Heavy Metal.

I tried on my wedding ring yesterday. It isn't mine yet, really. We bought it, and our wedding date is engraved inside now, and it looks perfect nestled against my engagement ring. But it's not mine yet.

We found this ring at the little neighborhood jewelry store that my engagement ring came from. We love this place; the first piece of jewelry Michael ever gave me, an Edwardian aquamarine ring, came out of its window, and he bought the diamond earrings I wear every day there too. When we're out running errands on Sunday afternoons, we always stop to look in the window. Or I should say I stop and look in the window and point things out, and Michael nods disinterestedly -- unless it's close to a holiday or my birthday. That is a cliche that has worked well for us. I am very sparkly because of it.

The ring's original engraving was from June 1914, which is about when my engagement ring was made as well. I like to think that the woman who wore this was about five feet tall and had little hands and fingers like mine. I like to think it was bought at a jewelry store on 4th Avenue and given to her at a church in Park Slope or maybe Sunset Park, or maybe, if there was trouble in the family and a wedding wasn't such a good idea, at Borough Hall on Joralemon Street. June 1914 was a turbulent month; all hell was breaking loose in Europe, and so maybe she had an inkling of what the next years would bring. Maybe she tucked a piece of muslin doused in perfume into her corset, and after the wedding, she and her new husband caught an evening train to the shore for their honeymoon. Maybe she wore the ring until she died; maybe she sold it to put food on the table. Maybe it was lost and then found 10 different ways, and she cried each time. Maybe with some coaxing, she let her daughter play with her jewelry, and she watched her with a gimlet eye to make sure that ring didn't disappear into the baseboards. Maybe, during the weeks before her husband gave her this ring, her eyes shone with dreams of what was to come. Maybe, together, she and her husband made them real.

So it's not my ring yet.

Johnny and Me.

I've been trawling the interwebs lately for shirts for Michael's groomsmen, a job made easier by the lovely Maggie, who found the wonderful T.M. Lewin company so I don't have to. Her husband and his court were decked out in gorgeous Prince of Wales shirts for their summer Outer Banks wedding, and when I saw her pictures, I thought, that look is for me. Well, maybe not me per se. But you know.

The point, though, is that I can't wait to see Michael and our friends in Jermyn Street shirts and thick-knotted ties. Anyone who's been across the pond knows that British men clean house when it comes to dressing for the occasion, and I love seeing a good cutaway collar on a man. It makes me think of the first time I went to London, and of a gray day in a smoky pub. It also makes me think of Johnny Apple, and that is the clearer remembrance.

I first saw Johnny while I was in college; he had come to lecture at my journalism school, and I forget exactly what he talked about. It was the first spring after George W. Bush took office, and it may have had something to do with the recount. It doesn't really matter. Much later, he told me that he'd given that speech off the top of his head with a raging fever and upper respiratory infection, but he'd still made it to the Magnolia Grill in Durham for Karen Barker's pie. "Next time you go, tell her Johnny sent you," he told me. (I still have never been.)

But what I remember chiefly, besides Johnny peering over his reading glasses at his audience, was his voluminous shirt. That shirt! Billows of pink-and-white checked cotton, a cutaway collar unbuttoned at his neck, the hem tucked into a pair of rumpled chinos. His feet spilled out of his loafers, and I felt sorry for them; Johnny, I do believe, could be just as hard on his shoes as he was on his colleagues. But his shirt, which was probably made for him by Harvie & Hudson, stuck in my brain. At Johnny's memorial service years later, Charlie Rose made reference to that self-same shirt, as Johnny had worn it or its twin nearly every time he appeared on his show. No one could accuse Johnny of being a style guru, but when he wore that shirt, to me, he was absolutely himself, as he always would be.

I actually met Johnny under far less auspicious circumstances. I was working through my first weeks as a clerk in his office. Johnny and his wife, Betsey, had been on their usual summer jaunts through Europe and beyond, and from Sweden had sent back a grand case of Orrefors crystal. I signed for it and probably 20 other boxes one day, put it away, and forgot about it. Two weeks later, I received a frantic call at home from my boss: where was Johnny's crystal? We must find it. Surely you didn't take it, did you? We must find this box. Johnny is raising unholy hell about it.

I came into the office, hunted in every corner and crack, and no box was to be found. Every employee looked under their desk for it, just in case. We rooted through Johnny's office, tossing aside boxes of files and cases of wine from promoters. No box. No crystal. Oh God.

