For such terrific vegetable, Romanesco cauliflower is still far too rare, but it does seem to be headed in the right direction. After years of finding it only at farmstands, I saw it last month - more than once - at my favorite greengrocer. Gladdened my foodie little heart, even if it cost $3.50  a head and came so heavily swathed in plastic it looked a bit like King Tut.

Typical head of Romanesco, @ 9 inches tall and maybe 7 inches wide. approximate weight 1.5 pounds

So far, so good. But then just the other day I saw a basket of miniature Romanescos, heads about 3 inches tall, weighing perhaps 2 ounces, being sold for $4.00 each. This was in Manhattan, at Dean and DeLuca furthermore, but I think the sighting remains Eek worthy because those pricy little units were too big to be served beautifully whole and too wilted to be used in a massive flower arrangement which otherwise might have been way cool.

I will refrain from pious remarks about food stamps, but it does seem as though if you’re paying that much you ought to get value for money - even if it’s just snob value. Of course I didn’t buy any, so may be doing them an injustice. Maybe they have a different taste from full size Romanescos, the way Brussels Sprouts have virtues unknown to cabbages. And thus we pass to a happier topic,

Leafy Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts

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Yours for only $499.99, and maybe it's just as well I can't figure out how to make it bigger.

Never would have known the thing exists if yesterday hadn’t been such a slow mail day I actually looked through a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog before putting it on the recycle pile. 

And there was our festive Eek of the Week. It’s 7.5 feet tall, made of powder coated steel, lit with 1150 little red lights that  ”create a scarlet luminescence.”

Shooting fish in a barrel, I know, but still…

No heating season complete without a startup drama, in this case a very loud eek! coming from the woodstove. Bill rescued the source and sent a picture, along with an explanation of why the thing doesn’t look quite right.

immature starling, bound for freedom

“The starling that came down the stovepipe. By spring the white tips on the feathers wear off and the stronger dark fibers (with melanin) give the metallic coloration.”

Fortress Home Depot, Rockland Maine

At first this seemed to need no comment but once I decided to give it an eek I realized that anymore I just drive on by, seeing it without seeing it. Not good, really, no matter how self-preservational. If eyesores don’t keep on right on hurting as many people as possible, they’re going to keep right on getting built.

I love the deep smoky sweetness of prunes – less cloying than dates, more rounded than apricots  - and am a sucker for things like  devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon),  spiced roast duck legs with prunes, and prunes soaked in Armagnac,  one of the world’s best instant desserts, especially over ginger ice cream.

But most of the time I snack on them plain, which presumably makes me the target market for

the newest in prune packaging

Plastic canisters filled with individually packaged prunes, each prune in its own private wrapper.  What a brilliant idea! Why carry snack prunes in a dedicated plastic sandwich bag, using it over and over, when instead you could be making a big contribution to your local landfill? As a bonus, you get to pay almost twice as much for exactly the same prunes.

That’s hard to believe, but having been stewing about this for some time I checked again yesterday and sure enough: Bulk conventional pitted prunes from Adam’s in Poughkeepsie, NY -  $3.50/lb.  Individually wrapped “Ones” from the Stop and Shop roughly 1.5 miles away - $ 2.99 per container, aka $ 6.83/lb.

 Ok. The recipe for PRUNES IN ARMAGNAC,  a duo invented in Southwest France, famous for both pruneaux d’Agen and the ardent spirit that could be described as Cognac with balls.

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