Traditional mole as we know it (mole is simply an indigenous word for sauce) was born in the convents of Puebla long before the battle.Â? According to Diana Kennedy, the Julia Child of Mexican cuisine, nuns created mole for visiting church dignitaries, and either wanted to blend a sauce from Old and New World ingredients, or spilled their spice rack into a pot of turkey.Â? Both turkey and chocolate come pre-Columbian Mexico.

Mole is a sauce greater than the sum of its parts–Kennedy’s recipe has more than 20 ingredients–and chocolate actually plays a relatively small role.Â? The fruity, roasted notes and silky body come from toasted chiles and nuts.Â? Every recipe, even every batch, will vary, but here’s an easy way to start:

1.Â? Toast in a cast iron pan or toaster oven until fragrant and soft, being careful not to scorch:Â? Approximately 10 mulato chiles, 5 ancho chiles, and 5 pasilla chiles (all dried–you can substitute more readily available New Mexico or California
chiles if necessary, but most of the chiles should be either mulato or
ancho; you can find all of them at Gourmetsleuth.com).Â? Put the chiles in a bowl of warm water to soak during the next steps, then drain, stem, and seed before blending.

2.Â? Toast until fragrant:Â? 1 tsp. coriander, 1 tsp. / stick cinnamon, 1 tsp. anise, 1/2 tsp. / 4 cloves.

3.Â? Toast until fragrant but not browned:Â? 1 cup almonds / sesame seeds / pumpkin seeds / mix, and two cloves garlic.

4.Â? Blend until smooth all ingredients, plus:Â? 1 chopped white onion, 1 chopped tortilla, 8 oz. tomatoes or tomatillos, and 1/3 cup raisins, 1 14.5 oz. can chicken broth (or more if necessary to release blender blades).

5.Â? Fry blended mixture in 2 tbsp. vegetable oil over medium-high heat for a minute or two, stirring constantly.

6.Â? Reduce heat to low, mix in and melt 2 ozs. unsweetened chocolate, and simmer for at least 30 mins.Â? Gradually add more chicken broth as necessary keep sauce from burning.

7.Â? Add 2-3 lbs. browned chicken during the simmering process to cook, or serve over roast chicken or (more authentically) turkey.Â? Serves 6-8, and can be frozen and later reheated with additional chicken broth.

But earlier this week, after yet another weekend away from what was left of the garden, I noticed Lena gnawing on a big green roma tomato. Lo and behold, several more had managed to swell beneath the undergrowth. So I ran out, grabbed a couple of stakes, and opened them up to more of the ripening sun. Now they just have to beat the frost.

We had no idea what perennials and bulbs had been planted by our predecessors, and there was only so much mulching could do to clean up the beds. As it happened, there was a whole lot of morning glory looking to climb a trellis we had removed, so instead it strangled the herb garden (pictured). But I noticed that our herbs were hanging on among the weeds. It looked like there were salvageable leaves of rosemary, sage, basil, and oregano, along with hearty stands of fennel, peppermint, and (thanks to Spot’s tending) catnip. Autumn had worked late pulling together her classroom, and I smelled an opportunity.

I threw some frozen gorgonzola-walnut and sundried tomato-cheese ravioli from the Real Food Store into a pot, and picked some herbs. The rosemary and sage went into a saucepan with browning butter, then over the gorgonzola ravioli. The basil and oregano went into a simmering can of crushed tomatoes (alas, not our own), then over the sundried-tomato ravioli. Delicious. Next month we’ll have tomatoes, and next year veggies, but this week herbs will do.

I’m picking up a grill this weekend, so I can start working out my own steak philosophy. Pragmatic sirloin, corn-fed, gas grill, and a quick marinade? Or fundamentalist porterhouse, grass-fed, charcoal, with only a rub of salt and pepper? While I’m a pragmatist at most things, I think I may be a steak fundamentalist.

The Pauline takes its name from my grandmother, a tough old Scot born on the flanks of the Crazy Mountains, my mother’s mother. When I came to visit her after some time at college, at the appointed cocktail hour, as she was mixing me a Squirt and maraschino cherry juice, my mom let slip that I had started drinking harder stuff. At that, Pauline promptly walked over to the sink, poured out my pop, and topped off the pyrex measuring bowl of liquor she was mixing. That night I’d start drinking martinis.

This cocktail was no fancy gin with some postmodern whisper of vermouth, or even the cold war vodka version. This cocktail was a shot each of gin and vodka from a plastic bottle (Lewis & Clark, I recall), topped off with a generous shot of vermouth.

An ounce and a half of vermouth: You would think it was a superfund pollutant, the way otherwise sensible liquor drinkers avoided it. But vermouth dates the drink, takes it out of the age of artisan gins and quadruple-filtered vodkas, back to when bartenders struck a balance between high-proof rutgut gin and the finer, more dilute vermouth. Vermouth–not just a whisper, but enough of it to flavor the drink–makes it a cocktail and not just a shot of booze. And when some apparently tough bartender rolls his eyes at my order, like I’m one of those who wants his gin spiced with organic juniper, or his subliminal vermouth atomized, I tell him that my grandmother’s been drinking that mix for twice as long as either of us has been alive.

Someday I’ll train a bartender to make a Pauline by name, but until then I’ll suffer the sideways glances, take my gin and vodka and vermouth and ice and olives, and toast my dear old grandmother.