Last summer while working with my friend Kate in Southwest France, I played a curious little game in the name of straightening up the pantry. Kate, like me, is a bit of pack rat and her side pantry is chock full of interesting things – jars of confit, pickled and preserved bits made over the year, miscellaneous cooking equipment, tools of the charcuterie trade and countless jars and lids awaiting something delicious. The challenge becomes when you need to find a jar with a matching lid among the bins of supplies. Good luck. It’s there somewhere but digging through tub after tub to find a mate may take a while. So I lugged everything out to the terrasse and played a game I called “French Country Concentration”. I divided everything into three categories – large, medium, small – jars on one side of the table, lids on the other and went about finding mates. It was an exercise in the Three Little Bears, repeating too big, too small, just right over and over. At the end, any stray jars and lids went right into the recycling bin to continue their journey elsewhere. I may or may not have told Kate that but I didn’t want them kicking around, mucking up the place, no matter how interesting the lidless jar may have been. Instead, I washed everything thoroughly and put them all back together, nestled in their appropriate bins, awaiting some delicious tidbit.
STRESSCAKE 