On Jumping the Fence add love theme

Every once in awhile I feel wicked. Not only that, but I must do something wicked accordingly so that a subtle, internal realignment might be accomplished. Perhaps it is the high winds.

They make the cats race hurly burly across the yard, wildly thrashing their tails, spinning, dashing up tree trunks, leaping down, ears pointed backwards, eyes wide and delirious, mindless. zany. all reason and savoir faire gone, caught in an exuberant impulse that is like the one impelling the wind itself.

I cook every day. My bread labor is in a small kitchen and I speed home in the afternoons to fix ethical meals for my endlessly appreciative family. This is no small feat, actually.

Preparing food for others feels right and good to me most of the time, elemental, a matter of trust, and I take it seriously.

Chicken soup I have made as a potion for healing, soothing a ragged soul here and there. I have given wholesome take-out dinners to my friends on occasion, pressing portable goodies on them to carry home when they have stopped by late, on the run, casting interested eyes at my kettles and herbs.

While in labor with my third child, I made two large pizzas from scratch--the culinary success of this venture escapes me, but I do recall that it served to keep me upright, outgoing and preoccupied.

I like doing this sort of thing. I consider it worthy.

But there are times when my convictions regarding nutritional balance, ethnic exploration, and a few cautious forays into the gourmet landscape are swept away by non-rational urges for an experiment that is devoid of haute and food value, culturally questionable, radically easy,and full of the bad boys of the edible realm.

Therefore, flaunting, momentarily, all my higher principles, humbly requesting forgiveness from those who always act with propriety, I offer you a perfectly devastating crockpot supper that will jolt your system with sodium, your arteries with nasty fats, and your naughtiest, pleasure-seeking tastebuds with some of those induplicable flavors you may hate to admit that you love.

My disclaimer here is that I truly believe that health and vitality are the consequences of blessings, stability, flexibility, laughter and curiosity, as much as a relentlessly pure, vitamin packed diet, unremittingly observed.

Omnivores, hooligans, gentle transgressors, proceed!

Start in the morning. If you have time, you can saute the following; if not, just toss everything together in the crock and leave it.

With a kitchen shears, cut across, making 1/2" slices:

1/2# cold bacon

1 medium onion, chopped coarsley

Cook until the onion is transluscent. Add:

1/2 head of cabbage, chopped fine

1 tsp. celery seeds

dash of caraway, optional

When you are about to transfer this mixture to the crock, add:

1/2 Cup brown sugar.

Chop into 1/2" slices in the bacon skillet:

1 moderate package kjelbasa sausage

I like carbon, so I slowly char them a little, but sealing in the savor is the idea here.

Toss this around with the bacon, cabbage mix and a chopped up potato, carrots, celery or whatever you hanker for, and then add that distinguished flavor lord, renown for its mustachio texture and its lack of diplomacy, the dear and wonderful toast of Germany, deep but not rotten, the great household polarizer, the dream catalyst:

1# fresh sauerkraut

Throughout the day your own little storm will be brewing. When you begin circling it for dinner, bring with you a hearty loaf of black rye or pumpernickel; a madcap game of Scrabble, radio jazz, cozy fire, sleepy cats, you are in heaven.