One giant leek for mankind.

I try to buy most of my produce at Windmill Farms; the prices are significantly lower than at grocery stores, the quality is generally better, and the selection is far superior. Yesterday I needed a couple of leeks for the cold cucumber and leek soup I planned to make today, and they had some of the largest specimens I've ever seen. This one is 16".

I caught some of Ten Dollar Meals, the new show from this season's winner of TNFNS, and it's pretty good. Much better than Sandra Lee's silly bargain meals show that comes on right before. Today she made spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti is a cheap family dinner? Really, Sandra? And I can freeze my bread to keep it longer? Imagine that! At least Melissa's food was creative and interesting and she didn't insult my intelligence.

Two books that used bookshops probably couldn't have given away six months ago have suddenly become the hottest reads of the summer. I've been watching Merlin on NBC and was inspired to go back and pick up Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, which I was never able to get into despite really enjoying her contemporary thrillers. Apparently I'm not the only one, as the book is sold out everywhere--used bookstores, thrift shops and Borders, as well as checked out from all the local libraries. Same with Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I'm waiting to see if the grocery stores start running low on butter and cream soon.

They're doing maintenance on the pond in front of my apartment (the man made pond that gives my street "Shoreline" it's ridiculous name) and in preparation they turned off the fountain about a week ago. I had no idea how much noise that running water screened, especially at night. Supposedly it will be off for about another week. I can't wait for them to be done, and neither can the poor ducks who are standing on piles of dry gravel and staring mournfully at the inch or two of murky water that's left.

So tired of eating cold dinners. If I'd wanted to live with day-in, day-out temps hovering around 100°, I'd have moved to Phoenix. Tonight I made a chilled cucumber soup from USA Weekend magazine that tasted good though the consistency was weird and I was starving about an hour afterward.

Went to see the new Harry Potter movie today. Though I liked the Cuarón vision over Chris Columbus' by far, it was nice to see all the cool little magical touches again that make the wizarding world so enchanting. I don't remember as many of these in Order of the Phoenix, but I only saw the movie once. David Yates, writer Steve Kloves and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie) make a good team.

I'm watching the latest episode of The Next Food Network Star as I write this, and this one convinces me that Susie, Bob and Bobby are really the sadistic bullies I've always suspected they were. If the host of some podunk morning show randomly decided to slop hot sauce all over something Bobby Flay made he would have murdered the guy right there on the spot with a paring knife. And there is no way in hell they would have walked onto Paula Deen's set in the middle of a shoot and swapped out her butter for tofu, or suddenly stopped Boobs De Laurentiis mid pasta and told her she had to make something Cuban. They had the nerve to chastise Jamika for showing she was mad??? Because Bobby's never, ever been visibly enraged on camera. Nor Alton Brown. What pisses me off about this show is that they consistently subject these people to standards that not a single one of the current stars had to deal with, and what has it gotten them? In five seasons, they found one legitimate breakout in Guy Fieri. Maybe it's time to rethink the show?

I finished my wool socks last night, on one of the hottest evenings of the year so far. That did not stop me from wearing them for about two minutes before it became unbearable.

I tried two new recipes this week. Last Sunday I made a baked quinoa and cheese dish from Veggie Times that turned out well, even though quinoa gets absolutely everywhere. I found some in my knitting bag a couple days later. I thought the dish was a little bland so if I make it again I'd add chopped scallions and make sure the cheddar is a sharp or longhorn variety. It's also better sprinkled with Parmesan rather than the suggested additional cheddar.

The other recipe I made was black bean croquettes with fresh salsa from Eating Well. These turned out great, though I discovered too late that my tomatoes had sprouted an interesting filmy white mold and had to use diced canned tomatoes instead, with the only good part of the least spoiled tomato mixed in. I also served it over sliced avocado sprinkled with lime juice rather than combining diced avocado with the rest of the salsa. I'd also suggest flipping the croquettes at some point while still in the oven since one side gets nicely browned while the other stays too pale. They're even better the next day; had leftovers for lunch and dinner.

It's summer and foodie stunt tv is in full swing. The Next Food Network Star remains the most painful reality tv on the air, vividly illustrating that the best tv chefs are discovered and cultivated, not forced like bulbs in winter. Top Chef Masters improved with the second episode; the interaction between these chefs was thoroughly entertaining, and the challenges were much better.

I've had a hard time keeping up with much else on screen. In Plain Sight is having a great second season, and USA's new show Royal Pains is reasonably entertaining so far. I watched all of the first season of True Blood last weekend during the HBO free offer, but now am sadly stuck since I am not willing to pay $10/month more just to watch one show. I hear there are some good movies in theaters now as well. Maybe someday I'll get to see the inside of a theater again.

It's finally raining here. Not a lot, but it's a start. Of course everyone felt the need to randomly crash their cars into each other this morning due to the shock of moisture falling from the heavens for the first time in several weeks.

The right person went home on Top Chef the past two episodes; Ariane was hanging on by her fingernails, and Radhika doesn't have the leadership skills to run a kitchen.