Later that week, my boss pulled me aside and informed me, in a voice reserved for wakes and firing squads, that Johnny was coming into the office that day, and that I should be prepared. That afternoon, as I sorted the mail, Johnny came into the mailroom.

"Young lady," he boomed, peering at me once again over his reading glasses. "I don't want to beat a dead horse, but that was a thousand dollars of crystal you just blew."

I swallowed hard. "Yes, sir," I said.

He turned on those loafers -- probably a different pair, although these looked just as beleaguered as the last -- and strutted away. He wasn't wearing the pink shirt; it was a ratty pale blue polo shirt that I think he reserved to wear while doing his expenses. I remember seeing it strain over his stomach at his desk, piles of receipts in front of him.

Two days after that, Johnny came padding up to my desk and plonked two bottles of Australian something-or-other next to my keyboard. "I think you'll like these," he muttered, and told me to come back to his office for more whenever I wished.

After that, most of the wine drunk at my house came from Johnny Apple's stash, and we were friends. I sorted his mail and surreptitiously fact-checked his analysis pieces, and he gave me wine and told me where to eat pretty much everywhere I went. (And that damned box was found stashed away by a ditsy secretary who had fretted that the cleaning staff would run off with the crystal.) The winter after the great crystal caper, I had a long layover at Heathrow and saw Johnny's sartorial brethren traipsing through the terminal. I laughed out loud.

Now Johnny's been dead for a few years, and Betsey is out flogging -- her words, not mine -- a collection of his food writing, and there Johnny is on the cover, large as life, in a pink checked shirt, peering over his reading glasses. Were he still with us, he would be exactly the same. We would be the better for it.

Catherine the Great.

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately -- maybe because I've been cooking in an old cast-iron frying pan that belonged to her, or maybe because what I've been cooking reminds me of her. Before dementia and old age stole her senses, she loved cornbread, fried chicken, summer tomatoes in oil and vinegar, stewed squash with onion; peach ice cream made in the freezer on the porch, fresh sliced strawberries, the smell of bacon and coffee in the morning. She loved it all.

When I'm poised in front of this frying pan, wooden tongs in hand, I think of her and her own stance at the stove. I think of summers spent running in from the front yard with my cousins, all filthy feet and sand-behind-the-ears and bug bites, to help set the table for supper. The rule was that if you set the table, you didn't have to help with the dishes, and I hate doing the dishes. We trotted back and forth between the kitchen and dining table, setting out the ugly blue flowered dishes, the pot of crab stew, the platters of fried fish and skillet cornbread. My grandfather took his place at the head of the table by the china cabinet, and she took hers at the end, next to the bookshelf that held her cookbooks. We all scrambled for a place in between, angling to not have to sit on the creaky wooden kitchen stool. With five daughters and multitudes of grandchildren, friends and guests, there were never enough chairs. But there was always enough food.

Maybe I've been thinking about her because, through all this wedding nonsense, I wish she were here. I wish she could meet Michael. I think she'd like him; she would like how funny he is, and respectful to others, and uncompromising. She would roll her eyes at his jokes, if she could hear them. She would show him how to clean shrimp, and find some fault with his table manners and gently tease him about it, and she would feed him. And she would pull me back to her sewing room and show me bits of the lace she used for my mother's wedding dress, and she would say, "He seems like a nice boy." I wish she could know that I, like her, met my husband in New York -- a girl moved up from the south, looking for her way in unfamiliar territory, and finding a home in someone's arms. I wish she knew that.

At my grandmother's funeral three years ago, my mother's aunt looked at me and said, "My lord, you favor Catherine." It was the only time I saw my mother choke up; we are not criers, my mother and me, or not in front of others, and not even in front of each other. Yes, I do favor her. I am thankful for that, for her name and wicked grin and round apple cheeks.

I am grateful for her love of food, too -- her Scottish thrift about it, and her willingness to try anything. I think she would like what I've got for you today: a bacon and brown rice salad, tart with white wine vinegar and Dijon mustard and sweetened up with dill, cooked in her iron skillet. Yes, indeed. She would have liked that.

