It seemed like a good idea at the time

cute little time-wasters

To make Jamie Oliver's Amalfi baked lemons you cut lemons in half, scrape out the flesh, stuff the shells with mozzarella, cherry tomato, and anchovy, then bake. Scoop the melted contents of the lemon  onto bread and eat.

How was this dish? Not as delicious as it was conceptually cool -- that would be impossible -- but quite tasty. Jamie writes that the mozzarella "absorbs the lovely lemon flavor when it bakes" and I was curious to experience this flavor, but all I picked up was a slight, not unpleasant bitterness. Verdict: They were a lot of fussy work and while they double as a conversation piece, once you've had the conversation there is no reason to ever make them again.

I served the lemons for our regular Sunday family dinner with my father and my sister's crew. Mark did his manly duty and grilled steaks (more on manliness and red meat below) and I made roasted sweet potatoes with a k-town kick from Debbie Lee's Seoultown Kitchen. There's a story behind the decision to cook sweet potatoes "with a k-town kick" and that story involves a dilemma and that dilemma has been stressing me out. I'm going to tell the story right now even though it interrupts this riveting narrative of a family dinner:

I'm hosting my all-female book club on Friday. We're discussing Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, the most engrossing and altogether excellent book I read in 2012. Nothing to Envy is about North Korea and in a fit of exuberance a few months ago, I announced I would serve a Korean dinner as a backdrop to our discussion. I had in mind to prepare the only Korean dish I have ever prepared: Momofuku bo ssam, a monumental pork shoulder cooked in salt and sugar for hours and hours and served with chile sauce and rice and wrapped in lettuce leaves. It is delicious, insanely, insanely delicious, and surprisingly easy.

But as the date approached, I began to have qualms. The vegan in our group had a prior engagement, but what about everyone else? Something felt wrong. I sent out an email inquiring about dietary restrictions. The replies were evenly split between "I eat everything" and "I'm dairy/gluten intolerant, but whatever you cook, I'll work around it."

No one said they didn't eat red meat. Yet the misgivings persisted. Finally, one book group member, a lovely person, wrote: "I don't eat gluten, but don't worry about me. I'll fill up on veggies!"

She didn't write, "I'll fill up on the meat!" or "I'll fill up on everything else!" She wrote, "I'll fill up on veggies!"

I knew exactly why she wrote that. She wrote that for the same reason I've been uneasy about the bo ssam menu. Women, including me, assume that other women will feed them veggies. Or fish. Maybe chicken. But not meat, never meat. The first time I made bo ssam I made it with my friend Lisa, but we were having dinner with our husbands, which made it acceptable to serve and eat large portions of fatty pork. Our husbands didn't even know what bo ssam was; Lisa and I were the enthusiastic instigators. But if it had just been Lisa and me, or Lisa and me and two other women, we would not have cooked bo ssam.

Why is this? Why is meat for the men and sole for the ladies? Is it because women are supposed to be dainty and meat is primal and bloody? Because meat involves violence and women are supposed to be gentle? Because women are more health-conscious than men? Because women are always on diets? Because we pretend we're health conscious and on diets even when we're not? Because we find meat "too heavy?" Because we pretend to find meat "too heavy?" Because meat is historically too precious to be wasted on women? Is it about not wanting meat or is it about not deserving meat?

I can barely look at this picture.

Anyway, I decided to try to find some Korean vegetable dishes from Seoultown Kitchen to serve alongside the bo ssam. I started with the aforementioned sweet potatoes and ended with the aforementioned sweet potatoes. You roast them with sugar, spices, soy sauce, and a boatload of sesame oil and they were salty, unctuous, cloying, and sugary. I hated them. No one else hated them, but I hated them so much that I lost all enthusiasm for testing more Korean vegetable dishes.

Here's my question:

Do I forge ahead with the bo ssam and serve a big, substantial salad alongside? Or do I explain that I couldn't pull off a Korean dinner after all and serve black bean chili? I should add that everyone in the book group is great and that no one will complain. I just don't want the evening to be weird. Thoughts?

End of Korean interlude.

Back to Sunday dinner. If you've lost your bearings, it's now time for dessert:

A year ago I saw a recipe for raspberry shortbread in Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking and it sounded magical, like something Mary Poppins would serve. I've wondered about raspberry shortbread ever since and decided to give it a go. I pictured hard, buttery shortbread embedded with juicy berries, but this was not what I pulled out of the oven. What I pulled out of the oven was a raspberry crisp with a very sandy topping. It was delightful served hot with vanilla ice cream, if not exactly what I'd been hoping for. The recipe is here, posted by someone who had the same expectations and results that I did.

