Oops. My bad. It was pointed out to me by Eva that she did indeed have the Mamaliga at dinner the other night. It is a polenta dish - I googled for a recipe and came up with the following:

3 cups yellow or white cornmeal
1 quart plus 2 cups cold water
2 Tbs. salt
kitchen string

Place cornmeal in a bowl and stir in 2 cups cold water. Mash out any lumps with side of a wooden spoon. Bring 4 cups water and salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Gradually add cornmeal, stirring constantly. Simmer 10 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent sticking. When mixture becomes thick and hard to stir, remove from heat. Dip a wooden spoon in cold water and push cornmeal to the center of the pot. Return to low heat 1-2 minutes, without stirring, to release steam and loosen mixture from bottom of the pan. Turn mixture out onto a work surface. Smooth the surface with a wet metal spatula, spreading to form a rectangle 1 inch-2 inches thick. Cut into squares.

Funny thing is that I can't seem to figure out what they want you to do with the kitchen string. Maybe it's one of those chef things that you're just supposed to have on hand all the time. A friend of mine who attended culinary school once described a recipe to me beginning with, "You start with a pound of clarified butter . . ."

When he got to the end of the recipe, the butter hadn't made it into the final product. When questioned about it he replied, "All chefs start with a pound of clarified butter, whether you use it or not."

[Speaking of googling, Mom said that if you google "Bacalau Confitado", it takes you right to Meritage's website!]

Sometimes as picture is worth a thousand words. From Topanga Canyon in Southern California:

[That's going to leave a mark.]

Quote du jour:

"Life is made up of marble and mud."

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864) US novelist, short-story writer

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