A simple behavioral experiment–

Become a waiter at a restaurant.  Each time someone orders a particular dish which is labeled as “spicy” on the menu, ask that individual to fill out an evaluation form after he or she finishes the meal.  However, on a random basis, when that person first orders, ask if he or she can handle spicy food.

Hi, C&R. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy.

My dearly beloved little red camera met the fate of every digital camera I get my hands on — its chromed lens cover will never blink again, as far as I can tell. Instead, meet the new love of my life, the awful cameraphone pic. (What can I say, sometimes I’m fickle.)

Squished and mushed and pressured and jarred.

As you can tell, my camera-holding hand is clearly shaking here at the sheer force of awesome laid out on that counter. Ladies and gentlemen, behold six different types of homemade jam — a feat of superhuman endurance, at least for people with attention spans like mine. (To be fair, it was a joint effort between myself and two of my fabulous roommates.)

Top to bottom and left to right: strawberry/white pear, papaya, blackberry, strawberry, pear, mango.

Making jam is like telling a good story. The exposition, where you get to know each of the characters one by one, inside and out — dissecting each fruit and seeing what it’s made of. The slow build, patient stirring, as all the pieces simmer and mix, interacting in new ways in a careful setup. The exciting and borderline dangerous climax, as suddenly everything comes to a boil and all the action must happen immediately at once. (Sear-your-skin hot fruit and boiling jars.) And finally the denouement, the satisfying final pop as everything is neatly sealed.

As perhaps the faithful reader will have noticed in the first photo, we’ve already broken into several of the jars and been pleased with our handiwork. (We were also forced to make biscuits as a jam vehicle, which were consumed long before cameras came out.) Like most homemade food, we have found that this is clearly miles better than anything storebought, but it’s hard to say how much of that is freshness and quality and individual attention and of course our outrageous cooking skills, and how much of it comes from one of the most delicious spices of all, pride.

[That said, the pace at which we produce this vastly outstrips the pace we can consume it, even given that properly sealed jars will keep for up to a year -- so local folks wishing to assess how much of this is the subjective effects of pride and prejudice, we might be able to come to some sort of arrangement...]

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.