Why would anyone think this pistol can subsist on cucumber sandwiches, poached eggs, and blueberries . . . 

but that these two clowns require meat?

Hey Nineteen

I think Jamie Oliver is adorable. I'm not old enough to be his mother, but I'm old enough to be his mother's younger sister and I would be proud to be his aunt. I'm training myself to think and say "I would proud to be his aunt" and "I would be proud to be his mother." It is time. Not in every situation -- please! -- but where age appropriate. Do you remember when everyone was talking about cougars? I'm glad they stopped.

I've been choosing random recipes to cook before we leave for Japan and since there was a cauliflower in the refrigerator, made Jamie's cauliflower risotto last night. The recipe comes from Jamie's Italy but is also here.  Unless you are on a diet, MAKE IT. As Jamie writes at the end of the recipe: "So, so good!"

He is so, so right! And so, so enthusiastic!

His section on risotto begins: "You're going to absolutely love this chapter," but he often saves his loudest hurrah for the last line of a recipe.  He ends his recipe for eggplant parmigiana: "You'll love it!" Flash roast beef: "Tasty, tasty, and very gorgeous!" Grilled and marinated rabbit: "Simple, honest, and bloody good."

Owen declined to taste the risotto: "I don't like risotto, it's all gooey and unpleasing." I declined to care.  Since Isabel had late dance class and Owen was dining on yogurt, Mark and I watched the finale of Girls while eating the risotto.

A few words about Girls: I have come to hate this show. I'm going to have to think hard next season about whether my desire to know what people are talking about outweighs my dread of watching Lena Dunham stick sharp objects in her ears and Adam Driver do that thing he did in the penultimate episode. In every episode there are at least five moments when I want to bury my head in the sofa cushions and cover my ears. This is not counting my aversion to seeing Allison Williams do anything at all. Am I old and falling out of step? Or is the show in fact depressing and needlessly grotesque? Either is possible. When you fall out of step you don't know it. That is part of falling out of step.

We're leaving the house sitters detailed instructions and a bottle of iodine in case Natalie kids while we are on our trip. She's due on May 2, but is already big as a cow. Japan should be fun so long as North Korea doesn't drop any bombs. Thank you for all your suggestions. They are printed out and tucked in my bag. I will report.

Again and again the same situation

Shakshuka as cooked from Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi is a melange of red bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, cumin, and harissa (North African chili paste) that you simmer until melded and delicious and in which you then poach eggs. Serve with bread and yogurt. BUT! Before you serve this magnificent yet simple dish, snap at your husband when he jovially (though not jokingly) wonders if he could have his eggs on toast as this looks "unconventional" and how does he know he's going to like the sauce? Tell him he has to try the food before criticizing. Glower. About 15 minutes later snap at your son when he says, neither jovially nor jokingly, that he's tired of the "weird" things you cook. When his father (ahem!) tells him to stop complaining your son says: "If I don't complain, how am I ever going to make change?"

How could anyone object?

Make change. Brood over those words. Eat in stony silence. Feel angry and disappointed and bitchy and deep down sure that this ongoing mealtime discord has to be your fault. Retire alone to the sofa to watch Circumstance, a movie about teenaged girls in Iran who like each other more than teenaged girls are allowed to like each other in Iran.

Back to first person now:  Circumstance was moving and disturbing. I recommend it. By the time it was over I wasn't mad anymore and no one was mad at me because we all basically like each other when we're not sitting around the dinner table.

Last night we didn't. We dined in front of The Walking Dead. I made Jamie Oliver's pasta carbonara with sausage meatballs which consists of linguine, olive oil, sausage, pancetta, cream, Parmesan, egg yolks, and lemon zest and tastes exactly like you would expect. I prefer shakshuka, but Owen ate the pasta carbonara like a walker with a fresh. . . no, that is rude. Owen ate a lot. He did mention that the pasta was "all lemony tasting," probably so I wouldn't get a swelled head. I wonder if he thinks that he is finally making change.

For about 10 beautiful minutes every afternoon the kitchen gets natural light.

How do we go forward in peace and harmony and food that isn't pasta?

There's no need to try to answer that. Isabel is getting her driver's license and Owen sounds like James Earl Jones and the question is almost moot. Disappointing eaters. Good kids.

Don't let my dismal story scare you off shakshuka. It's delicious, easy, healthy, and not "weird" at all. The recipe from Jerusalem has been published here on Food52, though they've cut the quantity of harissa to 1/6 the original amount. I approve; my shakshuka was fiery. This is a totally different version of shakshuka and looks excellent too.

Pride of Madeira