The project will attempt to replace the front lawns of 9 homes with food-producing vegetable gardens. If all goes well, it will result in a permanent living installation.

History has a way of swirling and eddying, of bringing together people and places to produce the unexpected and the amazing. This is the case with the Ursulines of New Orleans. Who would imagine that this small group of teachers could exert so strong and so lasting an influence upon the cuisine of New Orleans! That they did so is attested to by many of the chroniclers of the city's early history. It was the Ursulines who educated the daughters of the plantation aristocracy and the French officials, and education in the 1700's meant cooking and the "wifely arts" before "reading, writing, and ciphering."

The nuns brought with them recipes from their homeland of France and adapted them to the native food resources. For instance, the praline was a favorite candy in the area of Orleans, France. It is said to have been first concocted by Jean Dulac, the chef of the Duc de Praslin, who was very fond of sweets, although there are several versions of the origion of this particular sweet. The French candy was made with almonds, but in New Orelans the nuns found none of these nuts but a plentiful suppy of pecans. To the Ursulines, then, New Orleans owes it variant of the origional recipe, called the pecan praline, which has remained a specialty of the city throught the years.

Croquettes de Mais is also another product of the resourcefulness of those early pioneering nuns. From the Indians they learned the use of cornmeal, which they combined with other ingredients to produce a deliciously seasoned fried meal cake. The recipe spread throughout the Deep South where, supposedly in Georgia, it received the name of "hugh puppies" when a plateful was given to howling hunting dogs to keep them quite.

The recipes in this book have come from many states and from as far away as Nicaragua, Spain, and the Canary Islands. They are, therefore, not all technically Spanish recipes. Those that are, can be found in the section entitled Canary Islands and Spain. Others handed down by Isleño ancestors can be identified by names such as Caldo and Paella and by reading the Spanish names and commentary of the donors throughout the various sections of the book. There are definite similarities between the Canarian and the Spanish recipes and the recipes of the Isleño descendants. Many of our best Isleño cooks were unable to provide written recipes when first asked. After all, good cooking just comes naturally. Excuses ran from, "I don't have any written recipes," to "I never measure, " and "I just throw it all into the pot." In those cases, we are deeply grateful to the "culinary secretaries" who observed and recorded these recipes for posterity.

The purpose of this book is two-fold: Firstly, to acquaint the general public with the relatively unknown Isleño culture and secondly, to raise funds for educational, historical and cultural improvements to the Isleño Museum and Village. Both are located in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, the home site of the Canary Islanders who settled there beginning in 1778.

Drive deep into St. Bernard Parish, and you notice the names on the mailboxes: Nunez, Marrero, Estopinal, Rodriguez, Gonzales, Perez. Two-thirds of the parish's 70,000 residents are Islenos.

Like the population of French Cajuns farther west, Islenos came to Louisiana when it was a European colony. They stayed, and today they're a cultural island. - NPR

AVOCADO CAKE

• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 c. shortening, creamed
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups flour, sifted
• 3 tsp. cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 cup avocado, pureed
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 3/4 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add sugar slowly to softened shortening. Mix until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition. Sift together flour, cinnamon, salt, allspice and baking soda. Fold into egg and sugar mixture. Approximatley 1 Florida or 2 California avocados will yield 1 1/2 cups of puree. Add pureed avocado, buttermilk and vanilla. Add raisins and nuts. Grease and flour 2 (8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 5/8 inch) loaf pans. Pour in batter. Bake at 300 degrees for 60 to 65 minutes.

Yield: 2 loaves
Oven: 325 degrees


• 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 16-ounce can pumpkin
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 eggs
• 1 8-ounce bag pecans, chopped

  In large mixing bowl, mix all dry ingredients until well blended. Gradually add pumpkin, oil, water and eggs.
  Stir in pecans. Pour batter into 2 greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pans and bake 1 1/2 hours.

  The best pumpkin bread we've found.

Award Winning Pecan Shortbread Raspberry Cookies

1 cup softened unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup ground pecans
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbs raspberry preserves (seedless)
Powdered sugar for tops of cookies

This recipe captured first place in a nationwide cookie competition back in 1999.