Brown Rice and Bacon Salad

Adapted from Alton Brown

2 cups cooked brown rice

6 slices good bacon (we use Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon around here)

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

about 2 tsp. Dijon mustard (depends on how tart you want the dressing; I use 2 tsp. on the nose)

1/2 cup chicken broth (if you don't have that, just use water)

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

black pepper to taste

1 tsp. dill

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, cook the bacon until crispy and crumbly. Drain on a paper towel, and remove all but about a tablespoon of the grease from the pan. In the remaining bacon fat (a little bit won't hurt you) saute the onion until translucent. In a bowl, whisk together the mustard, vinegar, broth, sugar, salt and pepper, and pour the mixture over the onion. Stir around and cook for a few minutes. Then add the cooked brown rice and crumbled bacon to the pan, and cook over medium heat until the liquid is absorbed by the rice. Remove from the heat and stir in the dill. Let cool, and eat at will.

Serves four.

Sweet tart.

I've flown south twice in two weeks, and boy, are my arms tired.

Sorry. Let's try that again.

I've flown south twice in two weeks, and boy, are my pants tight. 

Better?

This is due to barbecue and braised Brussels sprouts with bacon at a joint in North Carolina, a sausage breakfast at Mama Dip's, grits and grillades after dancing to a second line at a New Orleans wedding, a crawfish po-boy and an Abita with friends on Iberville Street, and an about-to-get-on-a-plane-final Bloody Mary at Antoine's. If you haven't done the latter, you must get yourself on a plane -- tickets to New Orleans are almost always cheap -- and run from your cab to the Hermes Bar. Grin when the lovely waiter heralds your arrival with a "Welcome to Antoine's, young lady!" Perch yourself on a bar stool, watch your neighbor sop up the remaining smidges of his oeufs sardou, and eat your pickled green bean very, very slowly. Then stroll back down the Rue St. Louis to the Omni, where the doorman will encourage you to leave New Orleans, because leaving is what makes coming back so good. 

It makes things better, I have found.

Anyway, I am not complaining about my pants, because I can buy new ones. And really -- how could anyone wail about an epicurean run such as that? But this is one reason we're staying north, at least for the moment: if we drifted back towards the home of our hearts, we'd change pants sizes. Twice. Maybe three times. But who's counting.

But I told you I'd have new ideas for you, and here's one, although I'm a little wary of sharing its name with you. It's truly one of the best desserts I've ever had, and I first tasted it at the afore-mentioned barbecue joint in Chapel Hill. It's a rich sponge layer cake with lemon curd filling and a citrus-coconut frosting, the kind of gooey goodness that might make your teeth ache just a little. But its name -- oh, its name. 

Its name is the Robert E. Lee cake. 

My name is Robert E. Lee, and I like cake.

However, while the general certainly chose the wrong side of the war (after a well-documented struggle of conscience), he clearly had good taste when it came to desserts. By legend, this was his favorite cake, and I can see why. The lemon curd is given time to soak into the sponge layers, giving the core of the cake an extra kick of sweet-tartness, and the frosting's citrusy complexity finishes the whole thing off perfectly. After tasting a couple of weekends ago in North Carolina, I went on a hunt for the recipe and found many iterations of it; turns out that the Lee cake is an old, storied dessert, and how I made it nearly 30 years without encountering it, I don't know. Must have been my until-recent aversion to coconut.

So here's the recipe, and it comes with a couple of warnings: one, it is labor-intensive and takes a while to bring all the pieces together, and I would give yourself a good afternoon to assemble it properly. Two, your husband or fiance or partner may not be able to leave the kitchen while you're baking it, and especially while you're whipping up the frosting. They may even endanger their fingertips by sticking them in the bowl while the mixer is still going. This would be a good time to put that person to work by doing the dishes, because you'll be making a big mess. And afterwards, if they do a good job, you can reward that person with a slice of Robert E. Lee cake. 

By the way, in my house, it's now called the Ouiser Boudreaux cake, which stakes a claim to its roots while indicating its balance of sweetness and tart bite. That is, if you know who Miss Ouiser was. 

Robert E. Lee Cake or the Ouiser Boudreaux Cake

whichever suits your fancy. Adapted from Allrecipes.com.

for the cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

8 egg yolks

2 cups white sugar

8 egg whites

2 tsp. grated lemon zest

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1/8 tsp. salt

for the filling:

3 egg yolks

1 1/3 cups white sugar

2 1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup butter, softened

for the frosting:

1/3 cup butter, softened

4 cups confectioners' sugar

3 tbsp. grated orange zest

2 1/2 tbsp. orange juice

1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest

1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice

1 1/ cups flaked coconut, toasted if you wish

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees, and grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder and cream of tartar. 

