culinary MacGyver-ism

i'm starting to think that a lot of my entries will wind up being about food. i love to eat. i love to cook. a few months back i bought a discounted copy of ruth reichl's (former NY Times food editor who used elaborate costuming to try to ensure fair, everyday treatment in restaurants) first autobiography from a remainders table. i haven't read it yet, but it's called Comfort Me With Apples. my own account would be more like Comfort Me with Heavy Cream and Unsalted Butter, but the basic idea is the same.
so, yesterday i decided to make this stew for dinner that calls for Old Bay seasoning, which is apparently designed to make your cooking taste eastern seaboard-y, like a clam bake. we didn't have any, so i decided to make my own--hence, the culinary MacGyver-ism. i found a recipe online--what ever did we do before Google? oddly, Old Bay contains celery salt, cardamom, cloves, mustard, paprika, and bay leaves--all together. i was wary. at least i was finally able to use the mortar and pestle i got for Christmas, which made me feel like an old timey apothecary. the results went into the Tilghman Island stew (from Moosewood New Classics) pictured here which contained no seafood, but somehow seemed like it might have. food alchemy, i tell you!

in my last entry, i bemoaned the fact that i didn't have any photos of oscar to post, so i had to remedy that. here he is at his new food bowls with built-in kibble storage below, skillfully crafted by Bill (my father-in-law). we were seriously considering getting a cairn terrier puppy brother for oscar last weekend, but the breeder was weird on the phone (why do i need to know that he owns vending machines in sigourney and had to buy a cell phone for his 11 year-old?) and he balked when we asked to come see the pups and their mama (bad sign), so no dice.