This is not new. If given a deliberately vague task I freeze and wait for purpose, which often doesn’t show but finally did, when I carved a mission from this meme-me-me: I’d share seven foods from my past, each with a small story. You, dear reader, pick the one you like – or the least boring, whichever comes first – and the most-voted food gets cooked and blogged here on Simmer, recipe, story and all. Thank you, Susan for your too-kind words and, indirectly, the gift of one blogging day made a little less random.

S’mores Tarts Baking at an upscale Chicago pastry shop, I was expected to devise new desserts for the case. New desserts that would please both customers and our novelty-driven boss who, if he sensed a trend, would have sold chocolate-dipped pig ears and motorized cake. I came up with S’mores tarts, novel in 1995, composed of graham tart shells, milk chocolate ganache and fluffy house-made marshmallows which we would – big finish – set ablaze in front of the crowd. Seemed like a winner, and all went great until we actually blew out flames, and a lady in the window shrieked heavenward that she’d seen our spit hit the tarts. So much for blaze theater.

Curried Mushroom Soup In high school Behavioral Science class, we had a semester-long project in which we’d be pretend-married to another student, and live on a budget, and work out issues, and all types of situations designed for maximum teen discomfort. One assignment required hosting a dinner party with other “couples,” and after planting my pink Converse Hi-Tops at mom’s stove to make Curried Mushroom Soup – a mature-sounding dish from her files – I served it in our dining room to twitchy, bickering pairs who’d rather be somewhere else. Dabbing soup off my ripped jeans, I considered that this might be how adults spent their days.

Stuffed Leg of Lamb In a combined young-bride and young-chef disaster, I once pounded, stuffed and rolled a boneless leg of lamb to entertain Greg’s law firm colleagues. The evening started with our crotch-sniffing Dalmatian and a clogged sink, continued with undercooked, untied lamb and finished with a wailing fire alarm. In truth, the mustard-garlic-whatever stuffing was delicious – but who among you would ask me to do it again?

Tortelloni with Gorgonzola Sauce In the post-college summer of 1990, Greg and I backpacked around Italy. One night in Bologna we splurged on a real restaurant, a place called The Black Cat, set on a square with flickering jar candles, wrought-iron tables and people in clean clothes. After slurping cheap red wine we ate carpaccio with parmigiana, lemon and capers, fat cheese-filled tortelloni in Gorgonzola sauce, and tiramisu. It may be the wine, the summer or the fact that an argument caused me to leave, walk away and come back, but it is still, many dinners later, the best I ever had.

Linzer Torte The classic Austrian dessert is just fruit jam under latticed almond crust, but the buttery dough is tricky, melting, fragile. Especially if you’re rolling dough in a small city bakery in July, and daft owner lady won’t pay for air conditioning, and still takes orders for Linzer Torte. You might get heat stroke and threaten to quit, right there over the breaking dough. Yes you might. But you’d never blame a torte this good.

Marjolaine When I ran a catering company, The Happy Ending, I supplied restaurants with Valentine’s Day desserts. One year I filled an order for 300 pieces of Marjolaine, a labor-intensive classic made with hazelnut meringue, genoise, and two buttercreams. At the time I worked out of my house, and with no catering staff and a sleeping toddler, it was just me and Marjolaine in the all-night kitchen. For hours I baked, whipped, stirred, threw spatulas and wept. All the while I Love Lucy played on my tiny kitchen TV, the Scotland episode where Lucy dreams it all. I know this because I saw it three times; I was at my table so long that Nick at Nite ran it three full times before sunrise. Three. If you vote for Marjolaine, rest assured it will be well-planned. One cake, no Lucy and Simmer off to bed.

