  I’m doing that for two reasons.  1.  In order to catch up (synchronize the dates of the menus with the calendar that everyone else in the world is following).  2.  I’ve been wanting to share insignificant observations about cooking with you which always get crowded out by the main recipes, or the humor I imagine I’m displaying.

So here are two observations.

First – using Burrata when making a Margherita pizza will help you achieve the soupy consistency of a Neapolitan-style pizza.  Well, not totally soupy, but much more so than the mozzarella crust that can come from cooking even fresh mozzarella a bit too long because you are waiting for the crust to be cooked.  In the worst case, that mozzarella will resemble the slab atop chicken parmesan served in the army and at high school cafeterias.  So try Burrata, tear it into pieces and included the liquid-like cream along with the skin holding it all together.  If you don’t like it, no harm done.  If you do, please ship me a container of Burrata.

Second – How do you put together a week’s worth of menus, week after week, year after year and, eventually, decade after decade?  Obviously, you need some sort of framework.  But that framework, like Growltiger in Cats, needs to be ‘baggy at the knees,’ which is to say, flexible and loose and liable to change.  Here is my framework:

Monday:  We try to have salads with leftovers on Monday – or we might turn left-over beef into a hash, or left-over chicken into a salad or a thick soup.  Salads, of course, can be quite involved and toasting or candying pecans or walnuts, or spicing up Cashews is a favorite gimmick.

Tuesday:  I generally cook pasta, but I’m willing to cook anything, other than left-overs two days in a row.  Sometimes, something at the farmer’s market catches my eye, or the counterman at Willie’s Smokehouse recommends something, or I saw a great looking recipe on the Food Network or somewhere else over the weekend.  Or, and this happens more often.  I have forgotten an ingredient for the pasta.

Wednesday:  We often do soups on Wednesdays, sometimes with a sandwich, almost always with a crostini of some sort. 

Thursday:  We are usually ready to attack big protein again by Thursday  – meatballs, chops, burgers

Fridays:  For life-long RCs Friday means fish or shellfish or, not infrequently, salade niçoise with canned, imported Tuna from Italy, but recently, having a vat of delicious, left-over, Jumbalaya, I simply cook some more shrimp and through them in. 

Saturday:  Pizza, if we’re at home – but that, of course, offers myriad variations, though old standards like Margherita, Chicago Tavern-Style, White Pizza with Prosciutto and Arugula keep coming back. 

Sunday:  Ah Sunday – the high point of the family cook’s week, a day to cook something special and invite relatives and friends over, a day with enough leisure time to tackle long-form cooking – stews, ragus, brisket, overnight marinated meats and chickens on the grill.  I’m afraid you’re on your own on Sunday.  Good luck, and don’t forget about putting Burrata on your Pizza.