Google Earth tells me that it’s 2,756 miles from my home in Seattle to the Versailles restaurant in Miami. It’s worth the trip.

In 1977, I was young enough that any restaurant was a special treat, even Pizza Hut or Burger King. That year, my parents and I drove to Miami for Christmas. We spent the morning at Vizcaya, an Italian Renaissance and Baroque estate on Biscayne Bay. Built in 1915 by James Deering of International Harvester, Vizcaya has over 70 rooms, filled with 16th- to 19th-century furniture and art, and 10 acres of lush gardens. In short, it’s a palace.

It would be hard to follow Vizcaya with our usual picnic or burger lunch. Instead, my parents took me to the Versailles, a restaurant with an elegant exterior, almost worthy of Vizcaya. Located on Calle Ocho, or 8th Street, there are elegant awnings with the restaurant’s name, a fancy railing on the top, and concrete cherubs above the doors. When you walk in the door, you’re first overwhelmed by the size and bustle — the place seats almost 400 — and the large chandeliers and unusual backlit mirrors.

Back when my parents first took me to the Versailles, it had only been open for about five years. Even then, it was the place to see and be seen, the place to make business deals and big plans. Thirty years later, the place always seems full, with Cuban immigrants and their children brushing elbows with cruise-ship tourists. My place is somewhere between the two. I’m not just a tourist, I have a small connection to this vibrant culture and cuisine. My father’s mother was married to a Cuban for about ten years. My Midwest-born mother, who visited Cuba before meeting my father, was an adventurous cook who served the family picadillo and arroz con pollo instead of meatloaf and spaghetti.

We were seated by an efficient hostess in a green pantsuit who handed us the multi-page menu. The prices are surprisingly affordable, with many entrees and specials under $10. There are too many choices.

Although some tourists opt to return to the Versailles every day of their Miami stay, we only had time for one midday meal there. I wanted to try the Ropa Vieja (”old rags,” or shredded beef), the roasted pork special, the shrimp and grouper. Instead, I ordered a Cuban sandwich, because the Versailles is also a bakery, and I knew I couldn’t reproduce either the bread or the filling at home.

After I handed back my menu, I looked around. That’s when I realized why the prices are so reasonable.

The tables are formica. The placemats are paper. And the chairs are stick-to-your-bare-legs vinyl. The exterior facade is just that, a facade. Inside, the decor is kind of like an embellished Denny’s.

Still, the Versailles serves good, plain Cuban food. Dad had the red bean soup, a medley of complex flavors, and Arroz con Pollo, a platter of chicken piled high with yellow rice. Barry had picadillo in a plantain pie crust. My side order of fried sweet plantains was a carmelized show-stopper, and since the plate was next to his elbow, Barry couldn’t restrain himself.

We did manage to leave room for dessert, with the help of a to-go box for about two-thirds of Dad’s gigantic meal. He ordered the Dulce de Leche, a carmelized pudding made from milk and sugar. I tried a tiny bite and nearly sent my pancreas into shock — this is something for only the most dedicated sweet tooth. Barry had the Versailles Custard, a creme brulee with a hidden bit of Tres Leches cake in the middle. I opted for a simple dish of ice cream — because where else but South Florida can you get mamey sapote ice cream?

The efficient army of waiters and waitresses moved rapidly, carrying large trays and tiny cups of thick Cuban coffee. I ordered mine “con leche,” or with milk. It reminded me of the joke, “I like a little coffee with my milk.” Instead of a large cup of coffee and a tiny pitcher of cream, the waiter brought me a large cup of warm milk and a tiny pitcher of coffee. It was the perfect ending to my meal.

I don’t know when I’ll travel the 2,756 miles again. I just know I’ll be back, because the food is good, the decor is amazing, and the people-watching can’t be beat.

We boarded the train from Coimbra, Portugal, to Lisbon, and we found people already sitting in our ticketed seats. As they reluctantly moved to their own places, one of them asked me, hopefully, “Are you sure you want these seats?” Then I realized we had ended up in one of those rows at the center of the car where you have to sit facing a total stranger, with nothing, not even a table, between you.

A few stops later, a young woman with a magazine got on and sat across from me. Luckily, she spoke English, so we settled into a pleasant chat as the sun set and the scenery rushing past the window was replaced by darkness. Was this our first trip to Portugal? What had we seen? What did we like best?

