Check out my "featured submission" of Eggs 'n Bacon 'n Greens on WSU's Wellbeing Online: wellbeingonline.wsu.edu/physical/recipe-of-the-week

A cocktail article in Thursday's Wall Street Journal got me thinking about what I value in my beverage-consuming experience. First and foremost, I'm focused on what happens when I receive the beverage. Does it stir my nose? Is the glass cold or warm against my lips? Does the liquor bite the end of my tongue or does it coat and tingle? What flavors am I tasting--herbs? Fruits? Woods? What's the effervescent experience as it passes my throat and enters my digestive tract?

But apparently there's also a place for the bartending performance in my psyche. To charge me $14 and serve me a beverage that's been produced en masse irrationally infuriates me. I have been robbed of an experience--a bonding between the alcohol artisan and myself. I freeze spiked punches for myself, but I expect more when I dine out.

Again, I acknowledge the irrationationality of this! I don't seek out the soup master and demand that my vichyssoise be borne of potatoes unique from another's. I often don't see more than a glimpse of the shaker that holds my beverage. Yet somehow I've become entitled to a labor-intensive experience as a contract of my happy hour purchase.

How do you feel about your bar experience? Do you pin a thought on the dispensary of your drink?

Helen's been talking about Mrs. Clemans' great pot pies, so with a plentiful amount of chicken thighs freezer-burning in the deep freeze, I thought I'd give one a try. I found one in The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, which has been a reliable and tested set of recipes.

Absolutely delicious! I slow-cooked the chicken and swapped chopped onion and celery for pearl onions and leeks. The potatoes were white instead of red. I omitted the carrots and mushrooms, and added some leftover peas.

The secret to squeezing out the maximum amount of juice from a piece of citrus is a microwave. While cooks often avoid this instrument, the breakdown of the cells within the fruit [note: my science may not be science] aides the squeezability [definitely a technical term] when pressed in a vise.

Tonight's mai tai is excellent, by the way!

Political season is upon us again. In our state, the most frequent ads I'm seeing involve voting yes or no on I-522*, to require labeling on products containing genetically modified organisms**. Cue the concerned housewives, the financially troubled farmers, and the cries for justice as it pertains to the food that keeps us alive.

Really? This is how we're spending our time? Spending gobs of money and time on campaigning to write more information on food that may or may not be read?

Consumers - do your homework. If you care about what's going into your body, then read up on your food! This doesn't even involve research; companies are already clearly proud to advertise that they are GMO-free. Is it then necessary to mark all the other packages with announcements?

It seems to me that the market can take care of itself.

*Which I think should be referenced in a manner as not to confuse voters as to whether they're voting for the existence or non-existence of an already-existing interstate highway.

**The spelling of this latter word is really, really important to get right if you're going to Google it.

You know those funny, hinged, slotted lids attached to the silverware caddy in your dishwasher? In addition to holding small items in while the water can rinse out, the slots are also there for your silverware-stacking pleasure. I find that I can stick forks and spoons handle-down through these slots and they all get washed without sticking together. In fact, I can pack more in by this method than without, due to the ordered nature of it.