Past readers of my Is My Blog Burning? posts might have noticed that I like to combine assignments when I have the chance. This month’s challenge, hosted by Derrick of An Obsession with Food, is to make a dish using stale bread. I decided to combine that with an idea I’ve had to revamp an old family recipe called dinah d’ditty (spellings are guesswork).

The first ingredient of dinah d’ditty is tomato soup. This recipe is Maggie Pond’s from Food & Wine. I thought the addition of orange zest would be a little weird, but it really brings out the sweetness of the tomatoes. The cayenne gives it a little bite that contrasts nicely with the creaminess of the soup. It seemed like a shame to use such a good soup for another recipe, but it made about four or five cups more than I needed, so I have plenty left over.

Dinah d’ditty is, apparently, something my grandmother cooked for my dad and their family when he was little. The original version involves Campbell’s tomato soup mixed with a sharp cheese and Worcestershire sauce, poured over saltines. My dad’s made it for us a couple times. While it’s not exactly good, it is satisfying and cheaply made, leading me to believe that it originated during the Depression. Some internet searches revealed something called rinktum ditty, which is either a variation on dinah d’ditty or vice versa, but the name, at least, seems to be unique to the family.

This version involves the Asiago ciabatta that I made earlier, the tomato soup above, and more Asiago. The result is incredibly rich, pretty tasty, and, according to my dad, still recognizable as dinah d’ditty. It is, however, one of the rare dishes that doesn’t improve the next day, especially if it’s already been assembled. The cheese gets grainy as it cools and doesn’t really blend back in upon reheating, and the croutons lose all semblance of a crisp. I definitely wouldn’t eat this every day, and doing so might kill me, but it’s worth a try once in a while.

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By the way, I recently got a comment letting me know that Stephen of Top Chef semi-fame has a blog of his own. Was it from Stephen himself? Probably not, but that would be awesome. The site seems to be down at the moment, but I took a look at it earlier. The most interesting part of it is the episode-by-episode reaction to the show. I had suspected that Stephen’s personality on the show was at least partially manufactured by editing, that he might have been surprised to see how he was portrayed, and that he might have different views on some issues after the facts. I read what he had to say, and my suspicions were . . . completely way off-base. It was actually kind of amazing how he stuck to his own party line (Stephen, party of one).

Let’s take, for instance, the episode with the gas station challenge. Now, I heard Katie Lee Joel say that they could only use dried herbs and I saw Stephen hear it. I also saw Harold remind Stephen of the restriction, and I saw Stephen blow him off. When KLJ confronted him about it, however, he made up some lame lie about how he hadn’t heard her, despite all on-camera evidence to the contrary. Okay, but surely he would admit the lie in his blog, right? After all, he’s not in competition anymore and he’s just seen the damning footage. But instead, he clings to his tissue-thin excuse, which I would totally quote if I could get to it right now.

So what’s the point of him having a blog at all? All he does, apparently, is reiterate what he’s already said on tv. It’s not interesting. On the other hand, I reiterate what he and the rest of the chefs say and do on tv. This is totally interesting, which is why my website is totally superior.

I first heard of blue foot chicken in an article in last month’s Food & Wine. According to their description, which I’ve corroborated with a couple of internet searches, it’s an American version of a French bird that’s basically the new Kobe beef of chicken. This is all well and good, but apparently it gets that way because they feed the chicken milk.

Excuse me? Does anybody else think this is wrong and possibly a bastardization of nature? Doesn’t anybody remember how mad cow disease got started? You are not supposed to feed animals things that they are not supposed to eat! Chickens do not drink milk! They are not mammals! It’s creepy!

So while unnaturalness does not guarantee disease, I don’t plan on eating any blue-toed chickens. It, as Buffy would say, gives me the wig.