And most importantly, “How do you like the food?”

Barry and I looked at each other. “Welllllll…” we dissembled.

The truth was, we absolutely loved some of it. We are normally not coffee-drinkers, but several times a day, we would stop at a cafe for a galão, which is a small shot of espresso served in an 8-oz glass with a lot of steamed milk. Occasionally, I got brave and ordered a meia de leite, which is similar, but served in a coffee cup. It has a little more coffee than the galão.

We also loved the pastries, and every bakery had dozens of choices (this photo shows the one from Pasteis de Belem, a restaurant dating back to the early 19th century). It was so hard to choose, and then harder to order. First, I’d mangle the pronunciation of the coffee, and then I would point to my pastry. The person behind the counter would take out a white ceramic plate, put a paper liner on it, put my pastry on it, and hand it to me.

Then Barry would point out his pastry, and they would repeat the process. The problem is, he usually eats half again what I do. So he would be ready to point at a second pastry, but they would have turned around by then. It’s a cultural fact: In Portugal, it’s one person, one pastry. So there was Barry, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to get their attention to order another one, and that wouldn’t fit on the tiny plate, anyway. When he finally did communicate his wish, they’d be looking behind us, wondering where was the third person?

We also had discovered the wonderful cheese and cheap artisan breads available throughout Portugal. In Evora, we had bought sausage, olives, and oranges — all delicious items to have for a mid-day snack or lunch. Then we ran into another cultural “issue.”

In Portugal, people do not walk around with Doritos or 32-oz Big Gulps or Frappucinos. As a matter of fact, the only people we saw eating in public were the ones sitting at sidewalk cafes. We had just emerged from the market, triumphant, with our bread, cheese, garlicky sausage, olives, and oranges. But we had a problem, having already checked out of our hotel room. Where could we actually sit and eat this stuff?

Barry suggested furtive orange-peeling or sausage-slicing on a park bench in a city square, but I vetoed that. I finally dragged him, frustrated and starving, to the city park, where we discovered dozens of picnic tables, deserted in the middle of winter. Aha! Where there are picnic tables, it must be OK to have a picnic. It was a memorable one, sitting in the shadow of a medieval wall, watching flocks of migrating birds and one lone butterfly.

So we were able to tell the woman on the train that our breakfasts and lunches were delicious. And we raved about the wines we had tried, usually a 375 ml half bottle that cost a whopping $3.

She pressed us for more. Had we eaten bacalhão? What other dishes did we like?

We’d had excellent food for New Year’s eve … but it was at a French restaurant, Les gouts du vin. Our first dinner in Portugal was a home-cooked meal, prepared for us by Carlos, our friend in Lisbon. But Carlos called it “Italian fast food,” so that wasn’t Portuguese, either. It was a terrific alho e óleo, garlic and olive oil tossed with pasta. Carlos’ version included broccoli, one of my favorite foods, and grated cheese, one of Barry’s favorite foods.

Away from Carlos’ help with language and cultural interpretation, though, our meals were often more surprising than tasty. We would walk round and round, trying to figure which restaurant wasn’t a tourist trap. Once seated, I’d be juggling my glasses, the menu, and a tiny pocket dictionary while the waiter stood over us, impatient for our order.

Every meal began with bread, and then the entree was served with both rice and potatoes, and not a green vegetable in sight. It hardly seemed worth it to order a salad and face the iceberg lettuce and out-of-season tomatoes. In one place, I ordered a Brazilian (not Portuguese) feijoada, then gobbled the collard green garnish with more delight than either the meat, beans, or white rice.

The dishes that were tastiest were the ones drenched in cream sauce. There was migas, a sort of stuffing made from bread crumbs and cream sauce. And we loved the bacalhão, the dried salt cod, when it was prepared as an au gratin dish with potatoes, cream sauce, and cheese. At one restaurant, I asked for the recipe for that one. The cook not only wrote it down, she took me into the kitchen and showed me how it was made. Not bad, considering my lousy Portuguese.

In Coimbra, Nelson took us to a place called Ossos, which means “bones.” I had trouble reading the menu, because it was handwritten in a very old-fashioned script. Although we share the same Latin alphabet, I’ve often noticed that people from Europe write some of the letters and numbers differently.

