Somewhere a cardiologist got their wings

Last week a group of us had dinner and tasty if a bit snooty beers at Brasserie V.  One appetizer was almond-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon.  These were so good that it was decided the recipe should be reproduced at this week's Geeks' Night In.  So, along with the evening's bottling and brewing of beer, dates were stuffed, wrapped in bacon, skewered, lightly sprinkled with brown sugar and broiled.

Our version was also delicious.  My brilliant innovation came when I spied the loaf of French bread looking lonely on the table.  I ripped a hunk off, and dipped it into the date-flavored bacon fat left in the broiling pan.  Everyone else was appalled — including, I hasten to add, Chuck. Until they tried it.

Wm's Improvised Beet Salad, Thai Flavor

• several medium roasted beets


• one large-ish cucumber, or most of one of those European "burpless" ones


• cayenne pepper


• one lime


• fish sauce


• cilantro, if you're not one of those people for whom it tastes like soap

The best way to roast the beets I've found is to trim, wash and wrap them individually in foil and bake at 350 until tender, about 50-70 minutes for medium beets, 90 for the big daddies we're getting this late in autumn. Peeling them after roasting is a greater danger to clothing, but much easier.

After the beets are cooled and peeled, medium dice the beets and the cuke — seed the cuke if it it's one of the watery varieties. Toss in a bowl with the juice of the lime, several sturdy dashes of the cayenne and at least 1 tsp of fish sauce, more if you share my fondness for it. If you're afraid of the fish sauce, you may want add some salt. Chill for a bit, toss in a handful of cilantro before serving.

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There are in both Thai and ancient Roman cooking simple recipes which pair melon and fish sauce. Beets aren't quite like melons, but it's hard to lose with the the sweet + tart + salty combo. Here's the Roman recipe, from Apicius (85):

pepones et melones: piper, puleinum, mel vel passum, liquamen, acetum. interdum et silfi accedit.

Cantaloupe and melon: pepper, pennyroyal, honey or passum, fish sauce , vinegar. Sometimes also silphium is added.

Passum was a sweet wine made from raisins. Sylphium is a probably extinct plant about which ethnobotanists dearly love to speculate. It may have been like a milder asafoedita.