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!

In case you didn’t know the phrase “Sippity Sup” started out as the title of a Nursery Rhyme.

I feel kinda bad that I sorta usurped that poor old Nursery Rhyme. I mean it was a lesser-known Nursery Rhyme to begin with. I don’t think it held much favor with Mother Goose. So it wasn’t really that hard to beat the Google pants off it.

Still, there was a time when you could Google “Sippity Sup” and you’d find references to that less than popular children’s poem of the same name. Then “along comes a spider” in the form of a food blogger. And guess what? Now that poor little Nursery Rhyme does not even come up on the first page when you Google the phrase. That’s my fault… it wasn’t intentional. I never even knew what HTML was before I started this blog. Let alone understand how to optimize it!

I like spicy food.

I even like really spicy food.

In my current state of broken jaw with mouth wired shut, I seem to be missing spicy food. Even more than a nice chewy cut of red meat. I am sure that particular craving will hit me soon (like a ton of bricks). After all my mouth has been closed for business less than a week now. Give it some time. The worst is yet to come. I am sure it will start to get ugly real soon.

But right now, right here, today, I want something spicy and south of the border in flavor.

I’d really like a torta al pastor from any one of the many thousands of taco stands or trucks that dot the corners of Los Angeles (gosh, you gotta LOVE Los Angeles). But pork is not a tune my teeth can tap to anytime soon. Heck even bread or tortillas are out of the question for several more weeks.

What’s a man to do?

Are burgers really worth a whole week of SippitySup’s time?

I mean, I know you love a good burger. They really are an iconic food. Which was my thesis when I announced a week devoted to burgers. If you missed my nostalgic tribute to the American style hamburger click here.

In the original post I made the argument that the sight of a burger sizzling on the grill was so very emblematic of the good old USA.

But in truth a classic American burger is nothing more than a seasoned meat patty. And seasoned meat patties appear in some form or another in the diet of nearly all the world's cultures.

Even the idea of cooking the meat outdoors is a “borrowed” method. There is some evidence that what has morphed into the “Back Yard Bar-B-Que" got its start a very long tome ago in Mongolia.

And on an international level, the choice of meat may vary. So might the seasonings. But the simple process of grinding, mixing, compressing and searing the juicy flavor into certain meats, herbs and spices has become universally beloved.

Hopefully I am not stepping on "you know which Spuds" toes. But today I am talking tater.

I got a handful of new potatoes from a gardener friend recently. It’s tempting to think that new potatoes are a specific variety of potato. But that is inaccurate.

New potatoes are actually immature potatoes dug shortly after the plant begins to flower. They can come in almost any variety. In other words you could have Yukon Gold new potatoes AND Red-Skinned new potatoes. Popular varieties of potatoes that are often harvested early and referred to as new potatoes are Maris Bard, Premiere and Rocket.

I have often heard people say fingerling potatoes are new potatoes because they are the immature version of some particular type of potato. This is not exactly accurate. Fingerlings are indeed a named potato variety and there are several types: Australian Crescent, French Fingerling, Rose Finn Apple, etc. Which is not to say you can’t get new potatoes that are indeed fingerlings. But they would be fingerling new potatoes, just as an immature Yukon Gold would be a Yukon Gold new potato.