Anyway, the three of us decided to have the signature dish, ossos, as an appetizer. Nelson was placing our order for the appetizer and three entrees with the proprietor when the man became rather agitated, letting loose a torrent of rapid Portuguese I couldn’t understand.

The waiter walked away, and Nelson turned to me and Barry, laughing. “He says two entrees is plenty of food, and he wouldn’t let me order the third dish!” Luckily, we were planning to eat family-style. The bones — actually pieces of vertebrae — had meltingly tender meat, and the chanfana (kid) and Portuguese feijoada were excellent. The waiter was right, it was plenty of food.

Perhaps the woman on the train was expecting us to say, “It was great! We loved every bite!” Instead, we really considered our answer, and it gave us a chance to think about the experience. The lack of fresh vegetables was seasonal — after all, it was winter. The servings of rice, bread, and potatoes seemed shocking, because we’ve been avoiding such processed carbohydrates lately. But people in Portugal seemed healthy and trim, so it must not be a problem for them.

The main problem was just the surprise factor, not being quite sure what we were ordering. As a result, our experiences were hit or miss — one night, Barry would have some lovely casserole, and I’d have a dry pork chop. The next night, he’d have a piece of fish full of bones, and I’d have a delicious stew.

Luckily, there was always dessert to set things straight. From a simple piece of fresh cheese slathered with homemade jam to a piece of honey corn cake drenched in port, the desserts were stellar. Our dinners in Portugal may have been hit or miss, but the desserts never, ever missed.

I laughed so hard last night, I got a cramp in my jaw. Just thinking about it makes me chortle.

It was brought about by green Jello.

I grew up with a lot of Jello. My Mom made it often, dissolving the packet of raspberry or strawberry Jello in boiling water, then stirring in fruit cocktail and cold water. And then she put it in the refrigerator and waited for it to jell.

Watching her put the bowl of bright red liquid in the fridge, I developed a deep-seated fear. What if, this time, the Jello didn’t jell?

None of my fears came to pass. Mom’s Jello always jelled. I’d open the refrigerator door, and there would be a happy little bowl of the stuff, jiggling as if to say, “Welcome to the fridge!”

Potluck nightmares

When I was in high school, Mom fixed a Jello fruit salad for me to take to a school potluck. It was a hot, humid spring day in Ohio, and over the course of the evening, my offering melted into a puddle of fruit cocktail and red liquid. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to abandon it! I knew I had to take the bowl home, so I slunk over to the potluck table with my head down. I was afraid people would point at me and say, “Oh, that one was yours?”

The joke that backfired

A couple of years later, I was a college student living on the cheap. Free food was always welcome, so when someone gave me a box of lime Jello, I made it and put it in the fridge.

My two best friends were coming over for the afternoon, and when Robert arrived, we came up with a practical joke to play on Dave. I was to give him a welcoming hug and in the process, slip a Jello cube down the back of his shirt.

Somehow, Robert and I thought this would be funny.

But Dave did not think it was funny, and his reaction was like a bucket of cold water. His puzzlement turned to dismay and then to a very gentle anger. After removing the offending blob of green Jello, he put his coat back on and left, shaking his head at the immaturity of his so-called friends.

I learned my lesson. I would never do something that dumb again.

Scaring my spouse

The story above explains why I was laughing so hard last night. Last night, I made a batch of plain green Jello for the first time since that incident in 1982.

Barry was in the other room when I made it, but when I took it out of the fridge, he came into the kitchen to see what I was up to. Often, when I’m rustling around in the kitchen, it means something yummy for him, so he has a kind of Pavlovian response.

The Jello came out of the fridge, in its green, jiggly glory, looking for all the world like congealed Kool-Aid. Barry looked a bit disappointed.

But I had a completely different reaction. First of all, I was delighted to see that it had jelled, alleviating my deep-rooted childhood fear. Second, since I hadn’t eaten Jello in so long, I was actually looking forward to tasting it. Without thinking, I reached in the pan and picked up a piece with my fingers.

What a wonderful feeling! Sort of squishy and solid at the same time.

But I had committed a major tactical error, because Barry was still standing next to me. Had I used a spoon, he wouldn’t have freaked out. But he had heard the story of Dave and the green Jello, and here I was, picking up a cube of the stuff with my fingers.

