Heads up! You’ve got just 24 hours from NOW to get your salad packed and ready for National Bring Your Salad to Work Day. Nope, not kidding, but yes, questioning. I’m all for bringing a salad to work — in fact I have a romaine-blue cheese-avocado-kalamata olive salad sitting at my desk right now. And I have herbs, salt, pepper, olive oil and a few kinds of vinegar here as well. But a national holiday in honor of salad? Shouldn’t there be a national hot dog day? Oh, that’s right, there is one. How about a national scallop day? Yep, there’s one of these too. And national cookie day? You didn’t know? It’s in December. The real question is who dreams these things up? And does the paperwork to make it official? In this case, I’m guessing in the case of the upcoming salad celebration it was the folks at Working Mother magazine and Kraft, the very same folks who took the time to alert us to this breaking news.

Life’s been a little hectic at our house lately, as I’ve inadvertently inherited the job of my (departed) (not dearly departed, just departed) editor and haven’t the sense to let go of my own. As I clomp around in his newspaper shoes — I can’t possibly fill them — I thought I’d share this picturesque bowl of life-on-the-run.

Just in case you can’t tell, this meal is in a plastic to-go bowl. It was prepared in 20 minutes flat, no exaggeration. And the salmon was frozen. Cut, but frozen. And I harvested the summer kale minutes before tucking it into the pasta pot.

This is what I call fast food MY way, (not alla Jacques Pepin.) Here are the details:

Grab a pot and fill it with hot water and get it on the stove quick. Salt the water and give it a lid. Pull the frozen fish out of the freezer and dump it in a pan with just a touch of oil. Pour a little soy sauce on top and put the pan on medium.

Head to the garden to get what you need. Put the pasta in the boiling water, turn over the fish, chop the greens. Reach for the pepper, turn the fish on high, check the pasta. Drain the pasta, sear the fish, put the greens into the pan, flip it over.

Put the pasta on the plate, top it with the fish and greens and leftover anything else you happen to have — we had roasted red pepper. Douse the dish with more soy sauce if needed and sprinkle on as much pepper as your heart desires. Dinner in 20 minutes. Enjoy.

Since we ran our feature story on the 10-year-old Fremont girl who shares a name — and a penchant for cooking up delicious food — with the food network celebrity Rachael Ray, we got a call from the celebrity’s staffers.

Was she mad about the story? Surprised? Insulted? Nope. She was charmed, and wanted contact information so that she could send our local Rachael Ray a set of her signature pots and pans. That, I say, is a great response — not to mention great PR.

I so totally got scooped on my cookie diet. I should have written about it years ago, but I got sidetracked — and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to share my secret for staying thin.  So this week I get a mass e-mail regarding “The New Cookie Diet!” Of course their take on the deal is a little different from mine. Check out the press release:

“Wedding season is in full effect and that means that brides-to-be everywhere are looking for a quick and easy way to fit perfectly into those gowns! Instead of practically starving themselves before their nuptials, brides can now drop the pounds quickly by eating delicious cookies; YES cookies! The Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet famous diet cookies effectively suppress hunger… Each daily bag contains six cookies at 90 calories each…”

To that, I say, “Hello? Six cookies to last an entire day? Are they nutts?” On my cookie diet, you can have six or eight or 12 cookies just for breakfast!

Since I know you want to know, I’ll share details on My Cookie Diet. The toughest step for my diet is that you have to make the cookies. Store-bought cookies simply won’t do. They have way too much wrong fat, way too little sugar, and way too little flavor. So make yourself a batch or two of cookies, any flavor works.

Morning 1: Eat cookies, say about 6 medium to large size should do. Enjoy with coffee and go about your day. When you get hungry – dive for that cookie jar. Feel free to eat as many as you like. Enjoy your cookies with any no-calorie, no-nutrient drink. 

When you find yourself hungry again, yes, cookies. If you must, you are allowed to eat a few nutrients around the dinner hour. But don’t overdo it. And no, you may not have ice cream, candy and other treats as well. Just the cookies.

