I found out I don't know squat about quats!

I mean I know kumquats. I am quite familiar with loquats. Ditto limequats, and orangequats. I have even eaten dishes prepared with the least quatly named of the quats the calamondin.

But I gotta admit I never even heard of the quat I quaffed recently from the Hollywood Farmers Market. It's called a mandarinquat, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this little fruit is a cross between a kumquat and a mandarin. And I didn't need to be a genius to decide to choose these as the subject for my weekly Market Matters post. After all, it's citrus season, and I mean look at these little beauties! They've got Sup! written all over them.

The farmer who grew them said, they are best eaten raw– simply popped in your mouth like a kumquat. He said they were sweeter than a kumquat, with the same yummy skin as a kumquat. Sounded pretty good to me. So I left the market with a couple of pounds, quite pleased to suggest to all of you to do just that.

Winter is the height of the season in Southern California for many of the greens we all love.

Kale, Spinach, Rapini, Chard, Mustard, Pea Tendrils. You see them this time of year at the market. They are so beautiful, like masterful Baroque still-life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age.  The intensity of detail of these greens can almost be off putting. Intricate shapes, complex gradations of color; thick, lush and vibrant. Cooking with them just makes you feel like an artist.

But if you are able to look past all the variations of green greens, you might notice another type of green entirely. And that green is RED!

You may be familiar with Red Leaf Lettuce. It’s a pretty alternative to the Green Leaf Lettuce you find in your local supermarket. Aside from its striking red blush, it tastes fairly similar to its more common green brother. Though, I swear it gets all black and slimy much quicker than the green guy.

I am off tonight for an overnight flight to Panama. I will be leading a cooking demonstration for a group called Boquete Gourmet, highlighting 6 recipes from 6 legendary restaurants of Hollywood. It’s an exciting honor to be asked and I am ready for this adventure!

And an adventure is exactly what this is going to be. We arrive in Panama City Christmas morning, where (hopefully) a rental car will be waiting for us. Then we will drive the entire length of the country (8 hours by car) from the lowlands near the canal– all the way up to the Volcan Barú, the country's highest elevation, near the Costa Rican Border. This is where the beautiful village of Boquete lies and this is where I will be showing off my culinary razzmatazz!

In the meantime, it’s Christmas Eve and I am still in Los Angeles surrounded by my friends. As a holiday gesture I am making a big bunch of scones so that the poor suckers I am leaving behind will have something to remember me by come Christmas morning.

Egg in the Basket, Toad in the Hole… Pig in a Whistle. I can’t quite remember what I am supposed to call this dish. That’s because I have a bad cold. I don’t even feel well enough to google the name.

So you can pick any one of those names or make up one of your own, then berate me in the comment section later. Besides today might be your lucky day. I am feeling so low energy I might even go ahead and publish it with out editing it… but probably not.

If you don’t mind, I think I’ll call this dish by its French name Oeufs en Croustade. It was a good enough name for Julia Child and it’s good enough for me. Besides, I don’t feel well and French is my comfort language. Yes I may be American, but I sometimes slip into French when I am feverish. I can’t explain it. Que signifie-t-ceci ? Suis-j'insensé?

So when I am feeling this way, the truth is– I just don't care what your Aunt Polly called this dish. And I certainly am not cutting the hole into the shape of a heart or a star. Because contrary to what Aunt Polly said, cute shapes will not make me heal faster. Just ask your uncle Walter…

Maintenant me pardonner j'ai un oeuf pour manger.

Sometimes you just don’t need a recipe to know what your body craves. This is one of those days, because I have a bad cold. One of those I don’t want to do anything at all kind of colds.

I have been battling it for 5 days. It started typically enough with a scratchy throat. By the next day I had a stuffy nose, but no fever. In fact if it weren’t for the stuffy nose I would have said I felt just fine. I had just about convinced myself that it was not a cold at all, just a mild allergy flair up.

But, alas sometime in the night these sniffles moved into my chest and sat down with a great heavy thud!  My chest is so congested that it actually feels as if a great big bear is sitting on it while sticking a long feather down my throat. Tickling away for his own amusement. The tickle leads to a cough, the cough leads to hack and the hack brings up some of the nastiest stuff you’d ever want to see.

The only way to calm the tickle and stop the process is to drink warm tea. And I mean constantly. But a man’s gotta eat too. So it’s toast for me. Tea and toast with a little butter and honey for comfort.

Can you stand it? I mean look at these eggs.

It is not Easter and I did not dye these eggs. This case of chromatic craziness was all the hens doing. I know I have told you that the Hollywood Farmers Market has so many wonderful products and not all of them are vegetal.

So for this week's Market Matters I decided to set my sights on something different. There are several vendors of super fresh eggs at the Hollywood Farmers Market. I got this colorful collection from a couple of different stalls. I chose these eggs for their visual appeal, and I must admit I felt pretty special carrying these eggs home! But once home I was unsure what to do next.

I mean, I typically buy most of my eggs at the grocery store and do not give it much thought beyond making sure to choose free-range eggs. I believe there is a noticeable difference in taste and quality between free-range and the eggs from the poor birds that are confined to cages.

Another day, another apple. After all “an apple a day” is a pretty straightforward phrase.

Today’s apple comes in the form of a cake. An Applesauce Cake. Yesterday I made applesauce because I knew I needed it as an ingredient in this cake. Ordinary store-bought applesauce would not do for this special cake. Thinking ahead is what separates Sup! from a snail...

I know you have heard me say (write) that I am not much of a baker. Which is indeed a true statement. But I am learning to push my boundaries in this regard and baking a bit more (at the insistence of the Nicks at Imafoodblog and Macheesmo; you may even see bread here one day). But for now, my baking focus has been cakes. Simple, rustic cakes. Cakes that are neither too sweet, nor beyond my skill level. Towering layer cakes may be in my future, but let’s take that on in baby steps, shall we?