Okay, Yes, Technically it's Fried (under one dollar; about fifteen minutes)

Fried okra.

My first marriage didn't work out. However, I learned some things about cooking in the eight years of that relationship. Banana pudding. Beans and peas. Cornbread.

Fried okra.

Right now it's dark outside, raining in spits and volleys, and about, oh, forty degrees. If that. I'm in flannel and a sweatshirt, shivering uncontrollable, though the furnace is going full blast and I'm indoors. I haven't seen the sun in a couple of days. I feel sort of like either getting in bed and coming out in May, or slitting my wrists and ending it now.

I need summer food. I need bright tastes. I need to be reminded that the earth is now (as it is past the solstice) moving or tipping or whatever it does ever closer to that elusive yellow ball in the sky I've been told is the sun and is up there somewhere, warming something somewhere, where the lucky people are -- where they're probably harvesting the coffee I don't drink or picking the tea leaves (okay, this is just beautiful) I won't use, or chewing the cacao leaves I wouldn't know what do to with while they harvest the chocolate I swore off back when the sun shone in May as solidarity with Chuck's quitting smoking.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Fried okra. Summer food. Almost as good as a perfect tomato, warm and heavy and just off the vine.

Sigh. Sigh. Can it be May already? Please?

Well, anyway -- the trick with fried okra done the way my mother-in-law taught me is never to stir. NEVER. Always flip. Stir=musciligenous mess. Flip=crisp goodness. Remember these equations. They'll be on the next test.

Here's how you do it.

Get some okra, a small onion, and a potato. You'll also need salt and pepper, oil, corn meal and flour.

In a heavy frying pan, pour about an eighth of an inch of oil. Not too much since, as I was told, you aren't deep-frying the stuff.

Slice the onion, thinly, into a bowl.

Slice the potato, thinly (just shy of chipping it), into the same bowl.

Slice the okra, thinly (say, in quarter inch rounds), into the same bowl.

Throw in a couple of big spoons of corn meal, and a spoon of flour. Add some salt and pepper. You can always add more, so go a little lightly. Stir it up so everything's got a little flour and cornmeal sticking to it.

Heat the oil on medium high. When it shimmers, or when it pops when you drop one drop of water in it, dump the contents of the bowl into the oil.

Shake the pan so that you have one layer. Press down lightly with a spatula.

Let this sit until it starts smelling like popcorn and gets lightly browned on the edges.

Then, with a spatula, flip it in pieces. I do this in thirds: right side flip over, left side flip over, middle flip over. It's okay if you only flip parts or some of it doesn't quite make it all the way over. It'll be fine.

Shake the pan to distribute in a single layer. Wait some more and repeat until the whole mess is golden brown and crispy. The potatoes take the longest to cook, so if a fork goes through one easily and everything looks golden, you're done.

Lift and drain on a plate or in a bowl lined with paper towels.

Eat.

Think of summer. Which I wish it were, right dang now.

There you go.

Cornbread (about $2; 40 minutes)

I was reading something the other day -- don't ask me what -- and someone was complaining that she couldn't make cornbread because there wasn't any buttermilk. That got me to wondering what the heck she was talking about. I guess you could use buttermilk. I'd never used it. But I guess you could.

And anyway, the chemistry of using buttermilk in baking is easy enough that you can substitute spoiled milk (or sweet milk curded with a little vinegar) for buttermilk, in a pinch.

People get their panties in a wad for the weirdest of reasons.

Witness: the sugar issue (this person's actually pretty mild in her disapprobation; she only kicks you off the website). Apparently -- I'm really outside this debate (here's another random sampling), too, so can't be trusted to represent it at all well -- if you add sugar to your cornbread you are [insert nasty regional epithet here]. "True" cornbread, the food of [benevolent regional description]ers, is sugar-free.

I don't know. You could take out the sugar I guess, just add a little less milk, and see how it does. All depends on whether or not you want to be a [nasty region]ist, or if (heresy, I suppose) the matter of sugar really does mark you as a [nasty region]ist.

Alright: here's the recipe. I make this in a cast iron skillet, and make 1 and a half of this recipe to fill it. As written below, this will fill a loaf pan.

You'll need:

1 c self-rising cornmeal (buy local!)

1/2 c white flour

1/4 c white sugar

1 egg (what I want for my birthday)

milk

corn or a very small can of creamed corn (6 oz?)

Oven at 350.

Grease the skillet or loaf pan generously.

In a bowl, mix meals and sugar. If you're using corn niblets, add them to the meal/flour mixture. I put about a handful in mine -- so maybe 1/4 c?

In a large measuring cup, beat the egg with creamed corn if you're not using niblets. Don't do both or you won't have bread so much as corn pudding. Which is delicious, but won't really sop much.

Add enough milk to the measuring cup to make about a cup and a half of liquid. Keep the milk out since you may need a little more wet.

Mix the wet materials into the dry materials all at once. Add enough milk that the consistency of the batter is like very loose pancake batter. You should be able to pour it. Mix just until everything's incorporated, then immediately pour into your greased pan.

Bake about 30 minutes. Eat hot with lots of butter. Sop up soup if you want.

NOTE: I use this for stuffing at the holidays, only I make it hot and spiced. I double the recipe, add garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, sage, basil and thyme. Cook in a large skillet. Leave out overnight, then crumble with regular bread for your stuffing. It's my secret. Shhhhh.

There you go.