Eric Ripert's Clams with Spicy Sausage from The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lover's Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World

When it comes to the environment, trying to do the right thing can be exhausting. And confusing. So much so, in fact, that I sometimes find myself experiencing what I call "sustainability burnout."

Is this tomato local? Does it matter? (Not always, as it turns out.) Does this beef come from a grass fed cow? Is it okay if it's a cow from California or New York State? Is that organic? Can I recycle this? Are there hormones in that milk? It's enough to make me just give up and subsist on a diet of popcorn. Oh wait ... what if it's genetically modified?

Spiked Strawberry Rhubarb Lemonade

Ah, summer picnics. Humidity, sunburn, flies, mosquitos, ants, warm beer, screaming children, and the threat of listeria in every mayonnaise-soaked bite. When it's a million degrees outside, I would really prefer to eat inside. There's only one way to get through these sweaty ordeals of Americana: drink.

And so this is why, when the theme of this month's Creative Cooking Crew challenge - hosted as ever by the lovely Joan of Foodalogue and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks - turned out to be picnic foods, I knew that my "food" was going to be of the potent liquid variety.

A Surplus of Tapas: Small Bites Across Madrid for (Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

First stop: Mercado de San Miguel. A bit touristy, but worth it. 

Inside the mercado ... so many choices

First tapas in Madrid: cheese, cheese, and more cheese (Not pictured: wine, wine, and more wine)

Given that my last blog post was written entirely in sonnet form, I thought it might be a good idea to give the verbal portion of my brain a bit of a rest and attempt a Wordless Wednesday post summing up the mountains of tapas that Poppa Trix and I consumed in Madrid in just six days.

I say attempt a Wordless Wednesday post because look!  I have already failed at keeping my virtual trap shut ... but I will reign in my wordiness as much as is constitutionally possible. Captions don't count, right?

Salmorejo: A Spanish Soup Recipe in Sonnets

If you have not experienced the intense pleasure of perusing Trevor's haiku posts over at Sis Boom Blog I suggest you do so immediately.  They are quite brilliant, and he really outdid himself for National Haiku Day: He even rendered his entire recipe in haiku form.

To add to the fun, he encourages his readers to leave haiku comments. I am usually glad to oblige, but for Haiku Day I decided to do something a bit different and I left my comment as a sonnet. (Per Sherlock: "Of course I'm showing off. I am a show off. That's what we do.")

And so I thought - why keep my sonnets confined to Trevor's comment section, worthy outlet though  it is?  After all, coming up with some clever prose about every dish I make can feel  a bit ... forced sometimes.

And well, there's nothing contrived or forced about a sonnet recipe is there? I thank you in advance for your indulgence.

Mother's Day Macaron Giveaway from Sucre {Ah, Alliteration}

Like a lot of food bloggers these days, I regularly get requests from publicists asking me to share their respective products with my readers.

"Please review this flavorless processed snack food!"

"I think your readers would love to hear about the latest innovation in microwave dinner technology!"

"Here are some uninspired recipes featuring [insert food product here]. Please share with your readers!"

"We are offering one lucky reader a chance to win this coupon for gum, valued at 25 cents!"

Do a cursory search through the Tasty Trix archives and you'll notice that I invariably ignore these requests. They tend to display a staggering lack of understanding of what I write about, what I cook, and who I am.

But exceptions prove the rule. Case in point: The email I got from Sucre in New Orleans, offering to send  one of my U.S. readers  their signature 15-piece macaron collection in time for Mother's Day.

Well. This was more like it.

Bravas Sauce & Leek Tortilla Pinchos, An Altogether Different Sort of BLT

This month's Creative Culinary Crew challenge, hosted as ever by the lovely and talented Joan of Foodalogue and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks, was deceptively simple: Come up with a new version of the classic BLT sandwich. The catch? Participants were forbidden to use bacon, lettuce, or tomato to fulfill the BLT requirement.

Right, then. That's as easy as plugging in any old foodstuff that begins with a B, an L, and a T, yes? Ah, but there's the rub: such a random approach would not only (in my opinion) lead to an uninspired kitchen-sink mess of a sandwich (barnacles, liver, & turmeric, anyone?) it would result in a dish completely lacking in context.

Lisbonese Food Porn: Tiger Prawns, Barnacles, and Sundry Wiggly Things

Rooftops in Lisbon, Portugal

The iconic Lisbon funicular

As I write this, I am sick in bed on a beautiful spring day. I had planned all manner of witty bon mots and profound thoughts about the beauty of Lisbon to share with you in this post  - how I am attracted to spaces that are grand yet crumbling, redolent of faded glory and elegant decay, somewhat melancholy, or (like Iceland) severe and other-worldly.

But I am too tired and instead I will let the photos above speak for themselves, and settle for sharing some food porn with you for a much-needed distraction at the end of a truly awful week in world news.

Portugese Aletejana: A Bold Dish of Pork & Clams

As melodious food pairing names go, "pork and clams" just doesn't have the same ring as, say, "champagne and caviar," "wine and cheese," or even "peanut butter and jelly." But don't be put off.  The poetry on the plate that results when these two ingredients come together in one dish more than makes up for its slightly clunky name.

Cashew Butter & Bacon Soup {Inspired by Goober Peas & African Groundnut Stews}

This month's Creative Cooking Crew Challenge - hosted as ever by the lovely and talented Joan of Foodalogue and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks - centers around four key ingredients: green apples, bacon, nut butter, and vinegar.  Participants have been tasked with creating any dish they like, using as many or as few ingredients as they please, as long as it  incorporates some version of these four components.

For good or ill, I will cheerfully turn just about anything into soup, and this challenge has done nothing to discourage this propensity of mine. Here I took inspiration from a Southern American dish, goober pea soup, a peanut-based soup eaten by the Confederate Army during the Civil War.  The ancestor of this dish is of course West African groundnut, or peanut stew. Goober is an African word for peanut, an example of the indelible imprint that African ingredients and foods, via the slave trade, made on the cuisine of the American South.

Steak, Pepper & Goat Cheese Crustless Quiche {Brunch, a Plea}

I made a surprising discovery recently while doing some research for my monthly Style recipe column. The concept of brunch, which I had long supposed to be a uniquely American invention, was in fact first mentioned in print 1895 by British author Guy Beringer in the rather melodramatically-titled article "Brunch, A Plea."

He opined, "Instead of England's early Sunday dinner, a post-church ordeal of heavy meats and savory pies, why not a new meal, served around noon, that starts with tea or coffee, marmalade and other breakfast fixtures before moving along to the heavier fare? By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday-night carousers."

A man after my own heart, this Guy. Naturally, I heartily approve of supplanting the dreary moralizing activity of churchgoing with the life-affirming pursuit of eating, especially when it's undertaken at a civilized hour, like noon. And then there's his wholehearted approval of Saturday night carousing: no puritanical guilt or whiff of self-flagellation for an evening of indulgence here. A laudably healthy attitude.