Cathy and Brook got the right idea!

Remember back in the 70's on the groundbreaking "Roots" mini-series? I remember the character "Kizzy" used to work in the plantation garden and early every spring the lady of the house would approach Kizzy and ask after the season's first tender sweet peas and Kizzy would say, "The blasted coons done got'em, ma'am!"... meanwhile, Kizzy had secreted those first delcicious peas away tucked in her apron and cooked them back home for her own family on the sly! Kizzy wasn't about to surrender this once-a-year joy to no master and his undeserving family! I liked the way she thought!

Oh, yeah! A great variation.

But that's why I say it's more important to learn the techniques and basics. After that, only your imagination holds you back.

Don't go dissing Martha now, KYH! She's on my list of top kitchen divas! But you're right- there's absolutely nothing as joyful as pumping-out fun morsels without feeling the drudgery of turning on the oven or following a recipe. One can prepare a whole platter, or table of platters of such items for a couple friends or a crowd and using colorful, flavorful summer stuff- nothing is more impressive!

(speaking of platters and party foods, I worked at a trendy restaurant once that was in an historic old bank building. there was wainscoting of gray marble in the lobby of the building and they tried to carefully move it to another area of what was to be the dining room- alas, the contractors dropped the marble and it broke into shards! The chef salvaged several large pieces of the beautiful marble and we used it as "trays" to hold arranged chilled appetizers for Sunday Brunch! People always remarked on this bit of fun, inventive ingenuity!)

CAG,

There was an ice cream shop down in Alabama that was called the "Marble Slab" they have a frozen marble slab that they take and place the ice cream on and then they proceed to soften your choice of ice cream on it and add any ingredients you request and that is what your marble story reminded me of! Marble will most definetely hold the chill for a while!

We have a chain in Illinois and there's also one up in Anchorage called "Cold Stone Creamery" and they do something similar, Cath- it's a cool place to go- very pricey but a really yummy/neat novelty! My fav is banana ice-cream with broken Reese's PB Cups smashed into it and placed in a dark choc. waffle cone!

Also, a woman whose kids I grew up with used to hold a huge house party every Thanksgiving weekend and the whole gang would make "Stained Glass Candy" (or rock candy). We'd all take 5lb. bags of sugar to contribute. She had a huge marble slab on her kitchen table and she'd sit on a stool at the stove the whole afternoon bringing several pots of sugar, corn syrup and various food-colorings and flavored oils (cinnamon, cherry, licorice, sour apple, rootbeer, peppermint, etc) to a rolling boil. Her strong husband would then heave the hot kettle to the table and pour the molten liquid onto the cool marble surface, where we'd all be seated/positioned around the table each holding a pair of scissors and we'd work all speedy-like before the candy cooled and hardened to cut the candy into tiny bits. By the time we got down to the last few clips the candy would already be nearly hard and completely cooled. We then dusted it with powdered sugar and filled the reserved emptied sugar bags, and at the end of the day, the crowd of 12-15 people would each have 3-4 sugar bags full of candy for the holidays to take home to treat their family and friends with. This was a wonderful tradition that we took part in- we all knew not to plan any shopping for that Sunday after turkey-day 'cause "Candy Day" was just too fun and important! ...and the slab of marble was the star of the show!