Creme Brulée, this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie pick, is the officially sanctioned birthday dessert of my grandmother (aka Mommaw). She discovered it when she was in her early 80s, along with Titans football, French bulldogs, William Shatner and profanity. Our portions come in dainty little ramekins; hers is served up in a large gratin dish. The morning after her birthday, she has Creme Brulée for breakfast. Probably with slab bacon.

If you’ve never tried Créme Brulée, literally “burnt cream,” it’s a very rich, cold vanilla custard topped with a layer of caramelized sugar. The entire experience of this dessert is all about the moment you break through that brittle shell and taste the first spoonful of creamy custard and crackly sugar crust. That experience also dupes people into thinking they couldn’t possibly make this dessert at home, but you probably have the ingredients: heavy cream, whole milk, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla. For the restaurant price of this dessert, you could make many, many ramekins of Creme Brulée at home.

So, what scares people away from making their own? The tempering and the torch.

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WARNING: The following recipe is for Peter Reinhart’s Cinnamon Buns. It has much less fat content than what you’re probably used to, so the results more closely resemble a bun than something you would find at Cinnabon. Think bready, not gooey.

You should be seeing a delicious Dimply Plum Cake here, since that is today’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, but I’m in the midst of a food-related allergic reaction that has turned my bottom lip into something that could be entered in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, I will not be introducing anything semi-unusual into my diet until The Lip leaves the building. Seriously, how does Angelina Jolie drink coffee with these things?

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I made Peter Reinhart’s Cinnamon Buns. Once upon a time, I made cinnamon rolls for a living, so when I saw that the Daring Bakers had tried this recipe, I wanted to give it a go. Plus, the day we got married, I promised Jeff I would always make him cinnamon rolls, just like the ones I brought him every weekend from the bakery. Almost nine months later, it was time to make good.

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Salmon is the perfect gateway fish for people who think they hate fish. People who avoid it completely, fry it beyond recognition or drown each bite in tartar sauce, ketchup or malt vinegar. Oh, I was once one of you. The thought of eating a wet, limp, UNBREADED piece of fish? Repulsive.

Then I discovered salmon. A fish that’s easy to prepare, quick to cook, nutritious and can handle big flavors: teriyaki glaze, red pepper, butter and lime, sun-dried tomato pesto. Jeff and I eat salmon every other week, so we are ALWAYS on the lookout for a new salmon recipe. This Peppery Brown Sugar Salmon comes from Recipezaar. Jeff found it online a few weeks ago, and we’ve already made it twice.

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I meant to post Ina Garten’s Apple Turnovers with the rest of the Barefoot Bloggers, but Henry the Wonderdog had to make an unscheduled visit to the vet.

One day, his right eye is watering. The next morning, it’s red and gray. The vet sends us to a veterinary ophthalmologist, who says Henry has a cyst in his eye – a cut – and it’s deep. Deep enough that he needs surgery to save his eye. So, she leaves to check the surgical schedule, and I’m studying the certificates on the wall, trying not to lose it, because I may not carry my dog in a purse, but HE OWNS ME.

Thank God, they were able to take Henry in for surgery right away. I called Jeff at work, and then I called my mom. Both my parents drove an hour during a gas shortage to wait with me. I was afraid Henry would come out of surgery with a patch and an accusatory one-eyed glare, shouting at me like Stewie in “Family Guy”: “DAMN YOU, VILE WOMAN! The outrages I have suffered today will not soon be forgotten!” But when the nurse finally brought Henry out, he was pleasantly dazed and seemed to be hearing the beginning chords of “Inagaddadavida.” Such a relief.

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One of the best things about living in a new city is the anonymity. In my hometown, I can’t make it through a trip to Wal-Mart without seeing someone I know. During my last gynecological exam, my doctor called in her assistant, who happened to be (surprise!) one of my high school classmates. If you thought bumping into your former boss barefaced with bedhead was bad, try making small talk with someone bringing up all your wasted high school potential as they stare at your va-jay-jay.

Too familiar.

Familiarity is a double-edged sword. It can breed contempt or comfort, boredom or nostalgia. Especially when it comes to comfort food. I wouldn’t change a thing about my mom’s homemade chocolate pudding, but apple pie … Apple pie begs for experimentation.