Barry panicked. First, he backed across the room. Then he buttoned his shirt all the way up to his chin, and just for good measure, zipped his fleece up all the way, too. He stood across the kitchen, keeping the table between us and looking like a deer in the crosshairs.

That’s when I started laughing so hard I got a jaw cramp. The truth is, I had no intention of putting it down his shirt. I simply wanted to snarf a piece of Jello with my fingers!

There’s something really hilarious about standing in the kitchen, holding a jiggling blob of green Jello in your hand, and watching your spouse run away in terror. At that point, he started laughing, too. But you know what? He laughed a lot harder after I ate my blob of Jello and put the pan safely back in the fridge!

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Although I haven’t made plain Jello in many years, here are a few Foodie Gazette recipes that feature Jello as an ingredient:
Savory Tomato Ring
Snowball

These next three are Midwest favorites, but how can they call them salads?
Pineapple Cream Salad
Mandarin Orange Salad
And my favorite recipe with Jello, Fluffy Salad

We may think of Jello as 1950’s (or 70’s) retro, but it actually goes back much further than that. These boxes, in a Newfoundland museum, date back to the early 1900’s. As a result of intensive advertising (I’ve seen one of the ads in an old Harper’s magazine), Jell-O sales in 1906 reached $1 million.

This piece was written in honor of the launch of the brand new Foodie Gazette. For the first time, my recipes are flying solo, rather than being an adjunct of mepsnbarry.com. That brought to mind the first time I ever flew solo in the kitchen. It was traumatic, to say the least.

I’m hoping that the transfer of these recipes from mepsnbarry.com to foodiegazette.com will not be traumatic. But if you find anything amiss, please let me know!

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What’s the most challenging cooking you’ve ever done? Was it a romantic Valentine’s dinner for someone you had a crush on? The first Christmas dinner you made for your in-laws? A catered brunch for 50 people?

When I was 19, I was a kitchen helper at Sherwood Forest, a summer camp on the Long Beach peninsula in Washington. Between camp sessions, the cook and his assistant, who were saffron-garbed Rajneeshees, went to the Ranch to see the Baghwan and get some free love. I don’t know what held them up (maybe it was the free love), but when it was time to cook dinner, the cooks had not returned.

It was time for trial by fire.

As a kitchen helper, I knew how to chop and stir and wash dishes. I did not know how to cook. But I somehow managed, on the first day of the session, to make enough meatloaf and potatoes to feed 50 cranky children and their (cranky) counselors. In over 20 years since then, I’ve never cooked for a tougher crowd. Whew.

At the time, I was one of those obnoxious teenaged vegetarians, the kind that whines at anyone who eats meat and says “Ewww, gross,” a lot. (I’ve gotten over that now.) So meatloaf in particular was kind of a stretch.

How did I do it? I just followed a basic meatloaf recipe.

Since then, I’ve become a reasonably accomplished cook. As I discovered on that fateful day, anything is possible if you have a recipe.

So, way back then, I started saving recipes. I clipped and sorted and filed them. When I got a computer, I started typing them in. After many years, I published the first 300 on the web, just because I needed a convenient place to store them. Now, there are almost 700.

Then I discovered that I am not alone! Because they’re on the web, other people use my recipes, too. I love knowing what people are searching for: “Robert Redford better than sex cake” or “mashed cauliflower” or “cake mix brownies.”

I love to cook, and I love to take photographs, and I love to write. Here, on the Foodie Gazette, I get to combine my passions (speaking of which, do try the passion fruit mousse sometime).

And if you ever need to make enough meatloaf for 50 cranky, homesick children, please, don’t look here. Until today, I had successfully repressed the memory. So I don’t have that recipe.

Every time I look out my window today, I see a solid gray sky, drippy trees, and sheets of cold, wet rain. It’s time for a tropical vacation. Or a hot toddy. Luckily, I know of a beverage that satisfies both needs at once. It’s called quentão, and it’s the hot toddy served at the Brazilian harvest festival of São João (Saint John in Portuguese). I discovered it many years ago when Bahia Street put on a São João festival and fundraiser on Vashon Island. I had a terrible cough and head cold, which just about vanished when I met one of these.

