I Used to Eat Dirt . . . and other food trends.

If you were born between the years 1950 and 1960 it is altogether possible that you, at some time or other, took a taste of your front yard. Why kids before then and kids after then didn't, I don't know, but my scientific inquiries into the matter have led me to conclude that the 50's was the period of children eating dirt. I was one of them.

Now we find that those 50's kids were cutting edge food enthusiasts. According to many reports of health and food trends, pro-biotics is considered at the top of the hip food list http://bit.ly/eeVWJU. For those not in the know, pro-biotics research suggests that bacteria found in healthy soil is an important element to a healthy stomach and intestine, which are critical to overall health. Want to meet girls in the pro-biotics world? Use the phrase, Gut Flora, it gets them every time.

Yet another food trend is salt. Not the Morton's blue cylinder box. The kind from the Himalaya's or the Dead Sea or some other far off place. Central Market in Keller has dozens of choices including many colors and textures. I'm just glad I can eat salt again of any kind. But I would like to meet the marketing guys who decide where their salt is going to come from and what story to tell of its healing properties.

Water is a trend, although a downhill one -- actually, not the water but its bottle. The landfills are filled with them, making drinking a bottle of Fiji Water in Austin as dangerous as wearing mink in New York. Soccer mom beware, you may be spray-painted mid-sip by a crazed (and thirsty, no doubt) eco-terrorist. Then again, if you acquire status from drinking a $2 bottle of water you probably deserve it.

Anyway, the next time you see your child eating something from the front yard go easy on him, who knows, worms may wriggle their way to a food trend yet.

Merry Christmas

Fort Worth, Texas. We have much for which to be thankful.

Don't eat too much.

Scratch that, today is guilt-free food and beverage of choice day.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Thanks for reading and for your comments and suggestions.

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(Oh, and I am surprised by the Christmas tree poll. Artificial trees are used in more homes than real trees. Of the 29 that have a tree 17 chose artificial, 12 real. I would have guessed the other way around. But . . . and I hate to admit it, for the first Christmas in 32 years, we have one. Yes, we have a plastic Christmas tree. The prophetic line from "The Graduate" continues to be true.)

A Favorite Christmas Dessert.

Is it possible to remember a piece of pie eaten 45 years ago? I think so, I can still remember my grandmother's cheesecake, made and served at Christmas dinner that many years ago.

This was no cream-cheese-with-a-crust pie mind you. This was pie perfection.

My grandmother's ricotta cheese pie was a thing of beauty. Before a knife dented its tender surface it displayed a warm brown-white-yellow patina. The light brown flour pie crust on the side stopped at the cheese top. There was no lip of crust. It was unadorned, otherwise; no fruit or other superfluous decoration. Its place was always at the end of the table, grand-dessert that it was, a kind of diva greeting the diner at the very end as if to say, "I follow no other." There was only one pie. You had better get a slice early.

When you bit into into it you sensed two textures, a thin pie crust with a little crunch and then the ricotta cheese filling which is like the cheese itself but mellowed and sweetened somehow by the cooking. It was firm, not at all runny, and not overly gelatinous. You could see the distinct ricotta texture.

The taste was barely sweet, like the first taste of some beers just hinting at sweetness, with a tiny taste of vanilla, a little more of egg, and the almost nutty flavor of ricotta cheese. Simple and perfect. It was served at room temperature, somehow appropriately.

I look forward to it at this time of year, even knowing that the cheese cake is no longer at the head of the dessert table, but the memory is there, saying maybe that some good things, especially during the Christmas season, can be enjoyed a long time in their remembrance and are better left that way.