Mussels are an inexpensive way to get a lot of seafood taste. With about $5, you'll get a pound, and can over-serve two people. And just a few minutes of preparation.

Rinse the mussels. If you purchase these in a grocery store they will already be cleaned several times and not still have dirt and sand in them. If you've found them yourself, you will need to do this yourself.

In a very large pot, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil. Saute a small onion in the oil. Add about 1 cup of dry white wine. When the wine comes to a boil toss in the washed mussels. When the first shell opens toss in the chopped tomato and basil. Give them all another minute on the heat and serve.

A warm crusty bread is an excellent accompaniment. Because there will be nice broth left in your bowl after eating all the mussels. Above we added some peppers from the garden and a garnish of green onions. And served them as is traditional in France - with French Fries.

Steak au poivre -- steak with pepper doesn't need to be a great cut of meat or a huge one. So it can be elegant, and inexpensive.  It's quicker and easier than making a hamburger, high in protein and good for the blood and a cold - last frost of the year - kind of night.

Grind pepper, or crush a mix of peppercorns, which you can buy from Savory Spice Shop, in a mortal and spread out on a plate. Dry the steak and lay it on the pepper, press and turn. Press again and let it rest until you are nearly ready to eat. Julia Child suggests a half hour or three.

xHeat 1 tsp of olive oil and 1 tsp. of butter in a saute pan on medium high heat. The pan is ready when the foam of the butter starts to subside. Cook the steak for three or four minutes per side. Moderate the temperature between medium and high so that the butter/oil doesn't burn.

The meat is medium-rare when it feels slightly springy.

What does this feel like, you've probably always wondered. I heard a great analogy.

 Relax your hand, palm up. Poke or pinch the fleshy part at the base of your thumb. This is what raw/rare meat feels like. Now, press the tip of your index finger to the tip of your thumb (make a little ring with those two fingers). Relax and poke or pinch the thickness of your hand at the base of the thumb again. This is what medium rare feels like. Press the thumb-tip to your first two fingertips and that's what too done feels like.

Keep the saute pan warm and add a little more butter if you can handle it, and then a little bit of cognac or good sherry. Serve the steak on a warm plate and while one of you is serving the rest of the meal, stir the sauce and finally pour over the steak.

Beef Bourguignon is Steuart's all-time best, never-fail crowd pleaser, but he makes it all the time. Poor me.

For a Sunday night dinner with a couple of friends, he wanted to try something different. But thwarting him was a big piece of beef- the last of our cow from Pure Wyoming Beef -- waiting, thawed in the refrigerator.

Daube de Boeuf a la Provencial.

Marinate 3 lbs of beef cubes in 1.5 cups of dry white wine, or a light red, 2 T olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaf, mashed garlic, 2 cups of thin-sliced onions, 2 cups of thin sliced carrots.  At least 3 hours (refrigerate if you're going to leave them longer).


Noon on Sunday: Preheat oven 300 F.
If your bacon is salty, boil it for a few minutes to remove salt. Chop 1lb of mushrooms and 1lb of tomatoes. Drain the meat in a sieve. Line bottom of casserole or LeCruset with bacon, add a layer of marinade and newly chopped vegetable  in the casserole, roll the beef cubes in flour and layer them on, add another layer of bacon and repeat until casserole is full or ingredients are exhausted. Pour the marinade and some beef stock over it all until liquid nearly comes to the top of the casserole.

Cook for about 4 hours.

Skim the fat of the top with a baster.

Using a fork mash ten anchovies and 2 T. capers to a paste. See first photo. Then add to  3 t. wine vinegar, 2 closes of garlic mashed, 1/4 cup minced parsley.

Add this to the casserole and put back in your low temp oven until ready to serve.

It's amazingly different from the rich beef stew from Burgundy.

We served it with roast potatoes, peas and a green salad. Plenty for everyone and left overs, too.

Wine to go with:  an Argentinian Malbec was incredible. We also tried a durif from South Africa -- not so good. Hearty was surprisingly better. The third bottle, a Zinfandel, went down just fine too.

For dessert -- a gluten free coconut cake. Now that's another story.

Well-made cheese is exceptional - shouldn't become usual. It's expensive, high in fat, but pleasantly high in calcium and protein, so it's not junk food. I like to think of it as a special treat, and serve it as the French do, after the main meal. If it's served as hors d'oevres, I can devour cheese like a bag of chips and neither one is very good for me.

Think of each cheese as one of the tiny items on the Tasting Menu at a swank and trendy restaurant. Select three cheeses that are similar but have subtle differences. The smallness of these difference will hone your attention to the unique qualities of each cheese. An ordinary cracker can carry the cheese to your mouth, but these crackers reformat your palette between bites.

Tasmanian Pepper Black Cocoa Crackers:

2 cups flour (spelt is good if you don't want wheat)
1/2 tsp. baking powder (very little is needed at high altitude)
2 Tbs. black onyx cocoa (Savory Spice)
1 cup water
2 tsps. Tasmanian Black Pepper, crushed. Reserve for the rolling
1 tsps. good salt. Reserve for the application just before baking.

Mix dry ingredients (reserve the salt and pepper) together with a wooden spoon and then add water until the mixture forms a dry ball. Some bits might not join in, and some flour may still not be absorbed, so sprinkle a few more drops of water on those and pull everything together with floured hands. You may not need all the water or you may need a touch more. The dough should be moist but not sticky. If it's too sticky add a little flour to the bowl and roll your ball in it. It's okay to move the dough firmly to pull it together and work it a little to even out the texture, but you won't do your crackers any good by kneading them. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Farenheit. The cracker dough is happy to have a rest while it heats.

I remember when someone first told me they were making crackers. The whole process felt burdensome, and I sometimes have that feeling, again, when I'm asked to make them. My crackers are so incredible that I am asked this often. But really the whole mixing process takes less than 5 minutes.

Rolling the dough is fun, and I divide this quantity of dough into four parts and roll the dough very thin, tossing on the pepper when I'm almost at the final thinness and rolling it in. Then I put the slab of dough on a cookie sheet. It you can't handle the dough - if it's really thin or delicate - just slide it onto the back of the sheet with a big spatula. The thinner the better the cracker, I think.

I spray the surface with a mister and sprinkle on the salt, then cut the dough in pieces with a pizza cutter.

Into the hot oven it goes, set timer and cook for 12 to 15 minutes. Roll out the next ball of dough. You can make several flavor by changing the topping at this point if you want. The cracker has backed long enough, if they will break apart easily. You will come up with a thickness and a doneness that you prefer as you make these and other crackers. After you've served them once, you'll want to make more.

Serve warm, if you can, but they will last for days, just like any other cracker.

The cocoa is unsweetened but works to grab your attention with a subtle, lovable chocolate flavor. The special quality of the Tazmanian pepper is that it numbs the mouth. So, Taz pepper works as the perfect palette cleanser, but also forces you to slow down to enjoy all the other subtle tastes offered by the cheese, the wine that accompanies it and the starchy cracker. So, isolate the bits. Instead of trying to get a sample of each thing in one mouthful. This is a course to be enjoyed with small bites in separate parts. A drink of wine after finishing the end of a cracker. Eating the cheese off the top. There is satisfaction with getting the combos right, and each bite is a new experience.