Place 3 tablespoons of sugar in a heavy saucepan, and heat it over medium-high to carmelize. When the sugar is browned and liquid, very carefully and slowly add 1/2 C water. Stir in a thinly sliced lime, a teaspoon of whole cloves, a 2-inch piece of cinnamon stick, and a small chunk of ginger. Simmer this concoction for a few minutes, then remove it from the heat.

If you’re the designated driver, stop here, stir in a cup of water or juice, and enjoy. Your friends are lucky to have a responsible, sober driver like you.

If you are not the designated driver, stir in a cup of cachaça and create a killer Brazilian toddy that really warms up your insides and makes you want to dance non-stop.

Cachaça is Brazil’s ubiquitous cheap distilled liquor, used for all manner of mixed drinks down there. It’s made from sugar cane juice, as opposed to rum, which is made from molasses. Up in the U.S., cachaça is rare and expensive, so we substitute vodka, light rum, or even a mixture of half light rum and half tequila. Cachaça is also used to make the other quintessential Brazilian cocktail, the caipirinha.

To satisfy the need to dance brought on by quentão, look around for some rockin’ forró music from northeastern Brazil. Forró was originally played by country bands, and it only required three instruments: An accordion, a triangle, and a zabumba, the big base drum. It’s a high-energy style of music with a danceable, thumping beat. David Byrne calls it “party music.” My favorite artist is Luiz Gonzaga; many of his CDs are still available, even though he’s been dead for years.

Between the quentão and the music, you might have a party on your hands! It’s just the thing to transport you away from a rainy, gray day and down to someplace sunny and tropical.

Shopping for international grocery items is sometimes like a scavenger hunt. Last week, I triumphed with two 14-oz bottles of rosewater for $2.59 each at a Persian market in Bellevue, Washington. It had been a 2-1/2 year search, and until now, I’d been unable to find anything bigger than 6 ounces at about $5.

Today, I took a bus to downtown Seattle for spent the entire day today shopping. Not at Macy’s or one of those chi-chi clothing shops in Westlake Center. I was continuing my scavenger hunt for pantry items that are absent or dear at my local grocery stores.

The challenge with this type of shopping is that there are two excellent places to get food ingredients in downtown Seattle. But unlike the QFC and Albertson’s near my home, neither one offers cheap and convenient parking.

So I armed myself with a large backpack and a canvas tote bag and took the bus.

My first stop was the Pike Place Market, well-known to tourists as “the place where they throw the fish.” Many retailers in the market target the tourists, selling them dried fruit, nuts, or jam — items that are easy to tuck into a suitcase. They’re priced like souvenirs, not like food, so I avoid them.

Instead, I head to The Souk, a middle eastern grocery with a wide array of spices, curries, and Indian foods. I picked up items you can only find in a tiny, custom grocery, like a can of stuffed grape leaves (a perfect appetizer for emergencies) and some pappadums. Earlier this year, I’d hunted through six grocery stores for pappadums and, in desperation, ended up buying them from a Pakistani restaurant. Now I’m stocked up again.

At The Souk, I also got a bag of Chickpree, roasted spicy chickpeas. Back in the early 1990’s, in Arlington, Virginia, I lived two blocks from an Indian grocery called “Indian Spices and Appliances.” The name sounded like a bad translation, but when I went inside, I fell in love with the exotic and inexpensive grocery items. I’ve been hooked on Chickpree ever since.

Other things, like pumpkin seeds and turmeric, were simply cheaper at The Souk than anyplace else. At the prices regular grocery stores charge for spices, it’s amazing that people can afford to use more than a tiny pinch.

About a block down, I made my second stop at El Mercado Latino, one of several Latin stores in the Pike Place Market. I was specifically looking for Bijol, a simple Cuban spice blend of cornflour, cumin, annato, and food coloring. It brings back childhood memories of my mother’s famous Arroz Con Pollo, and my jar is getting low. The same crisis had happened to my mother in the 1970’s, when we left the New York metropolitan area for the hinterlands of West Virginia. In those days, decades before the internet, it was a crisis when the family Bijol jar got down to the last teaspoon. Luckily, my father did find a mail-order source.

At the Mercado, I also bought Cafe Bustelo, vaccuum-packed Cuban coffee. It makes a great cup of coffee, although I have to cut it with cheap grocery store decaf in order to avoid hitting the ceiling. During a recent trip to South Florida, I was amazed to see entire aisles of this stuff in the regular grocery store — guava paste, Mexican and Cuban fruit juices, convenience foods from Goya. Down there, it costs half as much, but I don’t mind paying extra. I’m just happy to find the stuff way up here in Seattle.