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When I was a kid, my parents would take us for Sunday lunch at Po Folks, one of those family-style Southern restaurants where the drinks are served in Mason jars and the menu features appetizements, onion rangs and Kuntry Fried Steak Salad. One particularly eventful Sunday, Daddy decided I was old enough to order off the menu. I told him I wanted the veggie plate. With Mashed Po-taters, a Baked Po-Tater, Po-Tater Salad and French Fries.

“Rebecca, you are not eating four kinds of potatoes. Pick a real vegetable.”

“Macaroni and cheese.”

In the South, mac and cheese IS a vegetable. Look at any menu of “homestyle veggies,” and you’ll find it, sitting right above the mashed potatoes. We eat it at home, school, potlucks, restaurants, holiday dinners and funerals. Restaurants (and women) are judged on the quality of their macaroni and cheese.

So, when the Barefoot Bloggers decided to try Ina Garten’s Grown Up Mac and Cheese this week, I felt well-versed. Then a quick glance at the recipe put me on notice. Bacon? Gruyere? Blue cheese? Breadcrumbs and basil?

Where was the SOUR CREAM?

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See that gigantic cookie up there? That’s a Chocolate Whopper Malted Drop. Chocolate chips. Whoppers. Malted milk. The hardest thing about making these cookies is chopping the Whoppers before they roll onto the floor. Or you eat them. Or they roll onto the floor and Henry the dog eats them and pants Whopper breath the rest of the night.

The thing is, I wasn’t excited about this Tuesdays with Dorie pick until four days after I’d made them. Straight out of the oven, I thought they were OK. I was ready for crispy and crunchy; I got cakey and chewy. Jeff LOVED them. So, I boxed them up for him to take to the office, with the exception of one lone cookie for today’s photograph.

Four days later, I remembered the photo. And the cookie.

STILL MOIST!

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I didn’t grow up on fried green tomatoes. Fried chicken, fried potatoes, fried okra, fried catfish, fried shrimp, chicken fried steak, French fries, fried turkey, fried rice, fried pies and fried ice cream? Yes. But I’d never even tasted a fried green tomato until last year.

Now, I’m a connoisseur. I’ve eaten them fancy (with lump crab and goat cheese); I’ve eaten them plain. And I’ve gotten Jeff hooked on the ones at our favorite meat-and-three. A place where the weekly menu looks older than the Ten Commandments, and regulars commit it to heart just as reverently, for thou shalt have fried chicken on Monday but thou art outta luck any other day. Luckily, the fried green tomatoes are a daily blessing. Served three at a time on their own dish to keep them crisp. Made with a dredge so coarse you can see the needles of rosemary sticking out, like the tomato’s literally about to explode with flavor.

I love them. But I’d never made them until last night.

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“I cannot make enough chicken pot pies. Regulars call on Tuesday mornings to reserve a pie, forcing me to erase them from the Tuesday specials board before we open for lunch. I keep doubling the number I make, but the demand grows to meet the expanded supply. I’m about to have a line out the door waiting for pot pies.”–Rebecca Rather, The Pastry Queen

I won’t lie. Usually when Jeff asks for chicken pot pie, I pick up a Marie Callender’s from the grocery freezer for him and make something lighter for myself. I love chicken pot pie, but most just sit in your belly, playing Solitaire and watching their stories.

Then I saw a photo of Rebecca Rather’s All-Sold-Out Chicken Pot Pie in her first cookbook, “The Pastry Queen.” Actually, it was a pic of two rows of individual pies, with beautifully misshapen golden crusts.

I NEEDED one. So, out came the pans. And the bowls. And the rolling pin. It was time to get old-school.

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I love making breakfast.

It should make me curl into the fetal position and rock myself, since my mom was Queen of the Rude Awakening. She would wake me up by flickering the bedroom light and singing at the top of her lungs: “Good mornin’, good mornin’! We’ve talked the whole night through, good mornin’, good mornin’ to you-hoo-hoo-hoo-HOOOOOOO!”

Oh, the agony of being an angsty teen and waking up to Debbie Reynolds every morning. Pass the flannel and the black eyeliner!

I wasn’t a morning person until I switched careers and started working at a German bakery. I had to be there, bright-eyed and ready to strudel, at 3:45 a.m. It was very weird to pass the late-night/early-morning party people on the road and realize you were living in their tomorrow, but I liked the solitude of unlocking the bakery door and getting the day started. I’d make a variety of croissants, coffee cakes and breakfast pastries every morning. Cinnamon rolls on the weekends. I’d always set one aside for Jeff, who would drive to my hometown to see me on the weekends. A little bribery never hurt.

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