I was recently asked why I blog? The fame? The accolades? The enormous amount of business the blog brings to my store? Yeah right, about that day job?

This blog is about, "We Know Yum! Musings, reviews, tips, hints on: food, recipes, articles, green living, organic gardening and farming from Good For You Market and Farm, Lewes, DE." It's mostly about food, since, well, that's what I mostly do! It's my experience of making a business out of my interests, and out of necessity. I could not find authentic food and ingredients at the beach. I started a 'natural food store,' and it evolved into a good, food market. Gourmet schmourmet. It's food after all, let's not take things too seriously, but let's get it right, food should taste like it should taste! That being said, if I buy cheddar cheese, I want to know it's a good cheddar cheese. "American Cheese" is not cheese. Cheeses that are made in America are American Cheese, and we in America have many fine artisan cheese. In fact we have a cheese revolution under way in the USA. I digress. If my cooking club has dealt me the appetizer course for Italian American Heritage month (October, by the way!), then I want to know where to get good Mozzarella, and do I need Perle, Bocconcini, or Ciliegine? What about Buffalo Mozzarella? Is it made in Buffalo, NY? Chiogga Beets, Broccoli Rabe, Fennel? Where do I get them and what do I do with them?

I may Know Yum and own/operate/manage a food market, but at the end of the day, I have the same learning curve and time pressures we all have. I love to eat, I'm insatiably curious about the world around me. I'm fascinated by technique. I love to write - it helps me process what I'm doing, sort through what I'm learning, figure out where I need to prioritize available time to delve deeper. It keeps me on my toes and keeps inertia at bay. I thrive on being busy and having lots on the go at once. Blogging is a way of me to categorize, preserve, make sense, share what I've learnt in the hope that it may stimulate others to try, or share their experiences.

We all eat, right? Life's too short to eat bad, inauthentic food. I want my food to be as authentic as possible. Take cheese for example. I find the more I learn of fine cheeses, paradoxically, the less quantity I eat. I'm learning to appreciate subtlelties in flavor that are just lost if I over do it.

Right now I'm on a wine and a Spanish food kick (not necessarily Spanish wines). I've had enough of the confusion over 'varietals' and the financial/quality crap shoot when buying wine. If the store couldn't tell me, I decided to educate myself so I know the questions to ask at the wine store. I picked Pinot Noir to start with. I'm having so much fun learning about where the Pinot Noir grape is grown, and how local climate affects the resulting wine. Now I understand why Pinot Noir seems to average a higher price than other wines: it's a fussy grape, low yielding and difficult to grow. So if I'm to spend $50 on a bottle, I want to know what makes it a $50 bottle and why that's different from the average of $25 a bottle. My reading tells me that New Zealand and Oregon have similar climates so their Pinot Noirs are very similar. So, I should notice that, right if I buy a bottle of each region? I should notice the similarity between a French Pinot (don't even get me started on the Bordeaux path - oy!) and a Californian? Why is that New York state grapes (Pinot Noir included) have a higher level of resveratrol than others? I find that fascinating. I'm a complete food and beverage geek!

G4U Market is entering the world of Charcuterie (separate blog entry on that one!). No Charcuterie department worth its salt (pun intended!), would not carry the world's finest cured hams: Jamón Ibérico and Proscuitto. IMHO, Jamón Ibérico is the superior, but hey, Proscuitto - not too shabby either. If you're going to pay the premium price that Jamón Ibérico commands, then you'd better know you're in good hands, right? You want your deli guy/gal to know when, where, and how. You want a story with your ham, Ma'am? Spain, I'm learning, is a fascinating country, with no one identifying cuisine. Geographical and historical concerns have painted a palette of regional food culture. The impact of geography and religious groups on Spanish cuisine is a fascinating story. I'm fortunate to be in the position of researching this for a living (hopefully!).