In a different bowl, beat the 8 egg yolks and two cups of sugar until creamy and pale. Stir in the lemon zest and juice. In yet another bowl (glass or cold metal are preferable) beat the egg whites and salt with a mixer until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture, alternating it with the dry ingredients. Take care to not over-beat this, since the egg whites will give the batter the sponginess you're aiming for. Spread evenly into the prepared pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, watching it very carefully. Cool the layers first in their pans (for about 10 minutes or so) and then on a wire rack, taking care to not break them. Using a serrated knife, cut them in half horizontally.

For the filling:

In the top of a double boiler (or in a mixing bowl over a pan of water), mix the sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest and juice over high heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and everything is completely combined. Watch your heat carefully; you don't want chunks of egg yolk in this. Remove it from the heat and stir in the softened butter. Let it sit and come to room temperature.

For the frosting:

Cream the butter until fluffy, and add the sugar, zest and juice gradually until completely combined and smooth. Mix in half a cup of the coconut.

To assemble:

Spread about 1/3 of the lemon filling on a half layer, and put its top on. Then do the same with another half layer, and then yet another until all four are used up. Frost and sprinkle the remaining coconut on top. Let this cake sit for a day or so to let the curd soak into the layers; it'll make it that much better, I promise.

Serves 12 to 14, depending on your sweet tooth.

The perfect fit.

My goodness. I go away for two weeks, for no really good reason, and it turns to spring, all fluttery pink and cream breezes and melting ice cream cones. This spring has a special tang for me, and I'm not sure why. I have slowed down. I don't trot across the footbridge on the way home anymore, and I meander everywhere, even to the mailroom at work. It is a pace that seems out of touch with this hustly-bustly city of mine, but I like it. It's nice to ride the tide, rather than trying to beat it.

I'm home alone this week, my betrothed being ensconced in an Alabama cabin with a stack of books, a bottle of bourbon, and his father. Over a patchy roaming connection, he's been relaying stories of old damned dogs wandering onto their porch and older men reminding him to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. We both have deep roots in the south, and it's still easy to slip into the rhythms of a spring day down there. Even though he's not here, maybe I'm keeping company with him, trading a caffeinated strut down Broadway for a honeyed ramble through the fields. I can feel my voice relaxing into its old -- original? -- drawl, even just while on the phone at work. I am grateful for the comfort of our two worlds, even as they pose a constant quandary for us.

Maybe I miss the south, and him being in it this week makes me ache for it even more. Or maybe it's the spring winds buffeting my skirts as I walk to the subway. Whatever it is, I feel very slow right now, like molasses scootching into a gingerbread batter. 

Tonight, I came back from a slow run in the park (where a bug flew right down my gullet, the fool) just in time for our grocery delivery. I tore open the boxes, shoving cans of beans here and there, until I smelled what I was looking for: my strawberries. It's still too early for them yet, really, but I couldn't resist; they beckoned from Fresh Direct like twinkly diamonds. These were a luxurious red, and they even smelled red. I don't know how berries do that. I really do think that a blackberry -- a good, ripe one that explodes in your mouth -- smells like its own dusky deep color, and a good ripe strawberry smells like a strawberry color. And these, oh thank goodness, did. 

I washed some and cut their tops off, and curled up on the couch with a bowl of Greek yogurt, a big glass of water, and my berries, and ate it all very slowly, winding my tongue around the spoon to get every smidge of yogurt. I ate the strawberries like I ate cookies as a child -- bit by bit, one small bite at a time until there was nothing left but a few scattered seeds in the bowl. There is some food that is riotous, like a sizzling fajita or a tower of chocolate mousse, and there is some food that is sort of jokey, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off, or maybe a bowl of cherry Jell-O. But my dinner was quiet food, suited to this particular slowness that I've been simmering in for the past few weeks. It was perfect.

I'll be concocting a dark chocolate and Chambord torte for the Bake for the Cure next week, and I hope it's good enough to share with you. In the middle of that, though, I'm heading south to look at some wedding locations, and I hope to bring back some more ideas for you, and some more grits for me. In the meantime, find the food that fits you right now. It is a blessing.

 

A brave taste

I might as well just jump into this: I don't like green peas. Never have. It started, I am sure, during some traumatic meal when I was four, a prolonged affair that ended in a stare-down between my parents and myself, the offending peas growing ever colder as I pushed them around the plate like marbles. I am sure I got up to some caper like spitting them all into my napkin and spiriting it to the kitchen, where I dumped them into the trash can. And I am sure that, as an unpracticed miscreant, I neglected to cover them up, leaving a bemused parent to yank me into the kitchen and demand some sort of reason for why my peas were perched on top of the banana peels and coffee grounds like scattershot on tree bark. I am also sure that I received some sort of punishment for that particular transgression, and I am sure that that punishment involved eating more peas.