In a large bowl, beat butter with electric mixer on medium to high for 30 seconds. Add sugar, vanilla and extract; beat until fluffy, scraping bowl often. Beat in flour and pecans until combined. Wrap dough in plastic wrap. Chill 1 - 2 hours or until dough is easy to handle. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough, half at a time, to 1/8 inch thickness. Using a 2 inch round scalloped cookie cutter, cut rounds from dough. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Using a 1 inch round cutter, cut centers from half of the unbaked cookies. Remove centers and reroll dough to make more cookies. Bake in a 305 degree oven for 7 - 9 minutes. To assemble: Sift powdered sugar ovver tops of cookies with holes. Set aside. Spread about 1/2 teaspoon preserves onto bottom of each cookie without a hole. Top with cookie with hole, sugar side up. Makes about 40.

My "so-called" special day.

Lagniappe Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tsps ginger
1 cup Steen's Pure Cane Syrup
1/2 tsp ground cloves
3 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp allspice

Cream together shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Combine water and syrup. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda and spices. Add alternately to creamed mixture with water and syrup, blending well after each addition. Chill in bowl in refrigerator overnight. Roll out dough 1/4 inch thick on lightly floured board or pastry cloth. Cut into rounds with a 4 inch cookie cutter. Place 4 at a time on greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. To store, place in tightly covered container.

"Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. New figures show that this year's harvest will fail to produce enough to feed everyone on Earth, for the sixth time in the past seven years. Humanity has so far managed by eating its way through stockpiles built up in better times - but these have now fallen below the danger level.

Some other serious thoughts to ponder over at these informative blogs:

Sustainable Table and Food and Water Watch.

After getting all misty thinking about childhood food, especially the Maple Syrup, I found a cool photo of "downtown" Hanover, NH, where I grew up!

Have to say, it hasn't changed much!

In Quebec (as well as extreme eastern Ontario), the process has become part of the culture, and city folk often go to the cabanes à sucre in early spring, where rustic meals are served with maple syrup-based products. Tire sur la neige, also known as "sugar on snow," is a seasonal treat of thickened hot syrup poured onto fresh snow then eaten off sticks, like taffy, as it quickly cools.

People say one can't fight City Hall, but Les Surfas is giving it a valiant try.

As local blog watchers are aware, Surfas and his eponymous restaurant supply and gourmet food store in Culver City have lately been the focus of frenzied online speculation now that Culver City has decided to use eminent domain to claim the land on which Surfas houses his warehouse and offices. The city wants a transit-oriented mixed-use development on the site in anticipation of the Expo Line, a light-rail line. Though the eminent domain claim did not include the building that houses the new store and cafe, Surfas has indicated that it could perhaps force him to relocate the business, possibly to Orange County. - LATimes

Our company is strong and will continue on the same growth pattern we have always set. We have been in several different locations over the (almost) 70 years since we opened the doors in 1937. All changes in our past have been exciting and this one will be too. You will find the only difference may be that we will be located at another address perhaps next year or in 2008. If Culver City doesn't want us, another city will. As soon as we have more information, we will post it on our website. Thank you for your interest." - Eating L.A.

Customerservice@surfasonline.com.

Via Phone:

Surfas customer service representatives can be reached from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM Monday through Saturday and 11:00 AM to 6:30 PM on Sunday Pacific Standard Time at 310-559-4770 or Toll Free 1(866) 799-4770. Se Habla Espanol: 310-559-4770 X211

When the fruit ripens, the shells split open partially. This happens with an audible pop, and legend has it that lovers who stand under a pistachio tree at night and hear the nuts popping open will have good luck. ..Pistachio nuts are highly flammable when stored in large quantities, and are prone to self heating and spontaneous combustion.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups ground California pistachios
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons almond extract
4 egg whites (large size)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Baking parchment
1/4 cup chopped California pistachios
1/4 cup powdered sugar (optional)

Instructions:

Whole Foods' Chocolate Chai Truffles

Makes about 3 dozen

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 TB butter
• 2 TB Chai concentrate (or substitute vanilla, liqueur or strong coffee)
• 1 bar (10 oz) semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
• unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

Heat cream, butter and chai concentrate until almost boiling. Turn off heat and stir in chocolate pieces until completely melted. Cool for 1/2 hour. With a mixer, whisk on medium high speed until mixture thickens and turns lighter in color, about 10 minutes. It should stiffen to a whipped cream consistency. Refrigerate for several hours. Scoop up teaspoon-sizes balls and dust with cocoa powder. Dust your hands with cocoa powder and roll gently into balls. (Stop frequently to rinse, dry and re-powder your hands). Refrigerate until ready to serve.