Eggs, size large, right out of the fridge into the bottom of the pan, nestled in so that I couldn't have fit another in a single layer in the pan in question, but not really packed tight, and covered with cold water about 3/4" above the tops of the eggs. Pan partly covered, over a high flame. When I noticed the water had come to a boil (because I heard a little clunk of the eggs bumping), I turned the flame off immediately and covered the pan entirely. Then I set the timer for twelve minutes. When it went off, I used a slotted spoon to transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water, with plenty of ice. If you want to be really particular, you can make an effort to center your yolks before you boil the eggs. I've read a few different suggestions for this: store the eggs tip-down, or tip the carton on its side, or give the eggs a spin before you cook them. Anyone have personal testimony about the effectiveness of any of these techniques?

If you'd like my exceedingly simple deviled egg recipe, read on. (I expect everyone already has a perfectly good idea of how to make deviled eggs, but hey, why not?)

The really groovy thing about miniature artichokes is that the chokes themselves are not developed, so you have more options for eating them gloriously whole. I've had wonderful teeny ones that were minimally trimmed of even their spiky outer leaves, fried in olive oil, in Italy, and if you have the chance to do the same, let me be the first to tell you not to hesitate. However, this is more the sort of thing I like to let other people do for me than to do in my own home on a weeknight, and I had a feeling, too, that our agribusiness arties were a little less tender in their outer leaves than some, so I opted for a different method.

Trimming and roasting are both easy-peasy, and S. said: "hey! that tastes like fancy restaurant food!" I'm not precisely sure what he had in mind there, but he did definitely mean it as a compliment. Serve with something that has a mild and simple flavor -- simply dressed pasta is a good choice -- so that you can fully appreciate the effect of the cynarin, which makes other foods taste curiously sweet.

Put a pot of salted water on to boil and start heating your oven to 400° F. Position a rack near the top of the oven. Trim the artichokes according to the directions here. Trim ruthlessly or you will be disappointed by exceedingly firm, unyielding results when you go to cook them.

Submerge in acidulated water to prevent oxidation. They'll be inclined to float, which means that bits will stick up out of the water and get brownish, so you may want to weight them down with a saucer. You can leave them whole or cut them in half if they're quite quite big -- I think it's nice to leave them whole, though. Remove from the acidulated water at the last minute; transfer directly to the pot of boiling water. Simmer for 7-10 minutes, until the tip of a paring knife will enter the base of the artichoke easily. I suggest erring on the side of cooking fully; a little on the mushy side is better than rubbery, and the roasting will firm them up anyhow. Drain.

You could just stop here and eat the little guys with butter and lemon or mayonnaise. Roasting is easy, though, and it concentrates the flavor. Toss with plenty of olive oil, sprinkle with a bit of salt, and pop into the oven. Roast for about 7 minutes and then, if you like, turn on the broiler. (This works best, obviously, if your broiler is in the main oven of your stove, rather than a separate drawer.) Broil for just an extra minute and remove from the oven.

The trouble with celery root is that you lose so much of it to peeling. The same gnarled, hairy form that makes it look so much less appetizing than it truly is also makes prep a bit of a hassle and disappointment. Dirt and tough skin are trapped in deep, narrow crevasses that you must cut out ruthlessly, which means you can lose up to a third of the original mass to your preparatory ministrations. However, my recent reading of Lidia Bastianich's Lidia's Family Table has taught me that there is another way.

You can boil or roast the root whole, let it cool a bit, and then the skin will come right off, just as with a potato. You'll still have to do a little bit of excavation in the deeper cracks, but you'll lose much less of the tasty edible part, and it will be much quicker and easier. This works great for gratins -- rather than peel, cut and parboil, you use this method, then slice up the cooked globe and continue on your merry way. It's a snap. And for salads, it's just perfect. Brilliant.

