Amuse Bouche

Just a few morsels:

• What color is your hotpad?  An article in the NYTimes talks about nutritional gatekeepers, or the people who are most responsible in a family for the food it eats.  Apparently, there are five kinds:  giving, methodical, competitive, healthy, and innovative.  There's a test you can take to identify your type.  I came up a true Heinz 57, a combo of allmost all the types (except competitive) with none dominant.  Maybe that's because I'm just starting to find my footing as a homecook.  I would've said I was a "giving" cook, the kind that "are enthusiastic about cooking and specialize in comfort food, particularly home-baked goodies."  But I also try new recipes and ingredients, try to make healthy alternatives, and am a slave to a recipe.  
• Today, Bud came home with a recipe for cake from one of his teachers.  Apparently, they've been reading A Cake All for Me, which presents a recipe for cake in nursery rhyme, and Bud said he wanted to make it.  Well, I have all the ingredients, including--gulp--3 sticks of butter!  So we'll be doing that this afternoon.  Makes me wonder how many children's books with recipes an integral part of the story (as opposed to children's cookbooks) there are.  I know of Growing Vegetable Soup, Apples!Apples!Apples!, Thunder Cake, and All in Just one Cookie.  More on this after some research (and more and more and more and more).  And a report on the cake when we've made it.
• It's actually just as well that Bud brought home a recipe he wants to try.  Ever since reading about the temptations of an empty cake stand, I've wanted to bake something, especially the olive oil orange cake in the article.  I even have a cake stand (which stands, safely, in the basement for now because it is glass).  
• We're hoping to join a CSA (community-supported agriculture) in our area, which means we'll get a box, one share, of produce each week of the growing season (starting in June, through October).  I'm really very excited.  We'll get to try new foods, become acquainted with our local farmers, support local agriculture, visit the farm, and supplement our own garden efforts (which, as you remember, were destroyed in the storm last year, much to everyone's chagrin; the kiddos have been planning this year's crop since then).  YAY!!!
• Otherwise, there have been so many tempting recipes and ideas on Mark Bittman's Minimalist columns and Bitten blog recently:  the anti-ramen, chocolate mousse, chopped salad, and two links to Mike Licht's blog NotionsCapital about food blogs and Girl Scout cookies.