I really don't like peas. One night last month on our Grand Irish Family Adventure, Michael's mother ordered fish and chips with a side of "mushy peas" -- chunky green goop, steaming in a metal gravy boat next to her fried cod. Michael force-fed me a taste as my own mother sat next to me, laughing so hard that she could barely eat her meal. I think he might have seen his future: a brown-haired child with a snub nose and round cheeks, zipping her little mouth shut at his efforts to feed her peas. In that future stand-off, I'm not sure whose side I'll be on.

Disregarding the Irish pea incident, I really have tried to come to terms with them as an adult. There are other foods that I avoid, and I've developed decent reasons -- to my mind -- for most of them. Jell-O: the texture and I are not friends. Hot dogs: I read the labels, and no thank you. But peas? I just don't have a good reason, except to say that I do not like them. I feel like I should be put in the corner just for saying that, as if I'd just stamped my feet and kicked the door.

So why, may you ask, am I rambling on about a dislike of peas? Why am I burdening you with this? Why are you still reading?

This is why: I think I've found a way in which peas and I can come to a detente of sorts, and for those of you who already have a friendly relationship with peas, this might even make it better. It is green pea soup, a springtime concoction with roasted garlic, onion and a wave of dill that ties the whole thing together with an unexpected twinkle. I'd been thinking of such a dish over the weekend, wondering how to make do with what was in my kitchen (I'm horribly lazy about going to the grocery store.) We'd reached the end of the good frozen vegetables and were left with a bag of green peppers from our CSA, another of brussels sprouts, and two bags of organic green peas. I buy them to throw into tuna casserole and other warming winter comfort dishes, and I always have more than I'll ever use. 

So, staring at the freezer door, I started thinking -- what could make green peas taste better? Roasted garlic is always a good start, and a little salt and pepper, and what else tastes good? Dill, of course....and so it went. And then Google told me that Nigella Lawson had already made a form of this soup, which was a little disheartening, but I ultimately took it as a good sign, and very good footsteps to follow. The roasted garlic gives the sweet peas a blast of warmth, and the dill helps the whole thing out with a little fresh spring-ness. Sprinkled with pepper and fresh grated Parmesan, it's not certainly not the worst thing in the world, as if anything with fresh grated Parmesan and roasted garlic could be.

I feel like maybe -- just maybe, and give us some time -- peas and I are going to be friends after all.

Green Pea and Roasted Garlic Soup

Adapted from Nigella Lawson and a hundred other variations

This soup is extremely easy and cheap. Just make sure your garlic is fresh and your stock is good. If you can't make your own or get your hands on some good store-bought stock, use water instead. Bad stock makes for bad soup, in my experience.

2 full heads of garlic

12 oz. frozen green peas (I used Cascadian Farms, but Birds Eye or your store brand is just fine)

1 onion, chopped 

a generous glug of olive oil

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (pork stock might make for an interesting twist as well)

1/2 cup, give or take, of milk (if you're feeling luxurious, cut back the amount and use cream or half-and-half)

1/2 tsp. dill, or to taste

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp. fresh grated Parmesan

Chop the top off the heads of garlic, making sure each clove is exposed. Drizzle a little olive oil over both, and wrap in aluminum foil. Roast at 350 degrees in the oven until the cloves are golden and tender but not burned. This can happen more quickly than you think, so keep an eye on them. I'd give them about 25 minutes, and then check on them. Pull out from the oven and let them cool so as to avoid burned fingertips.

Give an onion a medium chop. Saute in olive oil -- enough to cover the bottom of a heavy-bottomed pan or Dutch oven -- over medium heat until softened, but not completely translucent. Add the green peas, still frozen, and the two cups of stock. Bring to a strong simmer, and cook for about 15 minutes, or until the peas are cooked through. Add the garlic and combine completely. 

In a blender, pulse the whole mixture, adding the dill and salt and pepper, until it's finely pureed. Be careful with the salt, because the Parmesan will add some on its own. If the soup is too thick here, start adding the milk until you achieve the texture and consistency you want. Serve in individual bowls, sprinkled with Parmesan and a little pepper. This would go well with a crusty bread, a green salad and a glass of dry white wine.

Punch-Drunk Love.