I'm fascinated by what I'm discovering and I couldn't imagine someone else wouldn't be also. QED - blog. How much cured Jamón Ibérico does one need to round out a stew? How much pushes a salad over into a taste explosion? Can you really taste the difference between the three grades (and prices) of Jamón Ibérico? There's Jamón Ibérico Bellota (with the Black Iberian Pig foraging in the wild for black acorns), Jamón Ibérico de Recebo (pastured pigs fed a mix of grain and acorns), and Jamón Ibérico de Cebo (pastured pigs fed only on grain). When shopping around for spices for my store, I've enjoyed a fascinating diversion into the world of Moorish Spain. Andalusian cuisine is much the richer for cumin, coriander, nutmeg, and of course, saffron. Where would the rest of the world be for Saffron were it not for La Mancha? Did you realize the majority of the world's garlic comes from La Mancha (sorry China!). I also learned this week of the exchange of crops during Columbus' Voyages of Discovery. Where would Spanish cuisine be without the early patronage of Queen Isabella? We don't know much of Spanish cuisine in the USA. Consider, however, where our popular dishes would be had Columbus landed much further north. We might be living in a land of Spanish delis instead of Italian!

So, in a world of 24x7 google and smart phones, why do I add my voice to the mix?

Short answer. I blog because I want to share the yum! I'm fascinated by technique and all things food and drink. In life, anything I do, I want to do it well, and want it to be authentic. As a retailer and grower if I'm to carry a product, or grow a variety of vegetable, I want to know everything I can about it. I enjoy cooking because it's a hobby, it's makes me better at my job, it calms me, and it feeds my family (and occasionally my staff and customers!).

Longer answer. At the risk of hubris, it's my voice. This is my experience - grown out of my particular circumstances - I own a specialty food market in an area of the country quite some distance from the choices urban areas typically bring. I want to know that in this area, if I need saffron, I can find it. Decent cheeses, bread, oils, vinegars. Got that covered. I want to be comfortable that the product is fairly priced and works for my budget. I want to know that the person selling it to me knows what to do with it and how much to use, how long it stores.

So, is the blog a shameless plug for my business? Of course, I need to earn a living! I'm trying to earn a living doing what I love. However, you can listen to my radio ads if you're interested purely in an ad for my business. This blog is about sharing my experiences. There's a reason the header photo is of me slugging the wine in my home kitchen and not me in the store. My experience is dualistic: retailer and consumer. I take the same approach to learning about food whatever side of the retail counter I'm standing on - retail buyer or consumer. So, as I dabble and learn, I share along the way. It's not about what I'm not (I'm not a professional chef, for example). It's about what I'm learning. For example, if having the appropriate knife and cutting technique helps me in the kitchen, then I learn knife skills. Or is that, life skills?

Some people have complained to me that my blog entries can be too long. I wasn't aware of a mandate. Some are short, some long. I don't editorialize in the way that I'm forced to when covering the same material for say, a magazine article. My blog is my opinion on my experiences. I hope it is of value to someone.

Experiment with Yum. Be fearless. Be curious. Curious people are so stimulating to be around.

Now, back to the annual Matanza in La Mancha. Poor pig. Thank you for your gift. I hope it was quick and painless.

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I wanted to post something to show we are hard at work. Here's our new logo. In my opinion, you can see in the logo our evolution from our humble, crunchy origins into the fine food market we are destined to become. We are well on our way. Yum is a journey not a destination to go all philosphical on you. I can't wait until we launch the new website and able to complete our move to our (as yet), 'undisclosed location.' You wait until you see the new online store and 'bricks and mortar' store. Then you'll appreciate the fine work Fine Line are doing for Good For You Market, it will all fall into context!

By the way, my blog template puts the orange borders around the logos, they are not part of the logo.











The new logo.









The old logo. Not too shabby, but we've outgrown it.

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What's up? After I moved to the States, it took me years to learn how to answer that friendly question. Colleagues would glare at me as I stood stammering, blushing, or simply walked away in defeat. "Fine thank you" became my muttered reply. I figured I was being asked, "How are you?" Or, "How are things today?" Turns out, like many sayings, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. I settle for, "What's been going on since we last spoke?" The British just say, succintly, "How are you?" Or, as my grandmother said, "'ubby?" Short for "How be (you doing today)?"

So, what's up? Can't say I've been doing much cooking of late, but I've sure been curious! The busyness of being in business has kept me busy, busier than my perennially busy Mother-in-law! Busier than the sweatshop apiary that keeps me in local honey! That's a JOKE Rick - I know Buzzter and the crew get meal breaks.

I'm busy planning our move to our, new 'undisclosed location.' I'm busy working with the fine guys at http://www.finelinewebsites.com/ getting our web site redesigned and relaunched. I'm busy being our Produce Manager, Store Manager, HR, IT, and Marketing departments, and well, busy 'Knowing Yum!' I'm having fun right now learning all about grape varietals with the objective of understanding food pairings better and reducing the crap shoot that buying wine often is. I'm finding out all sorts of (often confusing) information. Did you know the French were the first to sequence the genome of a fruit? It was the Pinot Noir grape, sequenced in August, 2007. C'est vrai! Je l'ai lu sur l'Internet! It's true. I read it on the Internet!

