About the Blog at Mark Rubin Writes asserts that we share information about Food and Pleasure, in the midst of Law and Affairs of the Day aka Trotskyite views. Anyone wondered when there might be a post—other than a Curator burger pic—which features food. We checked. June 7 was the last post—Nuts and Cookies—and that’s just shy of eight weeks. Too long!

Today’s post features Chocolate Chip-Cocoa Nib Cookies, Meat Loaf Bolognese, Mushroom Pizza, and Shrimp Fried Rice. I’m working in reverse alpha order, though, as I think the feature picture on Facebook is the one which appears first in the blog post, and the rice is my best picture.

The rice began with good intentions. I’ve been eating more bread than I had been eating—especially in the morning—and I’ve been paying the price. White, lightly seasoned rice has been a good substitute for breakfast, for it goes with my green iced tea and I get all Zen-like.

Alas, last week I had lunch at Food for Ascension. The food is almost all vegan, and amazing. On the way out I couldn’t resist the seed-encrusted bread. Amazing, and Boy Howdy has it angered up my innards.

So I made rice, didn’t eat it, and decided fried rice was on order. I had some leftover oyster mushroom duxelles—finely chopped and sautéed mushrooms—and veggies and some small Oregon shrimp. Onions, shallots, and peppers, along with miso seasoning joined the duxelles in the wok. Rice got added and fried with almost no oil. Shrimp and scallions finished the dish. (I don’t eat eggs, so this dish is even farther from authentic than you thought when you saw shallots and duxelles.) Very tasty, though!

The pizza represented a thoughtless attempt make a good dinner. Thoughtless because, when I got home, my stomach was screaming “Enough with the gluten, you effing z7$#2k!” The dough sat in the Ziploc, and I took it out his morning, to make the pie. Most of the duxelles provided the “sauce.” Mozzarella cheese and fresh slice mushrooms, and touch of grated Romano finished it off. I ate it for lunch. Very good, but the rest is in the freezer. I hope someone eats it, for I really need to be done with gluten. Really!

The meat loaf came about after reading Eating by Jason Epstein. It’s a delightful memoir from an all-everything man in the book publishing business. Anyway, his book includes loose versions of various dishes, and I was taken with a recipe for Pasta Bolognese. I don’t do red meat much anymore, so I bought ground turkey and pork, pancetta, veggies, and milk, and I think I had everything else. I didn’t get to the task, however, and woke up very early on Tuesday or Wednesday, and noted the dates on the meat packages. So, meat loaf. Turkey and pork, plus eggs, milk, white wine, sautéed mirepoix, which is chopped carrot, celery, and onion, oregano, salt, pepper, and just a bit of panko crumbs to hold everything together. Into the oven for a while I tried to sleep a bit more, and here’s the end product, after a day or so in the fridge to firm up. Excellent!

Finally, I do bring a treat to work most Mondays. Often my concoction includes healthy flours, dried fruit, etc. When no one ate much of last week’s cake I noted that fact. So I made plain old chocolate chip cookies … until, just before I started scooping teaspoon-sized balls, I saw the cocoa nibs I have for the nut mix I make. Just the earthy touch these sweet treats needed.

P.S. Sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoyed this post.