Your mother will see that heading and exclaim, "Oh, my God," with much trepidation. She was a rewarding person to cook for, and was never hesitant to enjoy food, but she never got used to watching me eat. I understand the sin of gluttony. This does not mean that there is anything wrong with my table manners, just that I am prone to sit at the table and utilize those manners through more and larger helpings than most people.

Shueys enjoy preparing and eating good food. Your great-grandmother Mary Willis wrote the cooking column for the New Orleans Times-Picayune 1920-1929, and when you realize how many great chefs there are in New Orleans, you'll realize what an impressive accomplishment this was. Most of us use lemon, garlic and red wine vinegar in many of our dishes, eat the whites of fried eggs, and put ketchup on scrambled eggs. Our preferred red table wine is Vino Paisano, which is bottled by Ernest and Julio Gallo one year and their brother-in-law, Carlo Rossi, the next, exchanged as a family joke gift each Xmas. Our houses are usually filled with rich kitchen odors.

To make a nice pasta salad, use the following:

1 16 oz. bottle of low fat cucumber ranch dressing

1 12 oz. package tri-color rotini noodles

4 plump Roma tomatoes, diced

3 stalks spring onion, diced

5 stalks celery, chopped

2 cans white tuna, packed in water, drained

1 can medium pitted black olives, drained and chopped

2 vegetable bouillon cubes

2 tablespoons cooking oil

basil

hot sauce

Cook (boil) noodles according to package directions, adding bouillon cubes and cooking oil to water. (The bouillon cubes replace the salt called for on the noodle package and add a little of their own flavor to the final product.) Stir often. Drain noodles in colander and rinse with cold water. Add other ingredients, seasoning to taste with basil and hot sauce. Crumbled bacon, oregano, curry, and garlic salt are good extra seasonings for some. Stir well and chill at least three hours before serving. Always spoon pasta salad from the bottom of its serving vessel. 7-8 entree servings.

There are retail shops that sell nothing but hot sauce, offering hundreds of varieties. Only one hot sauce, however, will be absolutely right for you, and that is the one you create. Here are general instructions for "Texas LoveWhip," made with the same care that goes into my set list. Warning: This product may cause lab animals or small children.

Begin with a pint of white vinegar, 5% acidity. Pour the vinegar into a one quart container. Add three tea bags - Smoked oolong is my preference for this project, but black or orange and black blend pekoe works perfectly well. The tea's function in the recipe is to add tannic acid to the vinegar, both as a preservative and as a smoothing agent for flavor ... it balances the front tongue and back tongue burn one seeks in balancing ingredients. Add 3-4 vegetable bouillon cubes and a slice of fresh ginger about the size of a nickel. Let the vinegar tea steep for at least two weeks on the back of a gas stove, near a sunlit window, or in some other location subject to a little extra warmth.

Dissolve 1/8 cup salt in six cups of rapidly boiling water. Add 6 oz. (approx. dry weight) jalapeno peppers. Continue to boil for five minutes. Remove peppers and mash them into the vinegar tea. Add a can of powdered Chinese red pepper.  Let sit for at least two more weeks. After shaking the bottle, decant a reasonable table-size container(airline liquor bottles with small holes punched in their tops work well). Try a few drops on your next omelet, salad, pizza, rice dish, sandwich, or whatever seems appropriate. If the sauce is too mild, boil and mash into the "mother bottle" a few more robust peppers, such as Anaheims. If it is too hot, grate, boil, drain and mash into bottle half of a finely grated carrot. If it has the right strength but a specific flavor that is not quite right, experiment with banana, serrano or chili peppers, all commonly available in your grocery store's produce section. Periodically add more vinegar and (less often) bouillon cubes to the mother bottle, and continue to add blanched peppers to taste. Never decant from the mother bottle until its contents have had at least two weeks to brew together. In case of emergency, as when friends come by to beg you for their own bottles of that delicious sauce and you find yourself extremely low, add 6 tablespoons of hot Hungarian paprika and a cup of vinegar to the mother bottle as a quick refill. This may be decanted immediately after shaking, but is neither as pretty nor as toothsome as the naturally brewed sauce, and this shortcut should only be taken in case of emergency. After approximately eight quarts of completed sauce have passed through the mother bottle, throw it out and begin afresh, just for good luck.

Many people add a tablespoon or so of milk to their eggs before beating them for scrambled eggs or omelets to make them more fluffy. A tablespoon of water works better. If you have a choice between cooking eggs with milk and exploding, bring a thin layer of skim milk almost to a boil in a skillet, gently crack eggs, and fry them in the skim milk. These are called "sheared eggs," and they are supposed to be less fattening than eggs cooked in any other way.

Microwave ovens are horrible things for most cooking projects, but they are the best method through which to prepare potatoes for potato salad. For all other spud dishes, stab the potatoes a few times with a fork, wrap them in tin foil, and bake them in the oven.

Citric acid, as found in lemons and lemon juice, is a marvelous cooking aid. It tenderizes meat and chemically cooks fish and shellfish. Half of a lemon, squeezed, may be thrown into a stew or soup pot during simmering to enhance flavor and texture, then removed before serving so as to avoid frightening damn fools who might accidentally try to eat half of a lemon out of a stew. Grated ginger is another marvelous meat tenderizer, and should be considered for all marinades.

If you have friends or relatives with pecan trees, always be sure to acquire as many as they wish to give you. A bag of ground (in a blender or mouli) pecans will keep indefinitely in your freezer, and will be useful for many kitchen projects. Sprinkle ground pecans on ice cream. Add three tablespoons of them to your coffee grounds (and a cinnamon stick to the pot) for a great, flavored coffee. Knead butter, a little brown sugar, and ground pecans into a pie shell, bake for ten minutes at 350 degrees, cool, and fill with your favorite pudding or cheesecake filling for an extra special dessert. Add Elmer's glue for a sandy area on your model train layout. The possibilities are endless.

Commercial jars of mustard may be improved in many ways. If you are working on a dish that calls for half of an onion or pepper, you don't have to throw the other half away; just chop it up and stir it into that French's mustard! Amaze your lunch guests!

Soften cream cheese (yes, a goddam microwave can do this) and add grated carrot, diced onion, olive and parsley, and chili powder to the consistency of a stiff spread. Smear a thick layer onto the end of a normal, rectangular slice of ham or turkey ham lunch meat. Roll the lunch meat tightly around the spread. Stick toothpicks through it before serving it as part of a luncheon if you wish, but never use those plastic sword things.

The word may of gotten around by the time you get your first set of pot holders but, as of this writing, most people don't know how to appreciate 6/$1.00 Ramen. Add frozen mixed vegetables, tuna, sour cream and your own hot sauce, garnish with parmesan or cheddar cheese, and you will have something special. Similarly, cheap frozen burritos and horsemeat pizzas may be enhanced with chopped onion, olive, tomato and cheese.

A New Orleans salad, made with Boston lettuce, chopped hard-boiled egg, crumbled bacon, crumbled Danish blue cheese, lemon juice and hot sauce makes a full, delicious summer meal.