Earth shattering news. I cleaned out the home fridge this week. I cant stop looking at it. I'm marvelling at how the inside of a fridge can go from looking like it got rolled downhill to a model home in one afternoon. It made me think. E-mail me photos of the inside of your fridge goodforu@comcast.net For any that, a) Make me laugh or b) Impress me AND in either case get chosen for publication in Good For You Market's E-News, "The Grapevine," I will reward you with a $5 Green Buck coin good for redemption in store at Good For You Market.


Oh, to cue, the store calls, busy is a good thing. Good For You!

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It's Sunday. My day off. My 'breakfast day.' Faithful spouse just insisted I wasn't eating oatmeal because, "Oatmeal has milk in it." Oatmeal confuses everyone, customers and staff alike get everything mixed up: Oatmeal, Scottish Oatmeal, Irish Oatmeal, Oat Bran, Rolled Oats, Steel Cut Oats, Groats... Jimmy Olson hits the streets to find out the deal on oats and oatmeal. Ready Brek, Go!

Rolled, Steel Cut, Oatmeal, Oat Bran, and Oat Flour. Did you notice how many bath and body products have oats in them? Also many brands of pet food contain oats. Ever wonder why?

Oats (Avena sativa) are classed as a cereal grain. They are grown for their edible seed with the foliage, and roots may be used by farmers, and home gardeners to provide a useful weed control barrier and also as, “Green Manure” for soil conditioning. Oat straw is reknowned as a horse bedding due to its softness.

Oats originated as a weed growing among the earlier domesticated cereal grain crops – wheat and barley in the fertile crescent of the Near East – the so called, “Cradle Of Civilization” of Mesopotamia and the Levant. Oat weed was well suited to the cooler, wetter climates westwards into Europe, so much so that by the Bronze age, as wheat and barley spread into Europe, Oat was also well established as a domesticated cereal. Today Oats grow best in temperate climates such as the Baltic area of Russia, Northwest Europe, Eastern Canada, Northeast USA, and Southeast Australia. and the North-eastern USA. Great Britian and Ireland have a particularly long love affair with the Oat. English writer, Samuel Johnson satirized the English propensity to feed oats to their animals over the Scottish propensity for human consumption when he wrote in his 1755 Dictionary Of The English Language, oat is, “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” Perhaps in response to this, England was the first country to establish an oat bread factory in 1899. Oat bread, oat cakes, and porridge oats were a common breakfast food in my own household growing up. Oats are commonly used in Europe as a soup or sauce thickener. As an adult I particularly enjoy a glass of Oatmeal Stout beer, whichever country I may be in! Although if in Latin America, please sample the local Chicha de Avena – a popular chilled sweetened beverage originating in Ecuador, and made of oats and milk. My favorite commercial non-dairy ‘milk’ is the Pacific brand of Vanilla Oat milk.

After harvest, oats are processed, separating the outer insoluble hull from the grain – the ‘groat.’ The discarded hull can be processed into animal feed, or used as a biofuel.

The unsized groats are treated with heat and mositure to stablize the oil in the oat, preventing it turning rancid. The groats are then broken by milling and separated based on size into whole oat groats, and three sizes of steel cut groats - coarse, medium, and fine steel cut groats.

The three final milled products are oat flakes (rolled oats), oat bran, and oat flour. Oat flakes are made from the whole oat groats. You’ll notice the flattened rolled oats in packaged cereals and on top of oat breads. Steel cut groats are used to make oat bran, and oat flour. What we think of as oatmeal is another product of steel cut groats. The three size grades of oat groats (coarse, medium, and fine) produce instant, baby, and quick rolled oats respectively. Quick Rolled Oats (“Oatmeal”) are so called because the rolled oat produced from fine steelcut groats absorb liquid quicker and thus produces oatmeal quicker. Is all this as clear as porridge?

Oat bran is the outer part of the oat groat separated from the inner part (the endosperm) as discussed above. The endosperm is filtered from the bran and further milled to create a fine debranned oat flour.