A few blocks up the street, I picked up a free bus down to the south end of town. My next stops are in the International District, known to Seattle residents as “The I.D.” It’s the place to go for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese restaurants and grocery stores, and the prices are the cheapest in town.

I stopped in at Chinatown Market, on Jackson Street, for black and white sesame seeds, cheap cans of coconut milk, and tiny dried shrimp. By now, the backpack was starting to get awfully heavy, and I almost skipped the uphill walk to Rising Produce, located on the east side of the freeway on King Street.

But I wasn’t done yet, and Rising Produce has the cheapest vegetables in town. You have to pick over their produce carefully, but it’s worth the effort to save 50 to 75% over regular grocery stores. I also worked my way carefully to the back of the store (my backpack and canvas bag were bulging by now, and maneuvering was getting difficult), and bought five pounds of raw, shelled peanuts for a mere $1.25 a pound.

After using up my carrying capacity, I caught a bus back home. Now it’s time to figure out what to do with all this stuff, some kind of Cuban-Indian-Chinese fusion? Thank goodness for the Web, so I can search for recipes for all this stuff. In the meantime, I think I’ll just eat some pizza.

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the South Beach diet when I first heard of it. I’m not much for diet fads. And the name sounds like something written for a bunch of wealthy society ladies.

This spring, as we’ve been getting to know Bob Knosp, I discovered that South Beach is not just a fad. I never asked Bob how old he is. I just know that he’s got a grandchild, and he doesn’t look old enough for that. He credits South Beach for a lot of his health and vitality.

About a month ago, we went on a weekend sailing trip with Bob. I did the shopping, picking up things that would work with his dietary restrictions. Barry and I decided that we’d been hitting the sauce a bit too much lately, so we warned Bob that we were not going to bring any wine or alcohol. He said that was fine; Bob’s a very light drinker, and the diet doesn’t allow much besides a little wine, anyway.

Raftups with the Puget Sound Cruising Club are usually pretty wild floating parties. There’s often a potluck, with too many people crowding onto one boat, lots of decadent cheese- and sugar-laden dishes, and too much wine, beer, or tequila. I figured our plans to eat healthy and eschew alcohol might cause some eye-rolling among our friends.

Mike and Nita, on Odessa, tied alongside us. Nita is a fabulous cook who’s recently discovered that she’s allergic to wheat. I’d kept Nita’s allergy in mind as I planned my potluck dish, but I was totally surprised by her latest announcement.

“We just went on the South Beach diet,” she said. “We’re not allowed to drink this weekend.”

“Woo hoo!” Instead of a negative reaction, I was delighted. “Great! We’re not drinking, either!”

We ended up having two potlucks, with the five of us plus Rob and Anita from Decatur. They seemed taken aback by the South Beach dieters, but admitted that they were actually following a very low fat diet, required by Rob’s doctor after some heart trouble.

It was a wonderful weekend, with good company, great conversation, and excellent food. Who would think that giving up sugar, alcohol, and processed carbohydrates could make a party so much fun? If South Beach is the latest diet fad, please, Dr. Agatson, sign me up.

Note: The South Beach diet has recently gotten very commercial, with a subscription website and lots of commercial products in the grocery story. However, if you’re interested in learning about it, your best bet is to pick up a copy of the book at the library and read the first half. It’s only about 100 pages, and it can do wonders for your health, especially if you have a family history of diabetes or heart disease.

Summer is almost here, and soon we’ll be inundated by ripe peaches, boysenberries, blueberries, and blackberries. I love going to the farmer’s market and falling in love with a huge watermelon, a flat of apricots, or a cantaloupe. I can’t pass up a kiwi, and I love it when friends load me up with too many pears. All are perfect smoothie-fodder.

If you’ve never had a smoothie, it’s simply a fruit-based beverage prepared in a blender. They range from high-fiber and healthy to completely decadent, high-fat, and sugary.

I usually make smoothies for breakfast, since it’s a good way to get fruit, fiber, protein, and vitamins all in one easy package. When I worked in downtown Seattle, I’d go out with coworkers and order a smoothie for an afternoon pick-me-up. In the evening, a smoothie can substitute for a light dinner or be served as dessert, with or without alcohol.