CELERY ROOT SALAD
One sizable celery root, prepared as above.
1/4 to 1/2 t. salt, to taste
1/2 of a small red onion
3 T. olive oil
1 T. red wine vinegar
freshly ground black pepper

Sprinkle the peeled, cut celery root with 1/4 t. of salt while it's still warm. Slice the onion into very thin quarter-rounds; that is, cut the half onion in half again, lengthwise, and slice it as thin as you can. Separate the slices into individual shreds. Toss the celery root with the onions and dress with the olive oil and vinegar. Grind plenty of black pepper over top and toss again. Add more salt if needed. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Adapted from a recipe in Lidia's Family Table, by Lidia Bastianich

ROAST ASPARAGUS
This hardly even counts as a recipe. Just heat your oven to 425° F and prep as much asparagus as you like -- the usual way, by washing it, then snapping off the woody ends where they naturally break when you bend each stalk. Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a roasting pan and add the asparagus. Roll the stalks around until they're well coated and sprinkle with salt. Roast until at least the tips (and possibly more) get toasty. How long depends on the thickness of your stalks and how cooked you want them to be. We had fairly thick, not that recently harvested stalks, so I opted to cook them to super-roasty and super tender-y, which took twenty minutes. For more bite and/or thinner stalks, adjust accordingly. (Don't forget: thinness isn't a sign of particular quality in asparagus. Early in the season, stalks tend to be fatter; later, they're thinner, but generally the main thing is that they should be nice and green and fresh.)

Then gorge! That's what asparagus is for.

Cooking: A lot of soup and upma. Soon there will be spring vegetables, right? Soon. SOON, PLEASE, SOON.

Drinking: Organic elderflower cordial from Belvoir Fruit Farms. Pathetically, I have trouble bringing myself to find tap water sufficiently enticing to stay hydrated, so I turn to fizzy water and lovely cordials like this one to avoid turning into a complete crispy husk. I've loved elderflower for a long time, and it's become much more chic since I first discovered it, so there are elderflower options everywhere these days, it seems. This cordial's an especially nice one, very clean and fresh tasting.

Contemplating drinking: Elderflower liqueur, because hey, elderflower.

Digging: The terrible brilliance of this moderne cat scratcher. Cats like scratching carpet! People who shop at Design Within Reach like those Flor individual carpet squares! Also, they like bent plywood! Add it all up and you have invented a perfect $300 purchase for the pet-owning rootless cosmopolitan.

Wanting: New dining room chairs. My champagne tastes are proving slightly problematic on this one.

Reading: Lots of Wilkie Collins, many many novels set in WWI, and David Beaver's excellent Presupposition and Assertion in Dynamic Semantics.

The first of these (though not necessarily the first I'll post about! we'll see) is my favorite thin-crust pizza. This pizza comes almost directly from the Figs Restaurant recipe, which you can find online here, though I'll talk in more detail about my process and how it works with my own methods for cooking ahead. I was first alerted to this pizza by this inspiring post at the Grub Report. If you don't want to wait around for my take on it, follow those links and you can get started all on your own!

The second set of dinners is a suite of soups made using Lidia Bastianich's clever method of creating a rich vegetarian base ahead of time, then combining it with any number of delicious and varied star ingredients to create several quite distinctive final dishes. In particular, I like the Savory Potato Broth from Lidia's Family Table. This basic recipe is also available online (as part of this recipe for vegetable soup with rice) if you want to get started without me. But do check back here for the full unabridged story of exactly how we do it in these parts!

It's hardly a recipe, but the description above should give you the general idea, should you (or I) want to reproduce it. Just between us, I also included a tiny pinch of MSG in the lentils. I'd do it again, too!

I notice that this is yet another entry in the growing list of roughage-laden, post-feasting meals I've been posting about a lot lately. We've just been out of town for well over a week, and the last four days of that featured nothing but hotel and restaurant food. It was generally very good, but I have a hard time resisting the siren call of fried-by-someone-else options, even though I know full well that I will be left feeling something like a lump of suet. Almost as soon as we were unpacked, I went to the grocery store and piled my cart with all the dark green and orange vegetables I could get my hands on. It makes me feel secure to know the house is well supplied. I think I'll start a spa! Roughisch Baden, we could call it.

EGGPLANT DAL
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut eggplant into cubes of about 1" or a little smaller. Toss in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and roast, turning occasionally, until golden brown and collapsing, as in the picture. This may take something like 45 minutes, though I confess I didn't keep track. Remove from oven and set aside, or even refrigerate for a few days.

