"The best pork loin I have ever eaten".

So said one of the women I worked with when I brought this to my very last potluck.I had brought my best shrimp dishes as well as a one pound pork tenderloin flavored with citrus, mustard, and pineapple bourbon glaze. I cooked it again yesterday with a pork loin from Kroger- a "Manager's Special" marked down to seven dollars.

The Pineapple Bourbon Glaze came out of a bottle. It was one of a line of sauces and glazes from a Texas company called Fischer and Wieser. I buy their sauces at Publix. I do not know how widely they distribute in stores, but if a UPS truck can find your driveway, you can order them on-line at Jelly.com. I cannot cook without these sauces. Their Sweet and Savory Onion Glaze does wonderful things to sauteed shrimp, and all their sauces have an affinity for pork. They are not dirt cheap. A bottle costs around $8.00. But some tastes are priceless.

Having said this I will add that I do not think a clever or enterprising cook, or any one with a lick of sense, would have any trouble making their own pineapple bourbon glaze. Simply combine some crushed pineapple, some brown sugar, a little bourbon, and some lime juice in a blender. I trust you are smart enough to come up with a substitute. Make about half a cup- a quarter cup to mix with the marinade, the other quarter to baste with.

You need a 2-3 pound pork loin, cut in quarters.

1 cup of Bitter orange marinade. Iberia makes a good one, for sale in the Hispanic food aisle.

2 tablespoons of Creole or Dijon Mustard

Sea salt

1/2 to 3/4 cup Pineapple Bourbon Glaze


Put the loin quarters in a large zip lock bag. Mix the Orange marinade, half the pineapple glaze, and the mustard. Blend well, the add to the zip lock bag. Shake well and coat the meat, the put in the refrigerator overnight.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the pork loin from the marinade,then place the quarters in a roasting pan. Salt them, then baste with the pineapple glaze ,into which you will have stirred another heaping tablespoon of mustard. Reserve some glaze for two more bastings.


Cover the meat with foil and roast for 45 minutes. Then uncover and baste with glaze. Bake another 15 minutes, then remove the foil. Let roast another 20 minutes after basting again with the rest of the glaze. Keep a close eye on the roast to make sure you do not overcook and let it dry out. Cooking times may vary, and you must be a vigilant cook who knows how to pay attention. Good food does not cook itself.

This will be tender and succulent. I made this to accompany it-

Sliced potatoes coated with olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, and baked in a dish with pieces of pancetta, some crumbled rosemary and half a dozen diced up garlic cloves.

Whimsical Retro and a Maple Creme

Open any of the old timey Southern Junior League cookbooks to the salad section, and you will get a primer on molded salads composed in a dozen permutations and all from a plain gelatin packet. I experimented a few posts back with a pomegranate juice mold, and to my delight it was a success. So I decided to try again, this time with cream and maple syrup. Another success, with the sweet taste of maple and the texture of a creamy tapioca. This will be on the menu for lunch at Miss Betsy's Imaginary Tearoom. I would serve it in on a bed of orange rounds garnished with mint leaves, and I would pour a dollop more of maple syrup on top.


I would have thought that nostalgia and tradition would have made these retro salads sacrosanct, but I was disabused of this idea when I discussed my experiments with gelatin with a friend who was raised in Milledgeville, in the heart of Georgia.

"Yuck" she said. Her mother made a pistachio mold for the Sunday after meeting lunch, and my friend, thinking of it, recalled adolescent days, tedious church services, and who knows what other deep and private associations that can ruin the appetite. I understand this. I cannot eat oatmeal . I smell it, and I see it burnt on the bottom of a large pot sitting in the sink of a drafty New Hampshire kitchen heated by a wood stove. Oatmeal every day. Served by my mother, with the pot cleaned by 12 year old me. Nor can I eat a combination of ground beef, tomato sauce, and green beans cooked in a crock pot, for it was another daily meal from two years of my youth when my family was temporarily poor and my only two dresses were handmade. Not every food memory is pleasant or benign-


If you want to make a maple creme use the standard Knox gelatin proportions:


4 envelopes of unflavored gelatin

1 cup cold half and half held in a separate bowl.

3 cups half and half, heated to boiling

1/2 cup maple syrup, more or less, depending on how sweet you want your creme to be. Taste and decide.


Heat the 3 cups of half and half to just boiling, then sprinkle gelatin over the cold 1/2 maple syrup mixture and let stand 1 minute. Then add hot half and half and stir until gelatin dissolves (5 minutes). Pour into one big mold or several small ones and chill in the refrigerator for several hours until set. Un- mold cremes by running a little hot water over the bottom of the mold.

Sopa de Fideo- Noodle Soup with Corn, Garlic, Mild Green Chiles, and Cream

This is my version of a Mexican noodle soup, and it is a most versatile dish that simply through the addition or reduction of broth can be a soup, a stew, or a creamy pasta dish. There is no right or wrong way to make it, and its ingredients can be in whatever proportion you like. If you wish to add more chiles, feel free. Add table cream or substitute sour cream. Eat it for breakfast scrambled with eggs. Wrap it in a taco for lunch. Add broth at supper and pour it over home fried flour tortilla wedges lining the bottom of your soup bowl. I have made three batches this week and have subsisted on it. If you have children I assure you there will be none left over.

By substituting vegetable broth one can call it vegetarian as well. And it is inexpensive. Its ingredients can be found at any market. A large pot takes under an hour to make. Should you wake up at midnight, there it will be, if your family has not finished it off.



32 oz chicken or vegetable broth plus one cup of water

1 medium yellow onion, diced and sauteed in corn oil till soft and golden. Be sure to sweat the onion with a little salt.