Although there are thousands of published smoothie recipes and entire smoothie cookbooks, I’ve never followed a recipe to make one. Creating a smoothie is an art, not a science. I just look at the ingredient lists for ideas, and then I toss in a little of this and a little of that, blend it, and taste the result. It’s kind of like making soup.

Here are the four components of a delicious fruit smoothie.

Fruit

The old standby is the yellow Cavendish banana, which you can use at any stage of ripeness (a good way to use up over-ripe bananas). Strawberries are also common, as are other berries, such as blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. Peaches, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon are all good, and speaking of melons, smoothies are a great way to use up excess (and there’s always excess!) watermelon. Tropical fruits are divine; consider mango, papaya, pineapple, guava, or passion fruit.

While you’re cleaning and cutting up the fruit, consider putting some in a bag in the freezer. When you’re in a hurry, you can toss a handful of the frozen pieces directly in the blender without thawing it.

In the winter, when you run out of frozen fruit, try making a smoothie with applesauce or even canned fruit.

Liquid

You’ll need some sort of liquid to turn your fruit into a beverage. Yogurt is my preference, but I’ve also tried milk, cream, soymilk, and water. You can also use tea (lemongrass tea, spiced chai, or peppermint tea add a lot of flavor) and coffee.

I keep fruit juice on hand just for smoothies — try mango nectar, orange juice, or pineapple juice. Pomegranate and grape juice are loaded with antioxidants and great for your health. If you’re trying to pack in extra calories, use coconut milk or chocolate milk.

I often add a splash of lime or lemon juice, but only if there’s no milk. A curdled smoothie is an ugly thing.

Flavorings

I have a habit of gilding the lily, throwing in ingredients that give my smoothies a little extra zing. My favorite are ginger and lime zest prepared on the Micro-Plane grater.

Sometimes I throw in cinnamon, another powerful antioxidant, or a tiny pinch of cayenne. You can also add chocolate syrup or powder, coffee, honey, sugar, maple syrup, and any flavor of sugar syrup, the kind used to flavor lattés. If you have an herb garden, try mint, rosemary, or lemon thyme.

One class of flavorings can elevate your smoothie to a whole new plane: Extracts. The old standby is vanilla, featured in the Orange Julius: Orange juice, sugar, ice cubes, and vanilla. Other extracts can also add a huge amount of flavor without changing the texture. Try a few drops of lemon, coconut, or orange.

Additions

To turn your fruit smoothie into a meal-on-the-go, add some protein. We’ve used protein powder, cottage cheese, sour cream, tofu, and cream cheese. Toasted, ground nuts or natural peanut butter are also delicious. Boost your energy level by adding nutritional yeast, chock-full of B vitamins, flax seeds, or powdered vitamins.

If your fruit is not frozen, you can toss in a few ice cubes to give the smoothie a nice thick texture. You can even add sherbet or ice cream, although that sounds suspiciously like a milkshake instead of a smoothie.

Assembling Your Smoothie

It doesn’t get much easier than this: Clean the fruit and cut into chunks. Pour the liquid into the blender, add the fruit, flavorings, and additions, and blend. Stop and taste it, and adjust the flavorings. I often find I need to add more zing in the form of lemon juice, ginger, or a teaspoon of sugar.

If the result is too thick, add more liquid, 1/4 cup at a time. If it’s too thin, add crushed ice or more fruit and blend it some more.

You can even make a smoothie without a blender at all! Choose soft fruit, like very ripe bananas and berries, and put it in a large, deep pot or bowl. Pour in plenty of liquid, roll up your sleeves, and mash the heck out of it with a potato masher. I ran across this solution at the Oregon Country Fair, where an outfit called LuLu’s Smoothies was producing hundreds of gallons of smoothies without electricity. Their secret? Young, healthy employees with strong arm muscles!

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• If you need a little more direction on what to put in the blender, see my list of Smoothie Ideas.
• A lassi is a kind of smoothie from India. I wrote about yogurt and lassis back in January. Try a Creamsicle Lassi or a Pink Lassi.
• In Brazil, you can buy a suco on many street corners. It’s their version of a smoothie, made from one of the over 75 varieties of fruits that grow in Brazil.
• If all this is too healthy for you, skip the fruit and just make a milkshake (includes recipes for vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and cookie).
• For a series of life’s lessons learned through my blender, see My Blender, My Teacher, on Adventures with Meps and Barry.

