I’m a guest blogger on a Spokane-based site, reminiscing about places I miss in the old stomping grounds.

I love the title of that blog — taste everything once — a fine goal to which every foodie should aspire.

Last weekend, I got a special thrill introducing a friend of Claire’s to that concept. K had never before tried Indian food, but was game and turned into a fan after a trip through the buffet at India Palace… oh, those lamb meatballs!

Later, I put him to the acid test: sushi. He tried a tempura shrimp roll and an eel roll, and said he liked them. Maybe he was being polite, but at least he tried it. Unlike little Miss C.

Do you remember your very first time with some exotic food? What’s too weird to be off-limits?

… sorry for the delay in getting your excellent comments posted. Technical difficulties on the homefront this weekend. I have the most antiquated dial-up connection… using my cell phone and a USB cable. Dark ages, man.

Anyway, thanks for all the inspiration, especially on the grilled cheese front. Cannot wait to try some of these savory suggestions.

Did a little mad scientist work myself, trying to recreate a wonderful flash-fried curried okra that I fell in love with at a restaurant in NYC called Devi. It passed the “I-won’t-eat-that-slimy-stuff” husband taste test. Sliced it paper thin on my (rarely used) mandoline, lengthwise and stir-fried it in a hot wok. Finished it with some Madras curry powder and red pepper flakes. Pretty tasty.

Of course, I’ve got a bunch of this “red velvet” okra left… can I pickle it without processing it? Like make a hot, spicy vinegar and pour it over the okra… and keep it in the fridge? Or should I just carve out an evening and make a big batch of gumbo? Beyond that, I’m so okra recipe challenged… any ideas?

I had to check my calendar yesterday… was it Y2K? The computer meltdown had arrived a few years late? Hopefully, we are over the technical difficulties hump.

My family occasionally likes to rib me because I was one of those fools who bought water and flashlights in anticipation of the grid going down at the turn of the century… I wasn’t as bad as some of my friends who prepared for the worst. But then again, what’s wrong with making like a Boy Scout?

I read an entertaining story about a woman from Florida who wrote a book called “Storm Gourmet”, cooking, or more accurately, not cooking, with whatever’s in the cupboard.

Anybody have edible provisions for power outages? What’s your strategy for stocking up?

One of my heros… Marian Burros (New York Times food writer and author of my favorite cookbooks of all time including “Cooking for Comfort” and “20-minute menus”) has a story in today’s Times about all the additives the agribiz folks pump into meat including salt and water… for which consumers pay a premium price.

Here’s that excellent article.

Does this give you pause? What’s the best approach to being a savvy consumer?

Here are a few titles that have landed on my desk recently: “Spectacular Restaurants of Texas”… a hefty atlas-size tome, “Green Tea: 50 Hot Drinks, Cool Quenchers and Sweet and Savory Treats”, the “Johnsonville Big Book of Sausage” and “Tomatoes and Mozzarella”…

The Culinary Institute of America has put out “Culinary Boot Camp”, basic training at the country’s most famous cooking school. Reminded me of the course I took there, with Toni Sakagucci… we made stocks and turned them into sauces and bouillbaisse and mole. We made bread and learned about the importance of getting your mise en place in order… gathering ingredients before starting on a recipe.

I’m also re-reading John Egerton’s classic on “Southern Food.”

What’s on your reading list this summer?

After meeting one of my fave writers recently in NYC, I picked up a copy of Mr. Calvin Trillin’s “Feeding a Yen” and I’m loving it. Just savored a chapter on chowhound.com, and Mr. Trillin’s appreciation of that ground-breaking Web site’s “Alpha Dog” exploration of NYC’s outer bouroughs in search of edible exotica. It makes me so hungry turning these pages.

I mentioned it in a previous entry, but I also need to highly recommend “My Life in France” by Julia Child, cleverly put together by her great nephew, Alex Prud’homme. It’s wonderfully read by Flo Salant Greenberg, who captures Julia’s zest for discovery. Child is dead serious when it comes to getting recipes right, but is also often silly, saying things like “whoppee!” Listening to this inspired me to dive back in to Mastering the Art of French Cooking once again. I’m going to experiment with quenelles this weekend. Whoppee!

What delicious book are you devouring this summer?

Thanks Gregg, for the link to the entertaining Waiterrant.net site… though I’m a little skeptical. This server is such a good writer, these page-turning posts almost read like fiction. He quotes Jean Paul Satre, for gosh sake’s!

I’ve been getting an earful about bad service experiences around Memphis — the latest, about rude treatment at Encore — so, it’s refreshing to get a perspective from the other side of the table. I have a ton of respect for hard-working service staff… a great waiter can make a bad meal bearable. But a crummy waiter or a snarky hostess can spoil the most delicious entree.

This goes out to diners and servers: Want to share some nightmarish experiences? Or, some wonderful memory-making moments?

… is painful sometimes.

I try hard to keep this space light and bright. Politics and religion and all that jazz get plenty of attention elsewhere… this spot is about food.

But Chris commented on a couple of entries suggesting a boycott of Mexican restaurants because they employ illegal aliens. This is a red-hot button topic… and a very complex one at that. All you have to do is read the story in last week’s New York Times about a gifted high school student — an illegal from Africa — who was abandoned by his parents and is now in danger of being deported. It’s heartbreaking.

Like so everything that has to do with race, this issue is certainly not black and white… still, in the interest of respecting everyone’s opinion, I decided to let the comment from Chris stand.

Care to add your two cents? Or, am I opening up a big ugly can of worms here?

… for my pal’s new book: “How to Date… In a Post-Dating World”… by Diane Mapes.

There’s no food connection, unless you count the hilarious anecdotes of blind dates gone wrong over dinner. It’s fresh, funny, and yes, my husband knows I’m reading it.

Check out the website for a taste: howtodatebook.com.