3-4 cloves of garlic- diced or crushed in a press

1-2 4oz cans diced mild green chiles

15 oz can cream style corn

15 oz can golden corn kernels

A few splashes of hot sauce(Optional)

2 cups of fideo noodles or of vermicelli snapped into small pieces

Corn oil to saute onions and to brown noodles

1 packet of Iberia "Sazon" Coriander/Annatto seasoning if you can find it at the Latin Market. It is optional and you can always add a little tomato paste to get that warm orange-yellow color instead.


Saute the onion till golden, then add the garlic and lightly saute it as well in the corn or vegetable oil.

Put the broth,all the corn, and the chiles in a large sauce pan. When the onion and garlic are soft add them to the broth. Add the Iberia seasoning or the tomato paste. Now add more corn oil to the saute pan, add half the noodles and lightly brown them. You may also brown the second cup of noodles, but I only do half and add the second cup plain. Cover and cook over medium low heat until the noodles are soft. Taste for seasoning. Remove from the heat, allow to cool a bit, and stir in 1/2 cup of cream or sour cream or 1/4 cup of both. If you feel the soup is too thick, add a little water or more broth. Because the noodles will continue to absorb the broth, you may need to thin the soup with a little more water the next day. If there are leftovers!


I think fried tortilla strips on top of a bowl of this would be excellent as well.

Sunrise Today and a Still Life of Beagle with Biscuits

Today is cold, and rain is on the way this afternoon. Yet yesterday was sunny and warm, and when the dogs and I went to the park we found Spring Beauties blooming in the grass along a meadow stream. Today's Tennessean reports that the mumes are blooming at Cheekwood, and that the tulips are coming up. I have seen 80 degree days in February here, and I have seen winters so warm that bedded out wax begonias came back from the roots. We are having Spring in Winter, our fifth season, and a dangerous one. Peach trees may break dormancy ,gambling on 70 degrees. I have a hydrangea on my porch that is waking up. It will be sorry, as will we when the peach crop fails.

As for the beagle and the biscuits, all I can say is that beagles think they can help cook (or at the very least pre-wash dishes). And Shih Tzus think they can help make a bed. I am lucky they both don't haunt the kitchen, or I would never be able to move.

Later today I plan to post a recipe for one of my new favorite recipes- Sopa De Fideo. Mexican Noodle Soup. Here is a preview -

Hidden Lake and the Persistence of Daffodils

This is Hidden Lake. Not really a lake,but an old limestone quarry lined with concrete and once advertised as "The World's Most Beautiful Swimming Pool". Above it on the limestone cliffs among the cedars, was a resort with stone steps, then wooden stairs leading to the pool. The resort was on the Nashville-Memphis Highway, now known only as Route 70, and it took in guests in the late twenties and early thirties. It had a pit barbecue and a round stone dance floor. "Dance Under the Stars" reads an old flyer now preserved under glass at the kiosk at the entrance to the park. There were rumors of moonshiners and stills hidden in the woods back then, for Nashville was a long way off-

The lodge burned in the thirties, and yesterday a friend and I walked the rim of limestone cliffs above the lake to see if we could find anything remaining. We took a trail to the left of the lake and scrambled up a mere goat path of sharp rocks and narrow ledges , and we were both comforted to know the rattlesnakes were winter sleeping for if ever there was a homeplace for timber rattlers, this was it. Down, down, down on one side was the Harpeth River, and across it the Veteran's Cemetery. The pool was on our other side. At the top, among the second growth we found an open space where the lodge must have been, but no foundation, no charred wood. Only a park bench and no explanation.

We did find stones that looked like steps here where my friend is standing, but the wooden stairs shown in the antique photo in the kiosk were long gone to the rain and the termites.

I grew up in New England, and in the woods of New Hampshire one sometimes found old settlements where only the orchards and the stone walls remain. It is not long before the woods and the vines and water and time bury everything, and there is no more dancing under the stars. And yet some hardy remnants do persist. Someone planted these daffodils, and they have multiplied as they do in old pastures and wood edges and places where no one could imagine there once was a home.

Water will eat its way through limestone. The dance floor at Hidden Lake will crack and crumble. But the daffodils, thrifty and humble, will go on and on.

*If you go to Hidden Lake keep yourself and children on the trails. Near the quarry there are almost hidden spikes of rebar and sharp rocks in the woods. Use caution.

Signs of Spring- Sunday, January 22 Nashville, Tennessee

The Lenten Roses and Winter Jasmine were blooming today in the garden of Mrs George Rosenthal of Nashville, Tennessee. The daffodils, budded but not blooming, were found in the woods near the old resort Of Hidden Lake in the Harpeth River State Park. The beagle is Dippity Dog, and he was just there for the rabbits.

Once More to the Lake- Hidden Lake

Morning here in the Tee-Tiny Kitchen writing room. On Sundays it is best to rise early to hear WGBH live stream the bird songs they have been playing at six am for decades. A tradition started by the late Robert J. Lurtsema, a most civilized man.

One minor political note this morning. Oh those South Carolinians. They are such comedians! First they fire on Fort Sumter. Now they shoot Newt Gingrich out of a cannon, aimed at the heart of the country-

Today's agenda is a return to Hidden Lake. I, and my fellow elderly explorer Mrs George Rosenthal, will be returning to Hidden Lake State Park on the Harpeth River this morning to see if we can find the remnants of the old lodge there. A previous post revealed how we stumbled on the old dance floor on top of the quarry where the resort was in the 30's- a nest of moonshiners and fun-lovers. This resort was on the old Nashville-Memphis Highway 15 miles from downtown Nashville. If we are lucky we will find not only the site of the lodge, but perhaps some early violets or spring beauties blooming as this has been a warm winter. A full report to follow-