My wife and I are watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on the Travel Channel. He's in Paris, staying in the hotel room that Oscar Wilde died in, and drinking WAY too much absinthe. It's actually quite amusing. Came highly recommended by Allen. Whose taste is to be trusted in most matters culinary and musical.

In other news, mowed the back yard today, despite it being HOT. Ugh. We also made some pizza, and a whole mess of homemade pesto with the basil we bought at the Farmer's Market yesterday.

Oh, almost forgot:

Peter's Not Entirely Authentic Cassoulet Recipe

My recipe is simple but hearty comfort food for the soul. And, in a departure from most cassoulets, is vegetarian, most of the time. Kind of.

First, I start with two cans of Great Northern Beans. These are my favorite kind of beans, I must say. They're the best. What do I do with said cans of beans? Nothing yet. Because the actual first step is to chop about half a small onion, very small, and add it to some very hot olive oil in the bottom of a pot. After a bit, after the onion starts to get very translucent, add a garlic clove or two, some fresh rosemary, a few bay leaves, and season it with some fresh cracked pepper and some salt. Then, after about a minute, add the cans of beans, and some stock, vegetable or chicken stock both work quite well. I also might add just a little bit of cumin. Then I let the whole thing stew for about 45 minutes to an hour, on a very low heat. Basically, you want it to be thick but not too thick.

Serve with some very crusty French bread. You'll notice there's no sausage or anything. Not that I have anything against sausage, but I don't think the beans need the sausage.

This is soul food when I'm feeling really down. It makes you feel good from the inside out.