2. Heat a splash of oil in a pan with a teaspoon each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and whole coriander seeds until the seeds begin to crackle. Add one small onion, minced, and cook over medium-high heat for a few minutes, until the onion has softened.

3. Add half a teaspoon of ground cumin and a quarter teaspoon apiece of tumeric and cayenne (adjust to your tastes). Cook just a moment, then add 3/4 cup of red lentils, a quarter teaspoon of salt, and 3 cups of water. Let the water come to a boil, then turn down to a simmer.

4. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lentils begin to disintegrate. Keep an eye on the water level. If things begin to get too dry, add a splash of water. You want your end result to be a sort of porridge consistency, but at this stage you should err on the side of wetness.

5. When the dal is soft, add one small chopped tomato or equivalent amount of chopped canned tomatoes. If the dal is too loose at this point, you can turn the heat up a bit and cook it down to your desired consistency. Taste and adjust for salt if needed.

Now, put some eggplant in the bottom of a bowl, and spoon dal over top until you can't see the eggplant any more. Put a few more pieces of eggplant on top of the dal, and if you happen to have some crispy fried onions in the house, as I always do -- I really like the Laxmi brand jug o' onions, available from Kalustyan's -- sprinkle some on top. Of course you can also fry your own, but I find that I simply cannot replicate the gorgeous light crispiness of the prepared kind. CRUNCH CRUNCH.

You can prepare the cabbage and leeks ahead and refrigerate for a few days, in which case assembling the final dish is really a snap. It's not too much work for a weeknight, even so. Also, if you dislike cabbage, just substitute another leek or two.

Put all of the above ingredients into a heavy-bottomed pan with a tightly fitting lid and bring to the boil, uncovered, over a medium-high flame. Let boil for five minutes, then turn the heat to very low and cover. Let the vegetables stew for half an hour, until extremely tender (but still as full of fiber as ever they were!). Set aside.

3 eggs
3/4 c milk (preferably whole)
Freshly ground pepper
Splash of olive oil.

Beat eggs and milk together. Stir in the vegetables until well mixed. Add pepper. Heat a splash of olive oil in the bottom of a heavy frying pan (I vastly prefer nonstick for eggs) and pour in the egg mixture. Cook over medium-low heat until it begins to set, then finish it up in either a hot oven (say, 400 degrees) or under the broiler.

3 T very finely minced red onion or shallot
2 t wine or sherry vinegar
Fat pinch salt
1 T prepared mustard
3/4 c full-fat yogurt (see notes above for other options)

Combine minced onion, vinegar, and salt and set aside for at least five minutes. Add mustard and yogurt and mix well.

You've seen this picture before, I know, but hey, at least it's bigger this time. I have every intention of regaling you with tales and recipes of my Thanksgiving derring-do, but first, let me invite you to join us in observing Roughage Week. If you're like me, the switch from your usual diet to a giant wodge of potatoes, cream, and similar holiday ingredients has left you feeling a bit... solid. The proper remedy, I feel, is a week of meals that don't necessarily comprise the most ascetic spa food, but that are calculated to make one feel a little bit less like an inert tuber oneself.

In conclusion, roughage week makes the trains run on time. This means that leftover pumpkin pie and coffee for breakfast will be just fine (hooray) but also that I might prefer a giant pear for a snack over a bowl of potato chips. And for tonight's dinner, a big bowl of oatmeal upma. A nice big spoonful of spicy achar doesn't hurt, either.

More dinners on a similar theme to come.

For whatever reason, I find the idea of pasta at Thanksgiving a little dissonant, but after a lot of thought, I've come up with a baked pasta variation that pleases me for the purpose. The fact that it is called upon to present itself as an entrée, rather than just another meatless dish added a little extra challenge, I thought, as well as the fact that we're trying to avoid too much overlap in flavors from dish to dish. I'll tell you the whole story of the pasta when it's all made and I have pictures to go with the recipe -- for now I'll just say that it involves both caramelized onions and pistachios.

