Grits (Geez, I don't know: 50 cents?; about half an hour)

Technically, these are jalapeno cheese grits (milled locally).

And what about those pasty white crap grits you might find at, oh, Waffle House, that were made about 4 in the morning in a huge vat and have been cooking now for about ten hours -- if, by cooking, you mean "sitting over a moderate heat and stirred when one of the toothless but nice waitresses remembers they're there" -- into something resembling plastinated paper pulp that can only be swallowed with lakes, and I mean LAKES, of butter and about six fistfuls of salt -- or, otherwise, have to be stirred onto runny eggs, filled with bacon bits, decorated with cheese, and sopped up with white toast, and then still are less palatable than used TP?

What about them? Pig food, I say. Worse. They should be used for gluing pasta to construction paper in kindergarten classrooms.

Look, Elmer's glue, though edible, is disgusting. Waffle House grits, like the insta-grits you buy at the store, is disgusting. Unless you were starving to death, why would you eat that? It's an act of political solidarity to refuse them, I think, because grits is something the know-nothings north of here hold against us. Grits, they say, snorting. Who would eat something like THAT? Then they sit down to a bowlful of cream of wheat -- or worse, lutefisk on whipped potatoes -- and see no irony at all.

Then they set up companies like Quaker Oats (a division of PepsiCo.! Now you know they're both evil and not from around here) to sell us "instant" grits in little packets, flavored like "artificial butter" or, God forfend, sweetened with sugar. GAH. It's Reconstruction all over again, the repulsive Quaker Co. carpetbaggers and their incomprehension. They should all get yellow fever is what I say, take it home with them, and come back only when they can appreciate grits.

But first we have to make good grits available and banish the bad grits.

[Are you thinking of My Cousin Vinny (the best I could find)? Because I am. Or wait: "The grits is cold" -- Bette Davis (6:30-6:50). The Little Foxes. Lillian Helman was a genius, and so was good old Bette.]

Now, I know you're thinking: with that lead in, how could this be anything you'd want to make? I think you ask this reasonably. But you remember that I started the stuffed mushrooms with visions of fungusy toenails, and pulled THAT one out of the fire. Have faith, little ones, I can do this.

I will be assisted in this task by my beautiful new bowl, a birthChristdaymas prezzie from the Brickman-Curzons. The bowl was handmade in Tuscaloosa by Neely Portera -- it has a sea-green wash inside, a brownish purple (fig-colored, I think) wash around the outside. Perfect.

The thing you want to do is start with good grits. By which I mean, non-factory grits, grits not imposed on you by the evil machinations of post-Sherman infiltrators.

If you can get them locally, more the better. We use stone-ground grits from Logan Turnpike Mill, which isn't far from where we live (it's in Blairsville). They're extremely coarse-ground and yellow. I prefer yellow because of the color, which isn't just yellow, but a complex mix of everything from deep brown to caramel to sunshine to golden.

Coarse-ground grits are actually better, since they don't dissolve into craptitude when they're cooked. They have actual substance. Which, you know, you probably want in food.

Grits cook at a 3:1 ratio; here, for two of us for breakfast, I've got 1 1/2 c water to 1/2 c grits. It's important to add salt to the boiling water, since for some reason salting grits after you cook them is really difficult to get right. I think I've got a scant tsp. of salt here.

In addition, you'll need some cheese, probably about a 1/4 c shredded (I've used jalapeno jack in the grits and a couple of spoonfuls of shredded cheddar for garnish) and a little jalapeno mash.

Here's how you do this:

1. Put the water and salt in a pan on high heat. Bring to a boil.

2. Dump in the grits. Stir. Turn the heat to medium so they don't pop all over the place. Keep it simmering, though, so don't turn it down too much.

3. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring every once in a while, until thickened.

4. Stir in cheese and jalapeno mash.

5. Eat.

See, like biscuits, which people think of as difficult, grits is easy. REALLY easy. Which makes it such an offense against God and nature that good ones are so hard to find.

