This is the thing about the great big wonderful world of blogs– are you listening? Blogs can open you up to a whole great big wonderful world!

Yesterday I was over at No Recipes. He posted a delicious and very Marc looking Aloo Gobi, which is an Indian dish of spiced cauliflower with potatoes. Something about it hit me just the right way. So I decided right then that I would make it for lunch– immediately.

This is not the type of thing I usually cook. In fact this is the kind of thing I usually reserve for restaurants. It’s not that I can’t cook food like this. I just proved (at least to myself) that I can. But for some reason I just don’t… but I guess that is a question between my pantry and me.

Speaking of my pantry, my pantry gets a lot of the credit for the success of today. I keep my pantry in tip-top shape. You never know when it’s going to get a strong work out from a difficult challenger. This Indian spiced dish is a perfect example of the kind of preparedness I am talking about because I was able to read Marc’s post and look at his pictures and start right in on cooking my version with in a few moments. So I am pretty proud of that fact.

It happened again. I ripped off KCRW’s Good Food. This time my victim was Jean Francois Meteigner the chef at La Cachette Bistro in Santa Monica.

When I left the house this morning for the Hollywood Farmers Market I had an open mind about what I would find for my weekly Market Matters post. I was determined to pick something this week that I was unfamiliar with– something new to me, something that would necessitate putting my brain in gear. Stretch myself. Grow a little. Try something new!

I saw English shelling peas in the pod, they super tempted me. Not that they are all that original. I cook with peas almost every week of my life. Still when they are fresh from the market, it’s easy to throw all your other plans out the window. But I decided that the peas were not really peaking yet, and I’d rather wait a few more weeks and be rewarded with perfect peas. Besides there was that promise I made: Stretch myself. Grow a little. Try something new!

It has been absolutely weeks since I have done a Market Matters post from the Hollywood Farmers Market. Travel, and sickness have kept me “up the hill” and unable to shop there most Sundays lately. I think my last Sunday post from the Market was in November. But don’t quote me on that!

Depending on where you live you might hate me for what I am about to say next, but it is 82 degrees F. (28 degrees C.) today in Los Angeles. Which leads me to the next little statement you may hate me for uttering. The Hollywood Farmers Market runs all year. That’s 12 months or 52 weeks (in a row)… la-dee-dah la-dee-dah!

So on this gorgeous sunny Sunday morning the only weather related issue in my life was whether to wear the new orange cargo shorts or my good old Sunday favorites­­– the camouflage cut-offs. I won’t tell you which I chose ‘cuz that would be too much like rubbing it in.

But just so you know my life is not all sunbeams and lollipops. Nope, I have some cloudy thoughts too. Like this morning, as me and my camouflage cut-offs (oops I let that slip– sorry) plopped ourselves down on the terrace to read the Sunday paper a couple of disturbing thoughts floated through my mind. First, did I remember to put on sunscreen this morning? I did not need another Sunday suntan. My poor skin needs a break. And second, I must admit, I felt a little performance anxiety. It’s been so long since I chose something from the Hollywood Farmers Market to bring to you, my virtual eaters. I was worried that maybe I had lost my groove.

For this entry into my Panamanian Cooking Series I want to feature Wolfgang Puck and Spago. You can’t really talk about iconic Hollywood restaurants without including Spago. But Spago is not all that it used to be. The new Spago in Beverly Hills represents a certain kind of dining in Los Angeles. Solid, dependable and perfectly delicious. It’s not where you would go exclusively to see stars. The food is too good for that, and while the occasional star certainly dines there, the new Spago seems to have the attention of the serious Los Angeles foodie.

But you know what? I preferred the old Spago, even though I rarely went during it’s hey days of the 1980s and early 1990s. In my mind there is something so elusive about the old Spago in West Hollywood, I can’t quite describe the vibe of the place. Though in my photos here I did try to capture the extravagant starkness mixed with a neon glow that seemed to pulse through the restuarant's windows. It sat on a cliff above Sunset Blvd in old wood frame building with windows all around. In a city that puts a premiuim on views it had one of the best. Not that I ever got a window table there.

Today I have a pumpkin pas de deux. As elegant a moment as you will ever see here at SippitySup. Because, as promised, I am presenting Thanksgiving standards in two ways every day. And I know you know that pumpkin is the Thanksgiving Gold Standard!

Now if you are unfamiliar with the pas de deux, let me enlighten you. In ballet, a pas de deux (French, step/dance for two) is a duet in which ballet steps are performed together. Popular pas de deux appear both in Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. There was even a gorgeously animated outer space pas de deux in the movie WALL-E. It was every bit as stunning and thematically correct as any I have ever seen on stage.  So who says robots can’t be artists?

Of course the obvious thing about a pas de deux is it takes two. I could have said it takes two to tango because in fact a tango is a form of the pas de deux, with out some of the rigid standards the ballet version requires.

It’s my Birthday! Yep, today is the day. November 11^th. Eleven/Eleven!

Don’t ask how old I am though, not that I wouldn’t tell you; it’s just that I have not quite decided how old I am going to be this year. I used 32 for way too many years. I can’t really get away with that one anymore. So I gotta think of a new age. Once I decide you’ll be the first to know. I promise.

In the meantime what are we going to do to celebrate? I am not really a “gifts” kind of person. Presents always make me uncomfortable, in an “I’m not worthy kind of way”. It’s always excruciating, even when I love the present, because I always manage to come across as ungrateful. I can be such a prickly bastard. I don’t know why. In actuality I have never been given a gift I did not love whole-heartedly. I just have trouble expressing it in any other way than an “I’m not worthy” kind of way.

It’s kind of like that scene in the movie Harold and Maude. Harold gives Maude a lovely token of his love and she flings it into the bay as Harold watches in astonishment. She then sighs contentedly and says, to Harold’s confusion– “so I’ll always know where it!” It’s not that she didn’t love her present, it’s just the emotions of the moment overwhelmed her, and she acted unconventionally. Well, I am kind of like Maude, only younger and not as good looking… so don’t make any jokes, ‘cuz I’ve heard ‘em all before!