Which is why salt cod was invented. (Well, not because of the chicken part of all that.) It's a way to preserve the catch for the long winter: the fish so highly salted that it can't go bad. In other words, the only way to eat locally in a world of snow.

Isn't it funny that something that was created as a means of survival has now got high-falutin' culinary aspirations? We can even find salt cod at our local supermarket these days!

I can't wait until you see it! It's the first time I've written a book in first-person. All our other books are written as "we." This one's "I." It's my fractured, at-times hilarious take on how Bruce developed those 100 recipes, plus the story of how we raised our own pig, took it to slaughter, tried to cure one leg, failed, tried again, and learned more about ham than you can imagine, including tres chic European hams and down-home American country hams.

To quote from the introduction:

From that first fateful day when we started this project [you'll have to read about it--let's just say it involves the lethal combo of Eudora Welty and porn], Bruce and I have endured refrigerators full of ham leftovers, with hunks of pork being delivered by UPS every afternoon; I've been to northern Kentucky in the dead of freeze-butt winter; both of us have been to a ramshackle slaughterhouse in rural Massachusetts; and we have borne witness to an enormous toe-on pig leg in our back refrigerator, a swarm of maggots in a French charcuterie, and a group of chic, black-bedecked New Yorkers eating a quivering pile of ham in aspic.

So let's get our first sneak-peak recipe from the book: the way to make your own wet-cured ham.

OK, stick with me here. A great old dessert requires a bit of work. (As if you didn't know.) On this final post of the three, we're going to make two things: crème pâtissière and crème Chantilly. Wow. More and more cream. Mostly because it's a beverage.

And thus, the nougatine.

A nice slice will do for me--and you, too. Because it's definitely real food. Crazy, over the top, indulgent--but real all the way. For a celebration, a Paris-Brest can't be beat.

All this week, we're going to put this behemoth together, step by step. To start, we have to make the dough--aka, the pâte à choux (pronounced: paht-ah-shoe), the ring of cake itself. It'll involve some fancy pastry-cheffery and some Frenchified terms; but with Bruce's help in the kitchen, we're going to get it done and bring back the old desserts, the old ways, the real ways, the Paris-Brest.

So what does all this have to do with this fish stew, made with shrimp and cod as well as sturdy kale, one of winter's delights? Well, for one thing, a simple stew like this is not really me. (Just wait until you see what's up next week on this blog, my friend!) But it's what I crave in all my windy fandango: simplicity. 

No doubt about it, I'm baroque. To say the least. By contrast, Bruce is steady, straight-on. Mozart to my counterpoint. Poor guy, he has to endure endless days of Bach, particularly when I've pulled out the overdrive on the writing mode. (The first-ever book on goat, anyone? I've got Bach's Cantata #37 blasting right now, the speakers only inches away.)

When it gets like this--just as it was on that TV show the other day--he sort of brings the whole thing back to reality. And does the best thing he could: he feeds me comfort food. Like a great fish stew. Could anything be better?

And winter it is. It's snowing at our house. Has been for days. So we're hunkered down for the long haul. (Or at least until we have to be out the door early in the morning for a working trip into New York City.)

Let's just say this: it's hard to eat in season when your driveway is a skating rink. But kumquats fit the bill. Bright and divine, they're in our markets right now.

While Bruce was out teaching knitting the other night, I wanted to make a simple skillet supper that used kumquats to good effect. I knew I'd need to balance them with lots of aromatics and other big flavors. So here's what I came up with.

These little bits of sweet zip show up in relish trays in small Brazilian restaurants, even in New York, but particularly near Cachoeira. They're usually made with small, red onions, ones we don't get in the United States. So Bruce reinterpreted the dish the other night for a dinner party with shallots. He made a room temperature relish tray of these, olives, caper berries, roasted red peppers, Manchego, and grilled squid to serve before a meal of marinated skirt steak, oven fries, and chimichurri. Let's just say we were having a South American feast.

And while the food was good, I loved these shallots most of all.

First, a picture.

A skillet full of browning, herb-laced meatballs. Pretty good, eh? OK, so now the truth. Ready? I don't like ground meat.

OK, don't leave me. I did my best to prepare you. There's more. I could probably go the rest of my life and not eat another hamburger. (See, it gets worse.)

Growing up, we called it "loose meat." As in "loose meat sandwiches." (AKA, Sloppy Joes.) Call me crazy, but I don't like loose meat rolling around my plate. It's unbecoming. Plus, you have to go through about a thousand sessions of expensive therapy for every time your mother ever asked you as a teenager, "Mark, are you willing to try some loose meat tonight?"

That said, Bruce has changed me over the years. (Darn you, marriage.) I've actually gotten to the point where I like meatloaf. And--get this--crave meatballs. Beg for them, in fact. I'm still not over the burger thing, but I'm working on it. Nonetheless, when we were writing COOKING KNOW-HOW, the chapter on meatballs was hands-down my favorite. I loved the whole technique, the way you could make this crazy, global range, from Turkish kofta to buttery Danish frikadeller, from down-home Italian meatballs to Romanian chiftele (made with mashed potatoes and lots of garlic).

So I begged for meatballs the other night. And here's what I got: