I have so many little people to thank for this recipe!

I never could have done it were it not for the bold pioneers who went before me. Although the inspiration for this recipe may come from many, I have decided to take all the credit myself! And if I cry and sniffle a little whilst taking all the credit, people will cheer me on as an underdog. The little guy who beat "the man".

That's me– The Little Engine That Could!  I believe this is the way you get ahead in the world, n'est-ce pas?

Because truthfully I did have many an inspiration when I sat down and started putting this recipe together. One of the primary "little people" involved in this dish is a quaint cook named Daniel Boulud. Perhaps you've heard if him? He runs a charming little self-named cafe on an island somewhere. It's a bit off the beaten track on East 76th Street, I believe. If you ever find yourself in that part of the world you must pop in. Tell him Sup! sez Hi...

You want to hear something funny. SippitySup has a rank of 4332 in Panama. It's my best rank per country in the world. Which means that SippitySup is a very popular site in Panama. It seems so random, but it’s true.

I start with that little fact because I have some exciting news; SippitySup has been invited to Panama to lead a cooking demonstration for a group called Boquete Gourmet. Somehow little tiny SippitySup has managed to catch the hearts of a group of food loving ex-pats living the high life near the border with Costa Rica. Boquete is a beautiful town adjacent to the mighty Volcan Barú, and I am very honored and excited to be invited.

Boquete is a peacful little mountain community that is often described as Paradise. In fact Forbes magazine recently rated Boquete as one of the top 10 places to retire in the world. Harper's Bazaar says, "Panama is the most beautiful retreat in the world and almost undiscovered."

Well Sup! is about to discover it in a big way!

Well you have made it. Congratulations.

This is the final post in my weeklong tribute to apples. That’s right, 8 recipes featuring apples have rolled across these pages in an equal number of days. At SippitySup we work hard, and 8-day workweeks are not unheard of.

Your reward for sticking by me throughout these posts is the very best of the apple recipes. You may even learn something. Because not only has my brother Sip! paired this recipe with an interesting and affordable alternative to the highly esteemed Châteaunuef-du-Pape. But I have something for you too. I am going to put your fears to rest!

What fears you ask? Well your fears of cooking duck, of course.

We are already on our third recipe in this Apple A Day series and I just realized we never really talked about choosing a good apple.

You know the phrase about one bad apple spoiling the bunch. That can be interpreted very broadly and metaphorically if you like. But it’s also a literal truism when it comes to actual apples. Ripe apples emit ethylene gas as they age and ethylene gas is a party drug to apples. One whiff of the stuff and perfectly fine apples think the party is ending and they hasten their own ripening process, leading quite quickly to the rotting process. Chilling apples can slow the party down, so it is one fruit I do keep in the fridge. But chilled or no, apples should not be kept in a bag or a pile. They are less likely to pass (ethylene) gas onto their neighbors if they are stored in a single layer.

Since bad apples can be so detrimental to good apples, I usually start my choosing process by eliminating the bad apples.

Nature’s Pride sent me a couple of loaves of bread recently asking me to try their new product. Free bread – what’s not to like!

But seriously, I thought I’d put this bread through the paces. So I made sandwiches. Good sliced bread absolutely must do well with sandwiches. It’s 90% of its duty at my house.

I am pleased to report that it indeed made excellent sandwiches. The main reason for this fact was because it's not too sweet. Have you noticed that many of the grocery store brands of bread have gotten strangely sweet? It seems modern companies have crept up the processed sugar content in these breads slowly over time. As Americans began to turn to “healthier” whole grain sliced bread I think these companies doubled down on their bets by increasing the sugar content.

My interest in Southern Italy continues.

Today I am concentrating on the so-called “heel of the boot”. It is generally known as Puglia. Though I have seen it called Apulia, Puglie and les Pouilles.

The area is perhaps the most contradictory region in Italy. Alternatively, desolate and picturesque. Compared to most of the country, tourists are still quite rare.

Many books I have read claim that the culture of food is less defined here than it is in many other regions in Italy, despite the plentitude of good fresh seafood from the Adriatic. Especially shellfish. I recall tremendous mussels battered and fried that make for a memory to last a lifetime. So I am not quite sure who decided that the region was somehow gastronomically challenged. I think perhaps Puglia's food gets a bad rap because it reflects the rustic ingenuity that its poverty-stricken roots requires. Because the dry soil can be difficult to work with and is not as prolific as other regions, Apulians have had to to make more with less.