I met a friend for breakfast this morning at the local Country Kitchen Café. I rarely eat there, even though it’s close to my home. There is no fancy coffee; they don’t poach eggs; and they’re open only until 2:30 PM. (In all fairness, breakfast should be in the rear view mirror by then.) But I was tired of Panera, where we usually meet. So we convened at the Kitchen.

I must admit the atmosphere is cozy and unrushed. And, if you overlook the poached eggs issue, the food is very good. I had the best super-crispy hash browns ever. I mean EVER!

What I was aware of most were the other touches. We each received our own carafe of coffee, one leaded and the other unleaded. It’s nice to pour that second cup whenever you want without waiting for the server to return. We also received paper straws for our water.

I’m on the “Ban Plastic Straws” bandwagon, so this was a pleasant surprise. The straws were surprisingly sturdy, not like the ones of my youth that fell apart before their purpose was finished.

The price was modest too, much less than Panera, although my bill didn’t include a fancy-dancy latte. My friend had pancakes with real, unsweetened, strawberries. If I were a restaurant critic – and certainly I am in my own mind, as I’m very particular in case you haven’t noticed – the Country Kitchen Café would receive five stars.

Especially for the hash browns.

It’s against condo regulations, but I’m growing strawberries in a small area bounded by our home on one side and a sidewalk on the other. The plants offer a great ground cover for that flowerbed with the added benefit of strawberry shortcake for a brief time in June.

Today we sampled the crop and found it most acceptable. So I made biscuits from Bisquick®; buttered them with the real thing; layered them with the strawberries already cleaned, sliced, and sugared; and topped the entire masterpiece with whipped cream.

I didn’t know Earl had been into the whipped cream to grace previous strawberry pickings until I picked up the container and saw it was very light. He confessed and added ‘whipped cream’ to our grocery list. I emptied the current container, and we sat together enjoying the best shortcake money can’t buy.

I don’t even like strawberries very much, but the taste of a berry just picked from your own garden is like no other.

One of my dearest, long-time friends lives on the other side of the state. In fact, we haven’t lived near each other since 1971 when I moved away from the Detroit area for good. So we’re always looking for ways to cover the miles and get together.

We’ve honed the process to meeting a couple times a year somewhere and holing up in a motel for two or three days where we talk non-stop. As we’re saying good-bye, we’re already making a mental list of topics for the next gabfest.

Yesterday we tried something new. We met for lunch in Lansing, Michigan, which happens to be about half-way between our homes. It was a two hour one-way trip for each of us. You can do the math as to the total hours spent in the car.

We met at Denny’s at the appointed hour and started talking about our families even before we ordered breakfast. She warned the server we’d be here a while. When we left, we tipped accordingly. Next we went to the nearby mall, which is part of our ritual. We walk the mall a couple times, moving on to more generic subjects — like the recent Democratic debates that neither of us watched — and then grab a cold drink, usually at Barnes & Noble where we consider world politics and share opinions on the books we’re reading.

By now, we’re hungry again. So we head to Applebee’s, which is on the same mall property,  to find sustenance for the drive home. We were not disappointed.

Around 5 PM, we agree it’s time to head home. We calculated that we got to spend a little over six hours together for the four hours driving time involved. That’s a two-fifths to three-fifths ratio.

Did we think it worth it? I guess that we’re doing it again in August is the answer.

I recently purchased a new set of cookware, after using the previous set of pots and pans for twenty-five years. The old set was a brand name that featured a green ceramic outside, non-stick inside, and glass tops. They came with Earl into our relationship and were the nicest set I’d ever used.

Earl can tell you of the times I burned the skillet to his dismay. Or let baked beans cook to the sticking point. Or didn’t soak the pot soon enough and had to chisel off the left-over split pea soup. It wasn’t intentional, but it probably contributed to the mere twenty-five year shelf life.

So I decided to study cookware. My year-old electric stove has a glass cooktop, and my research explained what types of pots work best on such a surface. It also offered the pros and cons for stainless steel, all-clad, cast iron, copper, and ceramic materials. I felt like a grain of rice trying to absorb too much water.

In the end I chose the Cuisinart MCP-12N Multiclad Pro Stainless Steel 12 piece set, which arrived in a collection of boxes inside one giant packing box. (Markedly different from the Wal-Mart “off the shelf” set I had when my children were growing up!)

I read the care instructions studiously and realized that if Earl had kept the ones his set came with, they might still be around. There’s more to keeping cookware in pristine condition than just throwing it in the dishwasher.

I’m taking every effort to make sure my new set, which gleams on the counter or in its cupboard, remains stain-less.

The recipe said it was the best baked ziti ever, and since I found it in a “Cook’s Illustrated” magazine it was sure to have been tested umpteen times before making that claim. “Cook’s” tends to focus on the minutiae, which makes for lengthy explanations and detailed instructions. They often deter me.

What attracted me this time was that the casserole could be made in advance – actually, most casseroles can be made in advance — so the extra pots and the extra bowls could all be washed and back in their hiding places.

The instructions noted that the pasta did not turn to mush, and this was the recipe’s main claim to fame.

In the end it was more like a lasagna as the slightly cooked ziti – although I used penne and mostaccioli would certainly do – was mixed into a half gallon of homemade tomato sauce and layered in a casserole dish with the traditional ricotta between the layers.  Four cups of hand-grated mozzarella and Romano were literally locked down on top.

With Earl’s help, the dish was prepped in about an hour and a half, which is really three total person hours. It was the heaviest, densest, and thickest casserole to ever grace our fridge, something important to remember when moving it to and from a hot oven.

So . . . was the ziti mushy? It was not. But the tip on how to avoid that could easily have been condensed to a brief paragraph and translated into other pasta dishes. If you’re interested, after reading all this about a recipe I’ll never make again, here is the tip: Remove the pasta from the water before it reaches the al dente stage and save a cup of the pasta water when draining it.

Add the water back to the pasta before adding both to the tomato sauce. It’s as simple as that. Perhaps I could apply to “Cook’s Illustrated” as a writer, since this blog is certainly full of minutiae itself.