We recently had a small gathering to watch the Wallace and Gromit short films and eat cheese. Wallace is the animated character known for his love of Wensleydale and gorgonzola. “Cheese, Gromit!” he says to his dog, “We’ll go somewhere, where there’s cheese!” They build a spaceship and fly to the moon for a picnic.

The menu for our gathering was completely cheese-based. We had stilton, camembert, minted cream cheese, and something that smelled like dirty socks. There was a green salad with feta and a pan of baked macaroni and cheese. And for dessert, no-bake strawberry cheesecake tart.

As far as I’m concerned, there are two categories of cheese: The Good Stuff, and rat cheese. Not that I don’t love rat cheese! It’s a name we picked up from our friend Norm, who said that where he grew up in Texas, plain old yellow cheese was actually labeled that way.

Rat cheese can be colby, cheddar, or co-jack. We even call Monterey Jack or Mozzarella rat cheese. It’s the cheese you buy at the grocery store in large packages and use as an ingredient in macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches (also known as cheese dreams), and cheese-and-peas salad.

When I had my own refrigerator and freezer, I’d buy rat cheese in 3-pound blocks. A pound or so would get whacked off, carefully wrapped, and kept in the fridge. The challenge was stretching plastic wrap around the cheese so that no air could get in and allow mold.

The remaining pounds were grated, spread on cookie sheets, and placed in the freezer for a couple of hours. When it was frozen, we’d break it up (easy to do if you spread it out before freezing) and transfer it to large zip-lock bags. When a recipe called for a bit of cheese, we could grab a handful out of the freezer.

But living on a boat, or living without refrigeration, my cheese habits changed. Now I couldn’t keep pounds of cheese from molding, I had to buy little 8-oz packages. The price per pound difference gave me sticker shock.

As long as I was going to spend that much money on cheese and get only a small amount, why buy rat cheese? Why not buy The Good Stuff?

The Good Stuff is the kind of cheese that’s sold in wheels, not rectangles. One advantage to such cheese is that it can be rolled, as they do every year in a contest in Gloucestershire, England. Those who leave the event with broken bones and spinal injuries, however, may not consider that such an advantage. Especially since first prize is only a wheel of cheese that’s been bounced down a steep hill with hundreds of people rolling after it.

Rather than chase my gourmet cheese, I buy it, in small amounts. No longer do I buy 48 ounces of rat cheese, now I buy 4 ounces of gorgonzola. A small wedge of camembert can satiate my cheese needs for the week. I pick up small quantities of tangy feta, sweet gjetost, and creamy brie. My trusty Micro-Plane grater turns asiago into fluffy, artful shavings, and 2 ounces can last over a month.

Turning from the computer and looking into the fridge, I note that the smelly sweat sock cheese is gone, as is the goat cheese we used to stuff chicken breasts. There’s a bit of camembert left, a small bag of grated rat cheese, and a new chunk of parmesan.

What shall we do if we run out?

No problem: We’re just down the street from the Fremont Rocket. We’ll fly to the moon for some more!

In all the years I knew my good friend, Barbara deLackner, we never celebrated Easter together. We were always thousands of miles apart at Easter-time. But I knew what she was eating for breakfast.

Barbie had developed an Easter morning tradition, a special dish that her family loved and anticipated. It was called Goldenrod Eggs, and guess what? It used up a bunch of colorful hard-boiled eggs!

With a flock of chickens in the yard, you’d think that’s where the eggs would come from. But Barbie never hard-boiled her own eggs, because they were too fresh. They couldn’t be peeled; they’d have to sit in the fridge for six weeks before boiling them. Doesn’t that make you wonder how old your grocery store eggs are? And where they’ve been sitting?

So, despite a surfeit of fresh eggs, Barbie had to buy a few dozen at Easter-time, in order to make Goldenrod Eggs.

One day, when it wasn’t Easter, Barbie decided to get some store-bought eggs and make Goldenrod Eggs. Lucky me! I was the recipient of that beautiful, tasty breakfast.

Nowadays, I like to make them for Barry once in a while, even when it’s not Easter. Because everybody deserves something beautiful on their plate, first thing in the morning.