Today's local newspaper provided us with a recipe for sandwiches made with lobster claws and another that called for a 2 pound porterhouse steak.

I am seldom tempted to write to newspapers, but think someone should point out that in the current economy (never mind that lobster claw meat is hard to come by in northern Colorado) some new ideas on how to fix more economical ingredients would be more useful.

Or maybe they publish these so we can pretend we are the jet set with personal chefs and unlimited food budgets and numerous local sources of gourmet ingredients.

More to the local/seasonal point, there were some rhubarb recipes, although one of the them involved roast duck.

I am working my way through my Recipes to Try database with an emphasis on dishes calling for dried beans. Today it is baked beans made with pinto beans. I didn't follow a written recipe, however, just threw in ingredients remembered from when my mother made them years and years ago. We raised pinto beans on our farm when I was growing up, and our family of four somehow managed to go through 75 to 100 pounds of pinto beans a year.