Today's recipe is for one of the meals I made to carry us through to Thursday. I think that cooking for this week is a little bit extra fraught: I don't want to make anything that will wind up being redundant, or near-redundant, with the Big Meal, and yet here we are buying the very sorts of vegetables that lend themselves to that exact kind of treatment. One answer is to go for a cultural contrast; we'll be having something East Asian tonight, and at least one Indian dinner before the week is out. But there are a few odds and ends of our shopping that didn't inspire me in either of those directions, and this recipe is for them. The cultural provenance of this dish is a little bit this, a little bit that, but mostly, I think, Berkeley Hippie. It's also not particularly schmancy, what with the canned black beans and chili powder. It's still good, though! And leftovers, cooked down a bit further, make an excellent filling for (hippie) burritos or empanadas.

TO DO
Heat olive oil in the bottom of your pan and saute onions until soft. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, cocoa, and cayenne, and cook for a minute. Then add the tomatoes, water, squash, and salt. Stir and bring to a boil.

Lower heat to a simmer, and partially cover. Cook until the squash is tender, about half an hour.

Add the beans, cover, and simmer another 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Stir in vinegar and add salt and/or hot sauce to taste.

Can be refrigerated for a couple of days and reheated without any ill effects. Serve like any chili -- with grated cheese, with diced red onions, with sour cream, over rice or not, whatever you like.

INGREDIENTS
About a pound of eggplant
1 16 oz. can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, or an equivalent quantity that you have lovingly prepared yourself
1 very large or 2 medium yellow onions, sliced into thin quarter-rounds
4 cloves garlic, minced
Plenty of olive oil
1 t whole cumin
2 t ground cumin
1/8 t. or a fat pinch of ground cayenne
2 cups of diced tomatoes, fresh or canned (I like to use the Pomi tomatoes in the aseptic box packaging, from Parmalat)
Salt and pepper
Splash of mild vinegar, such as sherry vinegar
A good handful of chopped parsley

TO DO
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the eggplant into bite-sized cubes and toss with a glug or two of olive oil. Season with salt and spread out on a roasting pan. Bake until soft -- a prodding finger should leave a dent. Remove from oven and set aside.

While the eggplant is baking, you can start the onions. In a fairly large, non-reactive pan with a lid, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and about a quarter teaspoon of salt. Cook gently until thoroughly limp and beginning to turn gold. Err on the side of cooking more slowly and gently, rather than less.

When the onions and eggplant are both ready, add the minced garlic and whole cumin seeds to the pan and turn the heat up to medium high. Cook, stirring continually, for a minute, then add the eggplant. Saute for a moment.

Now add the tomatoes, ground cumin, cayenne, and several grinds of pepper and stir. Bring this to a brisk simmer, adding a splash of water if things seem too dry. Finally, add the chickpeas and half the parsley. Cover and turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer for about ten minutes, until everything is well coated and sludgy.

To finish, add the splash of vinegar and the rest of the parsley, and taste for salt.

We don't eat pasta very often these days (alas), for the sake of Snark's pancreas, but when we have guests and want to make something we're sure everyone will love, it's hard to beat really good baked pasta with cheese. Bad cheesy pasta is gluey, or worse, runny, grainy, watery and lumpy. Bad cheesy pasta is too bland or too weird-tasting, and reminds the eater of cafeteria steam tables. But the good stuff is heavenly.

Here are two equally delicious variations, one that's essentially the best macaroni and cheese I know, and one that's a little more chic and autumnal, with butternut squash. This time of year, I like to get a squash and just bake it on the weekend, when I'm doing something else. Once it's cool, I scoop out the flesh and give it a rough mash. Then it goes into the fridge, all ready to be used in a recipe like this one.

This baked pasta is rich and creamy, but never bland or soupy, with plenty of both crispy chewy top bits and pillowy inner bits. I like to serve it with lots of crisp salad -- with vinaigrette and thiny sliced red onions, please! -- and beer. I think that the first iteration of these recipes might have been something from an issue of Cook's Illustrated, but I like my way better than theirs, no matter how much they tested it. (So there!) It's a bit of work, but totally worth it. Serves 4-5 people.

TOPPING
Some crackers and a tablespoon of butter, either run through the food processor together to make crumbs, or put in a bag and crushed with a rolling pin, then mixed with the softened butter.