Oh, and just in case you're in Carrollton, Millers grits --- VERY good. They use cream cheese and a lot of butter as the grits cook. That's another way to do it. They serve theirs with shrimp. Which of course for me ruins the whole thing, but that just makes me weird, I suppose.

There you go (with French toast, my birthday breakfast).

Easy Mac (less than $2; about 15 minutes)

Seriously. Does anyone know what that orange powder is that comes in a box of mac and cheese you buy when you need comfort food?

Specifically, where the hell does the orange come from? It's neon, it's weird, it probably sneaks around in your cupboard at night, inviting the marshmallow cream to help out in its seduction of the brownie mix. It probably has one of those round, rotating beds. It probably listens to Al Green and wears necklaces with Italian horns on them. Honestly, it probably needs a good two weeks of penicillin. I mean, who knows what it's bringing to the table? Could be anyone. Could be anything.

I like orange. I wear a lot of orange. This orange just frightens the bejesus out of me.

Hence: easy mac, homemade. It's white. And, aside from what might be hiding in the white (by which I mean in the parm, the milk, the canola, or the pasta), you know what you're eating.

I guess ideally you'd make your own parm from the milk you got from your own cow/sheep; your own oil from your own canolas (canolis? Does anyone know what a canola is? [okay, CANada + Oil + a? Really?]); and make your own pasta from wheat grown on your own property, from dirt you made -- and from eggs you harvested from your own chickens whom you feed with your own scratch -- and from whatever else you might decide you can gather from around you, unpolluted by the touch of other people's diabolical plans to poison you with neon-orange additives.

But let's say that for the time being, we're just going to move one step closer to controlling ingredients. And that this is, in fact, as easy or easier that that box mac you ingest, or give your kids to ingest, on any given day.

Here's what you'll want. This will feed at least four people as a meal.

Large sauce pot

pound of pasta, any shape. Flat pasta cooks faster than pasta that's bunchy. The fastest is angel hair. The slowest I've found is gemelli.

some parmesan, any sort -- even (and here's how you can tell this is not a gourmet recipe) the stuff in a shake jar.

A little milk.

a little oil.

That's it.

Okay, boil the pasta until it's the tenderness you like it. My Nana complains that Americans eat their pasta raw (which is her word for al dente); I say, if you want to chew, undercook. If you want to gum and slide for your mastication, have at it.

If you've never boiled pasta before, the rule is a LOT of water. Pasta needs to swim, so cover it and then some. Boil the water, add the pasta. Keep it boiling until it's done.

Drain the pasta and shake it to clear all the water. Return it to the warm pot. Drizzle on some oil, maybe a TBSP. Splash in some milk, less than a 1/4 cup. If you want some herbs, try a little oregano. Also, you can weaponize with jalapeno paste; just stir it in at this point.

Keep the pot, and the pasta, warm if you need to on a VERY LOW heat. Mix so all the pasta's coated. Put some parm on it, maybe a 1/4 cup max. Stir once or twice, very lightly.

Do this again and again until when you stir, you don't see milk puddling in the bottom of the pan.

Parm is funny and can clump, so you don't want to over-stir. If it clumps, peel that part off the spoon, eat it, and keep going. Add a little more milk if you think the pasta's not coated to your liking.

The finest meal-variation of this is to add peas to the boiling water. Pasta Parm Peas is what I used to call it. You can also add shrimp or chicken. If you do, you get to name it.

There you go.

Burritos for Breakfast (maybe $5; about 15 minutes)

I preface this whole entry with the caveat: we are not Southwesterners. These are as inauthentic as any other ethnic recipe here.

As I say this, I wonder: what is authentic Southwestern? A hybrid of Mexican and American food? What is authentic Mexican? A hybrid of Spanish and indigenous food? And which indigenous food? And which Spanish cuisine? And how long does a cuisine have to be itself before it's really a cuisine and not some hybrid? And while we're at it, what's Spanish cuisine, but a mash up of regional food ways overlaid with preferences from hundreds of invasions from elsewhere?

