Friends, chicken and rice has been lax in its responsibility to bring to you at least one delicious each week. Some readers have taken this to assume that there is no delicious left to experience in this world. The result of such a belief–swine flu.  I learned one thing, and one thing only, from Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain. In order to stop the spread of swine flu, we must hyperventilate, and if we must hyperventilate, it may as well be due to something delicious. With that in mind, I bring you the most delicious food of my past 3 weeks.  

Fried Green Tomatoes. One of the many cases in which food itself far exceeds the movie based on that food, fried green tomatoes capture the essence of all things right and good in America. Instilling upon its citizens is the undying resolve to take nature and improve it in a manner which achieves the most gains for the least effort. In the case of a fried green tomato, we have done so in the simplest way imaginable. It is a tomato. Thus it is nutritious. However, it is fried. Thus it is also delicious.

Simple yet elegant, the fried green tomato is truly the food which moms approve and kids love.  It brings the family to the dinner table, and keeps them there for seconds and thirds.  When the meal is over, everyone is left with a satisfied tingle that comes only from a meal worth taking the time to enjoy. If that isn’t delicious, I’m not sure what delicious is.