Boing Boing had a post about bologna flavored bubble gum, which reminded me of a concept I've been tossing around with some friends for several years now: cold cut flavored jelly beans. Imagine being able to buy a bag of jelly beans that had ham jelly beans, cheese jelly beans, rye jelly beans, mustard jelly beans, lettuce jelly beans, tomato jelly beans, mayo jelly beans, etc. You could pick and choose the proportions and there could be several other different flavors like roast beef, pumpernickel, pastrami, cheddar, swiss, and on and on. I don't think anyone's making these yet, but someone should, and bologna bubble gum makes me think we're not far away.

Rachel has a grown-up friend who often invites her over for lunch. When this happens, they don't just get a 12-inch sandwich from Subway as I expected; rather, Catherine actually makes a delicious lunch, and they eat it. It sounds so civilized.

After one of these lunches, Rachel came home raving about a salmon chowder that she'd had, and insisted that we make it for dinner. She got the recipe from Catherine, and I gratefully reproduce my slightly modified version of it here.



It's a simple but delicious chowder: Sweat 1 large onion in about 2 tablespoons of butter or oil, and then sprinkle on 1 tablespoon of flour. Stir and cook to form a roux.

Once the roux has achieved blond-ness, you might decide to add a dash or two of Old Bay seasoning, and then pour in 4 cups of homemade lobster stock if you're lucky enough to have just made some. Otherwise, any other flavorful broth will do. Whisk, and bring to a boil, then add 4 large Yukon Gold potatoes, diced, and reduce heat. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

Grab your trusty potato masher and mash some, but not all of the potatoes: you want to thicken the soup, but still preserve some potato chunks. Then stir in 1 1/2 cups of frozen corn, 2/3 cup of milk, and chopped parsley and dill. Cook for 5 minutes, and then remove from heat.

Stir in 6 ounces of chopped smoked salmon, yes, from a can. We found some delicious "Australian-style" salmon from Whole Foods. (I don't know what makes it Australian-style, but I approve.) Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve with a bit of sour cream, if you like.

The soup was delicious: salty and meaty from the salmon, with the unmistakably comfortable feeling of a potato-y chowder. A+++ would eat again.

Ha! Ha ha ha. Ha.

Better than a movie inspired by a theme park ride, Amazing Grace is a movie inspired by a song. It just happens that this song was written by a reformed slave-ship captain turned preacher who counted among his flock a boy who would grow up to be the English MP that lead the abolition fight in England. Confusing and constant flashbacks did mar this well acted movie.