There are two types of oat flour: debranned and whole oat. Debranned oat flour is produced as discussed above. Whole oat flour is produced directly from the whole oat groats before being steel cut and before having the outer bran removed. The groats are sent to a separate milling unit where they are repeatedly ground and sifted into a fine flour containing the ground bran also. Such flour should always be kept chilled. The oil in the bran will go rancid quickly even when slightly heat treated during processing.

Oats are considered, “Health Food,” but don’t let that put you off! Oats are high in iron, thiamine, and soluble fiber and thought to reduce LDL – the ‘bad’ cholesterol. Oats have the highest protein content of any grain. Oats are the only grain to contain Avenalin, or Avenin - a soluble prolamine protein. It is this prolamine group of proteins that people with Ceoliac disease are ‘allergic’ to, causing extreme digestive distress and associated health issues. Together, the prolamine proteins are classified as, “Gluten.” We see many foods labeled as, “Gluten Free.” This really means there are no ingredients containing this group of proteins, or that any part of their production has come into contact with prolamines. Oats lack many of the prolamine proteins that occur in other cereal grains such as wheat and barley. The jury is out on whether or not those with Ceoliac disease can consume oats. Specifically, which prolamine proteins are Ceoliacs allergic to? There is a school of thought that oats are safe and that the reactions some people experience are due to cross-contamination from wheat and barley. Please consult a qualified medical practitioner when making dietary decisions.

So, back to the personal care products hinted to above. Oats have been shown to help heal dry, itchy skin. Oat grains and straw appear in shampoos, dusting powders, moisturizers, cleansing bars, deodorants, and more. If you have a persistent flaky, itchy skin, or insect bites, grind rolled oats in a blender to make fine oatmeal. Suspend the oatmeal in a cheesecloth bag on the faucet while drawing a bath. Lie back and sip a cup of warm oat milk!

Time for a cup of tea and some oaties!

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Orangen’t you glad you read Curious and Cooking? I bet you never thought it’d be so varied! Today: citrus. We don’t typically think of citrus as winter fruits, but really they are. They ripen slowly through balmy summer and mild fall days, ready in time for us to enjoy that sunshine energy packaged up inside the fruit for the long winter months ahead. Citrus are our original solar cells!

Finding organic citrus fruit is a ‘must-do.’ I also counsel buying un-sprayed, or at least citrus from growers who practice, “Integrated Pest Management, AKA, “IPM.” IPM utilizes principles of organic farming with the aim of reducing and eventually eliminating synthetic pesticides and other chemicals. Tree fruits are susecptible to fungul blights and are very often sprayed. Despite (usually) having a thick peel, citrus acts like a sponge, sucking up chemicals sprayed on conventional trees. A rind is a terrible thing to waste! I love to use citrus rind in all types of cooking, even raw grated on salads and ice-cream. Why add a cocktail of chemicals to that Martini? Quick tip if using a lot of citrus: zest (finely grate) the rind into ice cube trays, add a little water and freeze. Each time you want some rind, pop out a cube. Press that, “Easy” button!
True orange season is Mid-November through February. This is because most oranges hail from the Northern European and North African Mediterranean basin. However, with some climates producing citrus year round (think Florida, California, even Israel), and the fact that oranges will store well in cool, dry conditions, we get many orange varieties year round.

Citrus fruits feature in many recipes from sauces, salads, cakes, breads, beer, and cocktails to preserves. It is difficult to single out favorites. My favorite use for citrus is in sauces.There is the French classic Bigarade, made with orange and port served with duck. Another is the classic English Cumberland sauce – orange and lemon juice mixed with zested rind and added to port and redcurrant jelly. Try it with pork tenderloin for a traditional British Sunday roast dinner.

Undoubtedly the most famous of British citrus inventions is Marmalade. When we think of Marmalade we think of the Seville orange. Native to Southern Spain, this incredibly bitter orange has no real culinary use outside of orange marmalade. Growing up in the UK we visited Spain in much the same way our DC and Philly natives visit the Delaware and Jersey shore. “Downey Ocean Hon” for many Brits are the coastal towns of Southeast and Southwest Spain – the so called, “Costas.” The Coasta Brava, Dorada, del Azahar, Blanca, Calida, Almeria and, my favorite, the Costa del Sol, home to one of Spain’s most beautiful regions: Andalucia. The city of Seville is at the heart of Andalucia. Seville is home to the famous Seville orange mentioned above.