The result: By the time you’ve dusted off 4 to 5 dozen cookies, you will notice that you are not so much wanting to eat the cookies anymore. In fact, you may begin to lag and lack the energy to eat much of anything. But you will lose weight. I promise. I have much experience with this diet — it works.

UNscientifically speaking, the reason you lose weight, (I think), is that most of what you are eating isentirely nutrient-free.The weight-loss is rather nice, but you may also experience fatigue, foggy brain activity, even a touch of irritability. The most common side effect, however, is a rip-roaring cold that lasts for days — because your body lacks the nutrients it needs for your immune system to work properly.

If you would like more information on My Cookie Diet, I suggest you find yourself a book on good nutrition, quick. If you’d like information on Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, you’ll have to get with him, 212-584-4325 or jevans@5wpr.com.

I can’t imagine anyone who’s been reading this blog — and our newspaper — doesn’t know that we reporters/editors/newspaper folk are taking some pretty hard hits. For this reason, I wanted you to know that people I love have been taking care of me! Here is the treat that awaited me after 12 l-o-n-g MONDAY hours….

It’s a banana cake, courtesy of College Cooking, a cookbook filled with simple recipes for folks (like me) who have little time to spare.

Here’s the recipe:

Caramelized Banana Cake

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 bananas

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9×13-inch pan. Place butter and sugar in a bowl and stir until smooth. Add eggs, stir for 2 minutes. Add vanilla and milk and stir until combined. Add the salt, baking powder and flour and stir until smooth.

Sprinkle brown sugar in bottom of pan. Cut bananas into 1/4-inch thick slices and arrange over brown sugar. Pour batter over bananas and bake 35 to 40 minuts, or until center of cake springs back when lightly pressed. Immediately place cutting board over the cake and invert.

Cool completely and cut into squares. Eat as a breakfast treat, as a snack or as a late-night, all-out binge — with vanilla ice cream on the side.

– Recipe courtesy “College Cooking” by Megan and Jill Carle.

I have, in my column, instituted a new feature that people may well love to hate. It’s called Picky or Icky. This week I received in the mail a submission so seriously icky I just couldn’t bear to see it in print. It was a handful of pouch meals presented by Bistro something or other. They were so kind to send a bowl emblazoned with their name and logo. Sorry, I donated the bowl to charity before even opening a single meal pouch, which included meatballs and pasta, enough to blur my vision and keep me from even reading the contents of the others.

If you have the sad opportunity to try these yourself and find them glorious taste experiences, feel free to set me straight.

I must have been snoring two weeks ago when I opened a package from Starbucks that contained, among other coffee things, a card for free iced coffee every Wednesday in July — and a bunch of papers to explain.

Two weeks later, i actually read the fine print to find out that not only could I have been drinking free coffee every week, but YOU CAN TOO! All you have to do is buy a coffee (any day) and ask a barista for the coffee on Wednesday card.  Sadly, there are only two free days left — so don’t forget.

For those of us who prefer our coffee hot, and intend to drink it well beyond July 23, Starbucks wants to make us feel special all of the time with its new rewards program. Seems like a no-brainer.  Sign up and you get free refills, a free beverage with coffee bean purchase and free additions to any coffee you buy. Click the link above to learn more.

Two nights ago when it was so hot that the idea of cooking anything was about as appealing as stepping into a sauna, we decided to grab some sandwiches at Togo’s.

We asked for whole wheat bread. They were all out. We asked for onion bread. They were all out. We asked for provolone cheese. They were all out. We asked if they could please just make us a sandwich. They did.

As we sat at home eating our pretty much tasteless white-bread sandwiches that cost $13 (for two), I realized why I cook – it’s because I just can’t make myself settle for bad food.

The next night, I made my own sandwich. It cost less than half as much money and delivered so much more flavor. I had to plug in the grill, roast a red pepper, and run to the garden for some basil to make pesto spread, but it was worth the trouble.

Still, I made the sandwich in less time than it took to drive to Togo’s, wait in line, and wait the 12 minutes it took our sandwich maker to prepare and bag our sandwiches.