PASTA AND CHEESE
1/2 lb pasta: macaroni, penne, shells, that kind of thing
Salt for the pasta water

1/2 t salt
2 T unsalted butter
1 T olive oil
3 T flour
1 t mustard
1 clove garlic, minced very fine
fat pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
2 c. whole milk (see note)
8-10 oz. cheese, grated: a combination of cheddar and monterey jack, or cheddar and gouda, is nice. Throw in some goat cheese too, if you like.
3/4 c diced tomatoes

Preheat oven to 425.

Prepare the cracker crumbs and set aside. Butter an 8" square baking dish. Cook the pasta until al dente.

Make your cheese sauce: heat butter and oil over medium-high heat until they begin to foam. Add the flour, mustard, and cayenne (if using) and combine with whisk. Go on whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and turns a toasty color, about one minute. Now add the milk in a slowish stream, whisking all the time. Bring the sauce to a boil, still whisking continually.

Now you can reduce the heat to a simmer, and add the minced garlic. Whisk occasionally and cook for about five minutes more, until the sauce is about the consistency of heavy cream. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese and salt until cheese is melted. Add the pasta and tomatoes and turn the heat back on. Cook the whole mixture over medium-low heat for about five or six minutes, stirring constantly, until everything is heated through and steaming hot.

Transfer the pasta mixture to your baking dish and spread cracker crumbs over top. (Note: at this stage, you can cover the top with foil and refrigerate for up to three days before baking.) Bake. If you are doing this straight from the stove, cook uncovered just until the cracker crumbs turn toasty, and the cheese starts to bubble up, about ten minutes. If you want to bake from the fridge, first bake covered to heat through, about half an hour, and then remove the foil to brown. Again, remove from oven when bubbly and golden brown.

Cool for five minutes before serving.

Penne alla Zucca

TOPPING
As above

SQUASH
1 small squash (about 1 lb), or 1 1/2 cups leftover baked squash

PASTA AND CHEESE
1/2 lb pasta, as above (but if you want it to be penne alla zucca, well...)
Salt for the pasta water

1/2 t salt
2 T unsalted butter
1 T olive oil
3 T flour
2 cloves garlic, minced very fine
fat pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 t fennel pollen, if available
2 c. whole milk
8-10 oz. gruyere, emmenthaler, or Swiss cheese, grated

Prepare the cracker crumbs and set aside. Butter an 8" square baking dish.

Preheat oven to 425.

If you don't happen to have any leftover baked squash, cut a small winter squash in half, scoop out the seeds and bake, cut side down, on an oiled baking sheet, until soft. Remove from the oven. When cool enough to handle, scoop out the flesh and discard the skin. Break the flesh into small bite-sized pieces with the back of your spoon and set aside.

While the squash is baking and cooling, cook the pasta in salted water until al dente, and make your cheese sauce: heat butter and oil over medium-high heat until they begin to foam. Add the flour and cayenne (if using) and combine with whisk. Go on whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and turns a toasty color, about one minute. Now add the milk in a slowish stream, whisking all the time. Bring the sauce to a boil, still whisking continually.

Now you can reduce the heat to a simmer, and add the minced garlic. Whisk occasionally and cook for about five minutes more, until the sauce is about the consistency of heavy cream. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese and salt until cheese is melted. Add the pasta and fennel pollen (if using) and turn the heat back on. Cook the whole mixture over medium-low heat for about five or six minutes, stirring constantly, until everything is heated through and steaming hot. Remove from heat, and crumble the squash into the pasta mixture. Mix with a light hand, so that the squash is evenly distributed, but still a bit clumpy.

Transfer the pasta mixture to your baking dish and spread cracker crumbs over top. (Note: at this stage, you can cover the top with foil and refrigerate for up to three days before baking.) Bake. If you are doing this straight from the stove, cook uncovered just until the cracker crumbs turn toasty, and the cheese starts to bubble up, about ten minutes. If you want to bake from the fridge, first bake covered to heat through, about half an hour, and then remove the foil to brown. Again, remove from oven when bubbly and golden brown.

Cool for five minutes before serving.