I'm looking for the Ur cuisine. That might be authentic.

And don't get me started on "American" food. Now there's a mare's nest if I ever saw one.

Okay, caveats and phlights of philosophy aside, here's what we do when we want quick finger food for brekkie.

You need:

** tortillas (these are El Banderito, but any will work.)

** 2 med potatoes, washed, unpeeled, and chopped into about 1 inch pieces

** 2 eggs

** jalapeno cheese slices (You too can torture your children! Use pain and bribery!)

** a little margarine or butter

** salt and pepper

You can add diced onion and salsa if you want. We generally don't.

In a microwave-safe dish, cover and cook the potatoes on high about 5 minutes. They should be completely cooked.

In a separate bowl, beat the two eggs together.

Meanwhile, heat two skillets. Lightly grease one (I use spray grease). You'll use this to heat the tortillas.

In the second skillet, melt a little butter. Use med to med-high heat.

When the potatoes are done, dump them into the buttery skillet and brown the potatoes. If you want diced onions, this is the stage to add them.

As the potatoes brown, set a tortilla in the other skillet and put a piece of sliced cheese on it. Heat for about a minute (until the edge of the cheese starts to soften). Remove to a plate.

In the potato skillet, pour eggs over potatoes and scramble with potatoes until almost dry. Turn off heat, add salt and pepper, mix.

Set another tortilla in tortilla skillet, add cheese. While that's warming, take a spoonful of the potato mixture and wrap it inside the warm tortilla. You can do a simple taco-like fold-over; we tend to want less messy envelopes, so we fold and roll like a burrito.

Repeat fill-and-fold with the now-warm second tortilla; repeat whole process with the rest of the tortillas until you run out of filling. This should make 5-7 small burritos; maybe 1-2 large ones.

If you want salsa, I'd recommend adding it before you fold, or using it to dip.

There you go.

Stone [Soup] Salad (virtually free; less than fifteen minutes)

This is virtually free, since what you're doing is using the odds and ends you have left over in the fridge to make the salad. You may have to buy some lettuce (you know you want the vegetarian starter kit, right?). Or maybe you have some, or some spinach, or something leafy and green? That's where you start.

Chuck can make two meals: this, and a pasta dish he calls carbonara, but it's really just pasta with olives and turkey bacon. It's really good, equally as good as his salad. He tells me that most of his cooking life was spent microwaving fish sticks or eating processed cheese on tortillas (microwaved). There's a good story about a last minute Thanksgiving he and his brother Bob ended up eating at 3am the morning after Thanksgiving. I've seen him make Bisquick pancakes -- and they're also good. But yeah. Now that we live together, mostly I cook.

Here, however, is his "famous" salad. Salad, in this part of the world, is best in fall and spring, when lettuce is fresh and local.

This one he made for dinner, and the way he makes them, they are a dinner.

What you'll need:

Green leafy substance (this is romaine, but any lettuce or non-cooking greens will do)

some fruit (here he's got apples, tangerines, dates, and raisins)

some vegetables (carrots, tomatoes, scallions, green peppers)

some nuts (here, pecans [how to say it like a native] and walnuts)

some salty stuff (like pickles, olives, capers)

some cheese and whatever else you have a spoonful or two of left in the fridge

Some spices (here, dill, cilantro, red pepper and black pepper)

What you do:

Wash what needs washing. Cut up what needs cutting up into bite-sized pieces.

Tear the lettuce into bite-sized pieces.

Put this in the bottom of a big bowl.

But the other bite-sized stuff on top.

Shake on some Parmesan or other cheese.

Toss and serve.

We eat this without dressing, but for guests we have some bottled stuff, or I drizzle on a little mustard mixed with honey and olive oil, or some Good Seasons Italian.

There you go.