Visit any city along Spain’s Costa regions and you will notice the streets overflowing with Seville orange trees, heavy with fruit. Be careful where you park your car! I wondered, like many tourists, why non-one helped themselves to the oranges. I ‘helped myself’ to one while in Malaga. Faithful Spouse was very amused to see me spit the bitter fruit all over the plaza. I learnt a lesson: some produce is renowned for its instantly edible use, and some for its transformational culinary use. Seville oranges are the latter! The bitterness is tempered with a little sugar, and reduced into a highly-flavorful tangy preserve.

Legend goes that Marmalade is not a British invention at all, but, Zut Alors, French! Marie-Antoinette awoke with a headache. Her chef when told that, “Marie est malade (marie is sick), made a boiled conserve of Seville oranges and sugar to tempt her appetite. Hence Marmalade! This legend is bogus of course, an, “Urban Legend.” One does wonder however, if Marie-Antoinette was the original, “Lady Marmalade?”

Urban legend aside, the true origin of marmalade is actually not citrus at all, but Quince. Quince is a pear-like fruit, most frequently used in a preserve known as, “Membrillo” in Spanish cultures. Membrillo is delicious as an accompaniement to fine cheeses. The word, "Marmalade" comes from the Portuguese "inannelo" or "marmelo," meaning Quince. At the end of the 18th century, quince marmalade evolved into the British “Marmalade,” originating in Dundee, Scotland. James Keiller discovered a cheap cargo of oranges that he bought for his store. Discovering that they were too bitter to eat and therefore sell, Keiller gave the oranges to his wife who took them home to make jam. The resulting “jam” was hugely successful and was named Marmalade after Marmelos, the Portuguese word for the quince paste that had a similar texture to the orange jelly. Marmalade is still produced today by the Keiller Company in Dundee. So you see, Marmalade is really a British invention with a branched lineage to mainland Europe. As is the case with many of our manufactured foods, Marmalade was a product of, “Necessity being the mother of invention.” Put another way, an accidental success.

There are many varieties of citrus fruits ranging from oranges, limes, lemons, tangerines, clementines, tangelos, all the way up to the monster truck of all citrus: the massive Pomelo grapefruit. Don’t let your experience of edible oranges be limited by the Seville. Spain is also home to the sweet, edible delights of the juicy Valencia and the Cara Cara Navel. So many varieties the choices make my head spin, right rind, like a record, rind, rind…

There I go again, I made myself laugh! That’s so uncool!

Until next time, Andy.

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I'm on a gnocchi roll this week. Gnocchi are so easy to make, there's no excuse for discarding any less than perfect vegetables in your pantry. Just peel, cube, and steam the vegetable of choice. Then mash it, or, if you have a potato ricer (and why not if you don't?), it's a breeze.

I've been experimenting with Rutabaga, Yukon Gold Potatoes and Spinach, or Broccoli, Winter Squashes (Butternut, Acorn, Kabocha), Carrot, Gold Beets, Red Beets, Sweet Potatoes, and Parsnips. The result has been a range of flavors (mild to sweet and earthy), and color (pale green, pale yellow, golden orange, and deep red).

I'm working on an article for The Grapevine (Good For You Market's E-newsletter) and my Organic Living column in the E-zine Coastal Sussex Weekly. I'll post photos of my gnocchi, together with a discussion of Gnocchi in a few days when I'm done experimenting and come out of my starch induced high!

Spread the word about Good For You Market and our E-newsletter and this blog. This time of year is especially hard for beach area businesses and we need all the support we can get. Help us change the perception that we are an expensive, "Healthfood Store." We're a serious food market that also carries health food. We're cheaper than the big boxes and have better quality food, and rare, 'Foodie' items you just cannot find elsewhere at the DE beaches. Send us a message you value this choice before I give up working like a dog on this business!

To sign up for The Grapevine, our E-newsletter, visit the Good For You Market website http://www.good4uorganic.com/

To follow or read our Blog Curious and Cooking, well you're already reading it aren't cha Blanche?

Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/g4umarket

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Dum da-da, dum da-da…

Are you a, “Man/woman on a mission?” I am. I have a mission to get us cooking. If we make it ourselves then we know what’s gone into it. At the very least we understand the waiter when they’re discussing the specials, or know what a huge deal it is when a local chef posts live Maine Lobstah, or boasts of rutabaga in a subtly sweet gnocchi – a vegetable we would never eat otherwise.