Spaghetti Carbonara When I returned home on college breaks and my sister was in high school, we liked to whip up this spaghetti-bacon-egg bonanza late at night – and for a short obsessive time, every night. When I picture the bubbling cream and parmigiana and yolks it boggles my mind, a mystery how I made it through those snack years without total stomach collapse, or gaining 500 pounds. Because that would surely happen now if, at 42, I began lounging with midnight TV, two-liter Diet Cokes and pasta straight-from the-pot. Iris was my Carbonara ringleader, insisting the more cheese, more spaghetti, more talk shows the better. Our parents were asleep, we had metabolism on our side and to flop down and share one blue bowl again, even a few strands, my stomach would gladly say yes.

So. One of these memories gets cooked. If it’s Marjolaine or lamb, please give me plenty of notice so I can prepare, respectively, with extra sleep and string.

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Update 1/28: WINNER! S’mores Tarts it is, announced here. Voting over, but if you wish to leave a request – like lamb, oh you people – feel free. And thanks for playing along.

Maybe as penance, we tend to spring-break in a seasonably unpleasant place. March has not proved a reliable month for weather: we’ve plodded near-frozen through rainy Berlin; shared a chilly, empty hike at Rocky Mountain National Park with only the yawning mountain lions; and this year, like many before it, we visited family in Chicago, where on any given day before June, you may view gray-capped hills of parking lot snow.

But not this year. I last saw Illinois in our December rearview mirror, after losing Dad in a cloud of all-gray days, and hadn’t been back since.  We did not talk about this – how it would be different – but dragging luggage through my parents’ doorway, a triple-ricochet told me they knew, and that each would decide the difference alone. I watched Josie, dropping her backpack, hugging my mother, and was at once grateful for what adolescents don’t know how to say.

As it turns out we had a fine time, and were gifted with beautiful weather to help it along. No ritual went undone, starting with deep sausage-and-mushroom, ending with a river of city coffee and eating ridiculous amounts in between. There is no useful word to tell you how much my father enjoyed ridiculous amounts, and how his goofy heart spilled enjoyment just watching us enjoy.

The good news is that the only bad news lives in a chunk of residual sadness; the better news is that you can go home again, and get lucky skies, and find that you don’t have to commemorate the pizza, just eat the pizza.  You’re entitled to it.

On the plus side, the retiree overlord let us leave the condo for lunch. Werker Werker encourages dining out, you know – it helps the residents fulfill their container quota, which states that each fridge must contain at least three kinds of leftovers in styrofoam. It’s in the bylaws.

We drove over to Bob Chinn’s, a seafood paradise right here in the Midwest.

I love this place – but the name “Chinns” makes me twitch.

Everyone has a worrisome body part in mind, and mine is my chin. Most people fret about hips; I worry about the day I start sporting my great-great-grandmother’s Lithuanian chin.

Bob’s unique brand: Suburban Feng Shui meets Fisherman’s Wharf.

Why are Midwesterners so crazy about seafood? Because we do not have a sea.

Like every great joint at “the shore,” Bob’s has a daily paper menu. It offers about four thousand ways to eat crab and other sea-dwellers, and I like every single one.

Bob’s is not for the subtle eater or faint of heart. Upon being seated, your server will ask, “you want the garlic rolls?”

Um…who wouldn’t? Wait, hold on a second…

…that’s better. I wanted to give them the full TV treatment. Where’s the squeeze of lemon?

My mom orders Shrimp Vermicelli, but it’s really fantastic pad thai in disguise.

Below, my Coconut Shrimp gets served with cocktail sauce and Pork Fried Rice.

I have a weakness for coconut shrimp. Just call it the Double Lithuanian Chinn plate.

Bob Chinn’s is enormous, one of the top-grossing restaurants in the nation, and has framed stuff all over the walls to prove it.

Displaying this industry figure left me a little cold. Bob, is that all I am to you? Served No. 755,393?

I forgive you, Bob, because everything coming out of your bizarre Mid-wasian kitchen is so delicious, and the massive place has enough energy for five restaurants.

It’s delightful. But…what’s with these diners?

The first table is wary of my camera, fair enough, but what’s that lady on the right so steamed about?

Maybe she’s just stuffed and crabby.