Day 191: Whatchamacallit

Today, I had my very first Whatchamacallit. You know--the candy bar. And while it was pretty tasty, it didn't blow my mind. And I was hungry when I ate it. I'd eaten a miniscule lunch and then sat snackless through a two-and-a-half hour matinee of Noises Off! at the Hartung Theater in Moscow, ID (put on by Idaho Rep--very entertaining) and then we went to the grocery store (never a wise thing when hungry) to pick up a few ingredients we'd forgotten/didn't know we needed yesterday, when we were at the grocery store last.

In case you don't know, a Whatchamacallit is made of peanut flavor crisp, caramel, and chocolate. None of these ingredients are in top form--they're definitely your basic kid-style, cheap candy. (I believe the candy bar cost $0.64.) The kind of thing I might have adored as a kidlet, but now find a little dull. The kind of thing I feel I could very easily make better. Like if you coated the Davenport Hotel's Bruttle (peanut butter brittle) in a good salted caramel and enrobed that in dark chocolate. Just thinking about that makes me salivate. The Whatchamacallit--not as much.

In other culinary news, I used some of my leftover rhubarb glaze on grilled chicken (or my husband did--but I told him to), and it worked nicely. We had that alongside some grilled vegetables and today's homemade bread. Lately, whenever we go to restaurants, we've been getting bread that's totally crusted in kosher salt, and it is so delicious and appetizing. So I coated one of my loaves in salt this time (the others I left alone, in case the salty version didn't turn out) and I spread a few slices of that with my delicious dry cured olive spread from the other day. It was incredibly delicious. I could have dined on that alone.

Tomorrow, I plan on attacking a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Soupe au Pistou. I decided on this particular recipe because among the many delicious things we bought at Saturday's farmer's market (including the rainbow chard, sugar snap peas, cute little beets, and a lovely Egyptian pastry called basboosa that I forgot to write about because of the rhubarb) we bought a huge bouquet of basil, and we need to use it before it starts to wilt. Thankfully, my new Food Network Magazine also came in the mail yesterday, with a whole bunch of advice about basil. I'm excited for some culinary adventures.

PS: Do you like the new site design, or is it too cold?