We’re all so distracted – so much information from so many media. It’s overwhelming, but if we have access to a computer, how is there ever an excuse for not knowing where to start? Whenever I asked my Dad how to spell, or drove him nuts with, "Dad, dad, dad, what’s that?” Dad would say, “Look it up!” Look it up for us meant a 2-hour trip to the town library. Look it up today is as easy as getting the kids, or spouse off of Facebook so we can get a turn with the computer.

I’ve been half-heartedly ‘learning’ Italian, French, and Spanish for a decade. Ten years is enough time to be reasonably fluent in any of these languages. Technique fascinates me. Not being able to communicate drives me nuts. I don’t just mean traditional spoken languages, what about so called, “Insider jargon?” In other words - when a TV chef discusses a, “rolling boil,” or, “Brunoise/finely dice,” or, “the acid in the lemon brings out/ruins the balance of…” Martha Stewart shows us how to debone a chicken, having just crocheted a pot-holder and carved a cutting board out of a single block of maple. There’s a little bit of Martha in us all, but I think we get overwhelmed, instead of learning how to selectively focus and learn by incremental steps.

I’ve just been listening to a chef on the radio discussing pasta and pasta sauces for simple mid-week dinners. He knew his stuff – making of pasta: bronze die cuts, hand rolling, air-drying, which shape to choose for which sauce… However, he lost me at hello! He began by instructing us to buy our pasta at our neighborhood pasta store. What the fricasse?

Before we all go searching our hood for our pasta store, do we know how to make a basic sauce? Can we budget out a weekly shop, navigate the internet scanning for ingredient glossaries, print recipes, download a video on how to chop an onion so we get just onion and not the finger? Do we know how to prepare meats and vegetables, how to dice, puree, buy the minimal number of pans, knives and kitchen gadgets we really need, how to balance acid and sweetness, understand the role of fat in a recipe? The poor chef cannot possibly cover all this in his allotted 30 minutes.

Chef did a great job: advocating making inexpensive sauces from scratch, and hand-making ravioli in large batches for freezing and use ahead. However, again, I felt overwhelmed at the volume of what I didn’t know. Faced with this, it’s natural to give up and buy an unsatisfying junk-laden pasta sauce - overly salted to disguise inferior ingredients. I felt like I was being taken from the linguistic equivalent of learning how to ask for the bill, to discussing whether the Director’s cut of Bladerunner is the better version.

I’ve set my bar so high with language skills that I’ve let fear of not knowing enough, or wanting to be an expert lead me to a destination ten years in the making. I still can’t ask what’s in my meal when ordering on vacation. I don’t need to be able to discuss Kafka with my specialty food vendors for whom English is not their first language. Their English is fluent enough for that! I would however like to be sociable and to be able to connect with them. This year, I will become proficient with basic Italian to ask my cheese vendor how his family is, which type of milk is in the cheese, and what time of year the cheese is made instead of just, ‘looking it up.’ I will re-kindle my high-school French enough to pass the time of day with my lovely local French lady customer at the store. I will learn basic Spanish so I can find a supplier of authentic Dulce de Leche when we’re in Argentina.

Studies show that people who cook for themselves maintain better control over their weight and physical health, not to mention financial health, and the social benefits of sharing a meal! We’d all benefit from learning some basic cooking skills.

Don’t be so intimidated by the volume of information you don’t know, or by the need to get it perfect, that you never try. If all else fails, have a few takeout menus in your kitchen drawer. If you love to eat out, plan restaurant visits into your budget, shop the specials and, if they’re not too backed up in the kitchen, talk to the chef and understand what you’re enjoying. I was quite surprised recently to discover I was enjoying a Chocolate Balsamic when I always said I don’t like vinegar! I got an impromptu lesson in acid, the powers of reduction, and a command to avoid so called reductions that are really cheap vinegars thickened with sweet syrups.

I remember basic cooking classes, and financial planning games at grade school. Ask our younger generations, and the answer may be, “Is that available on Wii?” So, here’s my mission for our school systems. I believe this is a Mission Possible. I’d like to see basic cooking skills, along with project management skills such as cost estimation, long-range planning, and financial acumen being taught as a pre-requisite for high-school graduation. We don’t need to be chefs, financial planners, or contract negotiators to budget our households and put together a toolkit of culinary basics, but these basic skills will give us a start in life and may even inspire a few careers.

Tutto Mangia!

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