Food Network has two promising new shows: Chopped, with Ted Allen (who featured the same two "celebs" on the second episode as he did on the same week's ep of Food Detectives), and Will Work for Food with the slightly annoying Adam from TNFNS, a kind of foodie Dirty Jobs. Adam possesses none of the charm or sex appeal of Mike Rowe (sigh), but the first episode was promising--especially after he got stung by a bee. I was very proud of myself, by the way, when watching Food Detectives that I knew that alligator nuggets taste like fishy chicken and come from the tail. Gatorland taught me well.

Speaking of Food Network, I am waiting with bated breath for the first issue of Sandra Lee's new magazine. Rachael Ray she is not.

In the comics. I'm appalled by Sally Forth lately. Since when do they move people out of Human Resources to head up Marketing, even in the most completely f'ed up companies?! Francesco Marciuliano may be a hipster geek, but this is too much. In other comics news, I've almost completely stopped reading Get Fuzzy.

Cat Cora: "Words like 'amazing,' 'delicious,' 'great' won't help you."

Then what the hell is Sandra Lee still doing on Food Network? Those are the only words she ever uses, for crying out loud.

I'm picking on TNFNS now because a) it's so easy, and b) Hell's Kitchen is a train wreck in slow motion. I can't stand Petrozza, and Christina is just too damn young to be an executive chef at a high-profile restaurant.

Btw, for the turducken, why didn't they pound out three breasts and roll them up?

I'm a week behind on most of my tv watching after spending five days in New York, but the episode of TNFNS with the "be an expert" and the Iron Chef-type challenges seemed especially unfair. You can't convince me that any Food Network personality on the air today could have, at the beginning of their contract, had a random food thrown at them and be expected to deal with it "expertly" in 60 seconds. If the point is to test general food knowledge, why didn't they do that in the screening process? If the point is to test how well you can lie on camera, then the challenge makes me question any Food Network personality's expertise.

The second challenge was just gross and mean. On Iron Chef the contestants are not assigned all the ingredients, just the main one. They get to pick everything else, and they even get a list of possible main ingredients ahead of time so they can plan their dishes. Throwing a bunch of hyper-sweet processed crap at this crew and expecting something good enough to serve at Red Lobster of all places is pretty cruddy.

That said, I do think the right person went home. Even though Food Network needs to get beyond its middle-America white bread image, Nipa's limited experience outside Indian cooking probably couldn't sustain a show for very long.

The Mole is back! They're cutting down the field pretty quickly, but my top contenders right now are Clay and Victoria, though Kristen is keeping an awfully low profile and Craig suddenly became suspicious with the dry cleaning episode. Nicole and Paul--and to some extent Alex--are just too loud and obvious. According to the Mole's journal on the ABC website, the Mole was blindfolded in the luge challenge, which would include Clay, Victoria and Alex (can't recall Kristen's position), and Victoria was the one who talked and got their results tossed. Hmmm....

In other "reality" tv, what's with this trend of supermoms on all the cooking shows? Every one has to have the one contestant who's doing this all for her daughter and bases nearly every freaking recipe on something she cooks regularly for her daughter and is fine with being booted because she misses her daughter. On Top Chef it was Antonia, Hell's Kitchen it was (I think) Rosann, and now on TNFNS it's Jennifer. It's getting almost as overdone as the faux-hawk. Move on, food reality producers.

I really loathe the phrase "culinary point of view."

Alton called it last week when he said they should toss out this lot and start over. There's no one left whose show I'd be willing to watch. And now JAG over Paul? That makes no sense. JAG is an overemotional loose cannon with a questionable military record, while Paul is hyper but probably sane. Plus, JAG just can't cook Food Network food. I also thought it was a little bit rich of Alton (who turns out to be one mean SOB) to quiz the hosts on ingredients when he gets fed all kinds of info on stuff and even overdubs when he hosts Iron Chef.

I leave for the new-and-not-at-all-improved E3 tomorrow. While it will be nice to spend some time in a house that is not a disaster zone for a few days, I'd really rather not have to deal with a trade show when there are so many other things that need to be taken care of. The latest thing is that the painters apparently did not hook up the washer correctly when they put it back, so now it's leaking. A lot. This morning I just turned off the taps and will deal with it tonight.

Donny Deutsch is a jackass. Just had to get that off my chest.

This morning I put two cats in crates and took them to the vet for their shots and checkups, sustaining only minor injuries.

I'm really bummed that Michael got the axe on The Next Food Network Star. It doesn't make sense; Adrian is cute and all, but he just doesn't seem to have the cooking chops to carry a whole show. Michael's failings are easier to remedy with a little coaching. We didn't get nearly enough of Paula Deen during the episode, but Sandra Lee would've been a better fit for MRE challenge anyway since it's right up her gussied-up-premade-food alley.

And, wow, Giardia can certainly be a bitch, can't she? She also appears to have stolen my mom's lemon pasta recipe, except that my mom uses gobs of butter instead of olive oil, and wouldn't use basil leaves if you held a gun to her head.