Well, then. After two blessed weeks of being betrothed, my brain has turned into something resembling pineapple-flavored mush. I say pineapple because I love punch, and I think I'm the only person who still does, but I am a total sucker for frozen pineapple rings and 7-Up swirled together in a big silver bowl, and would it be OK to have that at my wedding even if no one drinks it but my grandmother, my cousin's two-year-old and me?

I hear that my brain will calm down eventually -- that after the first few exhilarating weeks of being engaged, the march of Champagne and toasts will end, and I'll be left with a stack of wedding magazines and an actual event to plan. Last Saturday afternoon, we hunkered down in a bar with a couple of drinks and tried to figure out what was what. We know we want good food, trees and a lovely spring breeze. We want a dear friend to lead us into marriage, rather than a person of a faith that we don't adhere to. We want bourbon and lots of dancing, and a place where people can take their shoes off, loosen their ties, and talk and laugh until the wee sma's.

Then we went home and watched the Carolina game, and pretty much forgot everything we'd decided upon.

I am not forgetting that we're getting married, and that we'll have a marriage, not just a wedding. But you can't plan a marriage. I am thrilled to the tips of my toes for the surprises of our life to come, and I don't want to know any of it. I have no idea where we'll live in five years, or what our child's name will be, or if we'll be able to have a child. I don't know what will devastate us, or when. I don't know who will wreck the car first, or which puppy will tear up the living room carpet, or what job will take us someplace we'd never considered. This, I think, is the central tenet of a marriage -- the not knowing, and the willingness to keep going, hand in hand. To keep saying yes, as Shauna says.

However, you can plan the unholy hell out of a wedding. And so, for the last week, my subway time has been filled with thoughts of bridesmaid dresses, and Champagne vs. Prosecco, and a barn in the Catskills or a hilltop in the Appalachians. It's not like I was solving the global financial crisis before we got engaged. But hoo-eee, has my brain gone soft, just like a big bowl of buttercream icing.

This is the sort of cake I won't be having.

All this is to say: I haven't got much for you today, and I am sorry. In fact, last night was the first time since we returned from vacation that I cooked a full meal for just the two of us. But the good news is, I made a discovery.

Last April, my mom and I rented a little apartment between Pisa and Florence and wandered the Italian countryside by day, exploring Siena and Lucca and eating way too much gelato. On the way home each night, we stopped at the local Coop and picked up bits and bobs for dinner. One night we steamed the prettiest petite purple artichokes and dipped their leaves into a heavenly garlic aioli; the next, we sliced up a couple of blood oranges and ate them with half a bag of Pernigotti chocolates and some salami. This is exactly why I love traveling with my mom. She likes roaming a grocery store just as much as she likes roaming an art museum.

Anyway, it was at the Coop deli counter, in my idiotic attempts at Italian ("bene? bene! si bene!") that I found the greatest roast chicken of my life. I pointed to it, and the deli lady threw it unceremoniously into an aluminum bag, as if she had no idea what she'd just given me. Back in our little apartment, my mom and I cut into this chicken, took one bite each, and put our forks down in awe. The skin was perfect -- thin enough to maintain a light crispiness, but still substantial and savory. The little breast -- so unlike an American chicken, with its overfed bustiness -- was expertly salted, juicy with a strong chicken-ness. And I can't even talk about the dark meat. We spent the next half hour trying to figure out how a grocery store deli chicken could be one of the tastiest things we'd ever eaten.

I think I got it last night, and the answer is "pollo buono," which is the name of this Italian heritage chicken I'd ordered from Fresh Direct and had been defrosting for the past couple of days. I didn't think much of it when I unwrapped and washed this chicken, although I did notice how very thin the skin was, and how the chicken's thighs dwarfed its breast. In my haste to get dinner started, I salted it well, dumped some olive oil all over it and threw it in the oven at 400 degrees. And then I looked at Wedding Crap online for an hour.

But when I pulled our pollo buono out of the oven, I saw the deli lady's face, vaguely annoyed by me and her blue paper hat, and I smelled the spring air floating into our kitchen in Tuscany. This is it, I thought. We ate it with some roasted carrots and parsnips and watched UNC decimate Michigan State, whose very depressed bench, during the last few minutes, made me truly sad.

Yes, I just rhapsodized over a chicken that I want you to try (seriously: Fresh Direct "pollo buono," or try to find a local Italian heritage chicken at your butcher). Yes, I just expressed feeling for the opposing team. As my grandmother said, it takes all kinds.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a new Martha Stewart Weddings to attend to.