My Sandwich

1 Japanese eggplant

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled and sliced

1/2 of a red onion, sliced and caramelized in 1/2 teaspoon olive oil

2 sourdough rolls

3 tablespoons pesto

1. Plug in panini grill. Slice the eggplant lengthwise. Crush garlic clove into a bowl and add salt and olive oil. Stir. Toast or heat bun if desired.

 2. Using a spoon or brush, coat both sides of each slice of eggplant with garlic oil and place on the hot panini grill. Close the grill and cook until the slices are nicely browned. If the eggplant isn’t quite cooked through, unplug the grill and let it remain closed until you are ready to assemble your sandwich.

3. Slice rolls in half and dress with pesto. Layer peppers, eggplant and onions onto the bread and serve.

Note: To save calories, use fresh basil instead of pesto.

Which sandwich would you choose?

We suffer. We who cook suffer in the kitchen, trying so very hard to find those flavors that are so vivid and so memorable in our imaginations.

Case in point: A potato salad that my daughter went crazy over at an event in San Jose.  It had kalamatas, potatoes, caramelized onions. Simple, yes, until you get into the kitchen.

After rhapsodizing about the salad, she tried to make it. Bland. I tried to make it. Atrocious. Miserably oily, enough to fill my gas tank and yours. She tried again. Better, but NOT IT. It wasn’t until my daughter and I worked together that we were able to nail it.

Together, we decided we needed to start with cold potatoes. And forget cooling those hot potatoes in water — talk about a soggy thought. And balsamic vinegar is fine, but hello? It needs just a little help from the pantry staples cabinet (good ol’ red wine vinegar.) Here, then, is our potato salad, which we hope will be made and enjoyed far and wide. We suffered for it.

Potato Salad with Roasted Onions and Kalamatas

3 pounds potatoes, small red potatoes preferred

1 1/2 purple onions, sliced

1 cup Kalamata olives, sliced

3 tablespoons basil chiffonade

3-5 tablespoons white wine vinegar or vinegar from the Kalamata olives, depending on how much your potatoes absorb

5 tablespoons balasamic vinegar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1-2 teaspoons black pepper

Place potatoes into a pot of salted water and boil just until tender when pierced with a fork. Drain and remove from the pan. Allow potatoes to cool on their own until they are barely warm — at least an hour. (If you are an impatient soul, place them on a rack in your freezer.)

1. While potatoes cool, slice purple onion into pleasing shapes (your choice) and place in a saute pan with 1 tablespoon of oil. Salt the onion with about 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and turn the burner on medium. Cook, turning occasionally, until the onions are soft, aromatic and slightly browned around the edges. Remove from heat.

2. Wash and stack your basil leaves and slice them very thin. Set aside.

3. When cool, peel thin skins off the potatoes and chop into 3/4-inch pieces. Please do not fret about the size — it’s really a personal preference.  Place potatoes into a bowl and add kalamatas, pepper, additional salt, vinegars, oil and onions. Toss until potatoes are fully coated in the vinegar and oil. Adjust to taste.

4. Add basil to the bowl and gently toss. Serve at slightly warm or at room temperature. 

I stared at the pretty pink Pietra Santa Rosato in my glass for a while and wondered exactly what it needed to be happy, truly happy. Cheese? Too heavy. Nuts? No. Strawberries? They matched very nicely, but flavorwise they too were a miss. Banana? Way too sweet.

Determined, I strayed into the stone-fruit category, trying apricots, plums and nectarine. Not bad, but not perfect. Then I opened the freezer and pulled out a vat of pink papaya puree. I threw it in the blender and tasted it alongside the wine. Perfect.

As the two melted together in my mouth, I realized why it worked. The stout, acidic rosato needed just a tiny bit of softening around the edges. Instead of mirroring the strawberry-citrus flavors in the wine, the creamy, not-too-sweet papaya filled in the gaps. Papaya puree is available from www.perfectpuree.com. The 2007 Pietra Santa Rosato from Monterey is $15. For details go to www.pietrasantawinery.com.