Peel and chop an onion. Coat the bottom of your large stew pot with olive oil and turn your stove to high. Drop in the onion, let it go for a little bit and add 2 cloves of chopped garlic or one heaping spoonful of the minced jar.

Drop in 1-1.5 lbs of stew beef and brown them.

Once the meat has browned, add two cans of crushed tomatoes with basil. Add whatever spices strike your fancy that day. I usually add a bay leaf, some oregano, and some rosemary.

Add veggies. I tend to go with carrots, parsnips, and turnips. Potatoes work. Radishes work if you want to be fancy, plus they’re really pretty.

Let cook until everything is acquainted and the vegetable that was hardest going in is fork tender.

Variations

Add bell peppers in with the onions and garlic.

Mushrooms of all kinds sauteed with the onions. To make the beef taste extra beefy sweat the onions, garlic and mushrooms until the mushrooms have given up all their liquid and then turn up the heat and cook the beef in that.

Add in a pound or two of spinach chopped or a chopped head of cabbage.

Switch out the beef and do chicken thighs with bell peppers instead for chicken cacciatore. Serve with spaghetti.

Switch out the beef for veal or lamb to dress it up a bit and stretch a more expensive meat.

Skip the meat entirely in favor of squash, eggplant, or some other large veggie chopped in chunks with beans. This is my secret weapon for having a mixed group of vegetarians, vegans and omnivores over and happy. The omnivores will not notice the lack of meat as long as there’s one vegetable cut into large chunks. The chunks replace meat texturally

We had an inadvertent inappropriate remark at the bookstore today, when this jetlagged lady wanted to ask my colleague if we had Sarah Dunant’s book, The Birth of Venus. She said, “Do you have that…Blood of penis?”

Boil about 8 chicken thighs (bone in, skin on) until they are done

Take out the chicken thighs and let cool. In the chicken water, add a couple of cans of diced Italian seasoned tomatoes, a small can of chopped jalapenos, a small can of fire roasted chopped green chilis, two drained cans of hominy, and a teaspoon of Thai chili paste – bring to a boil

Shred the chicken, and add it to the pot. Let simmer until you can’t stand it any longer and dive in! I serve it with cheese on top, sometimes shredded lettuce as well if I remember.

I used to live across the street from a seedy grocery store in Kansas City called Apple Market. I had to go in and get like one ingredient that I had forgotten – and I was searching for it when a guy slapped me on the butt, then as he was groping my posterier, asked me if that was for sale too!

Once long ago, I dated a chef. Sunday mornings he’d take the leftover rice, add it to sauteed garlic and fry. He’d do eggs to your liking (two, over medium), then serve them over the rice with a good helping of pickled jalapenos and the sauce from their jar. He said it was Phillippine eggs, or something. Heaven.

Comfort food to me now is almost anything my kids won’t eat.

and having worked at a natural food store for three years, the inappropriate moments are endless … one favorite – the time I caught a guy stealing by stuffing an ENTIRE RAW CHICKEN down the front of his pants.

I really hope you kicked that loser in his sacral chakra.

A “gentleman” in the grocery store did offer to host a barbecue at which we could grill hot dogs. I do not know if he meant a double-entendre by it, but I declined. (If it had been steak, or maybe swordfish, well…)

Add some form of soup and I’m good to go.

Jelly, your comment about the grocery store is making me think of Animal House: “Are you sure you want to show me your cucumber?”

As for impropriety while shopping for food? There was an incident years ago that I don’t quite remember involving a friend, but more recently that I can remember involved shopping with a friend and lewd comments about cucumbers.