Monthly Archives: September 2014

On Abortion, Jail, Parental Responsibility & Bad Judgement

scales abortion vs safetyJennifer Whalen, a 39 year old mother of three from rural Pennsylvania, is serving a 9-18 month jail sentence for purchasing and dispensing abortion-causing medications to help her teenage daughter abort an unplanned pregnancy.

The case is being used as an example of the lengths that women will go to to end a pregnancy when abortion is not immediately and freely available.

And perhaps it is.

But it’s also an example of just how easy we expect everything to be, and how those expectations are leading us to do things that are really, really stupid.

Because make no mistake. What Whalen did was stupid, irresponsible and dangerous.

Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania.

It was available to Whalen’s daughter with parental consent (which she clearly had) at a safe facility 75 miles away. That’s about an hour and 15 minute ride. Not the end of the world.

Yes, Pennsylvania has an absolutely ridiculous law requiring a 24 hour waiting period, meaning Whalen might have had to take time off from work to get her daughter an abortion. Or not – because the abortion facility nearest them has Saturday hours.

And yes, Whalen and her husband had just one car. And no health insurance for the $400 procedure.

I get it.

I really do. This was not going to be something easy.

But this is an abortion. A medical procedure that, while exceedingly safe, needs to be done by someone who knows what they are doing. Whalen, while not a licensed RN as previously reported, works in a healthcare facility as a nurses aide. So I’m sorry, but she should have known better. And I don’t quite buy it that she did not know that buying abortion pills online without a prescription was illegal.

And I won’t get into the ethical issues of aborting your daughter’s pregnancy, but it raises so many concerns about coersion that I know the docs at Geisinger Medical Center were right to report the case to the authorities after Whalen took her daughter to their ER during her induced miscarriage.

So, in case it’s not obvious by now…  

I’m not jumping on the “Poor Jennifer Whalen, she had no choice, she was ignorant, she was scammed by online sellers of abortion pills and sent up the river by those mean doctors in the ER” bandwagon.

Yes, I’m pro choice. Yes, I abhor the rash of abortion restrictions being passed by state legislatures across this country. And yes, I truly wish that abortion were freely available at every doctor’s office in every small community everywhere.

But it’s not.

And in this reality we have, parents like Jennifer Whalen have to make choices – to do the right thing, even when it’s the harder thing, or to do what’s easy.

She chose the easy route, and I think by now she knows that she made a bad judgement.

Now, do I think Whalen deserves a 6 month prison sentence? 

Of course not.

Whalen was not setting herself up as an abortion provider. She was not selling her services or posing as a health professional.

One time, she purchased medication over the internet for her daughter, who by all accounts took the medication freely and of her own accord. The medication, thankfully, worked as advertised.

But rather than come up with a way to turn this case into something positive for Whalen, her family and the community of women at large, Montour County DA Rebecca Warren and Judge Gary Norton chose instead to criminalize a mother for making the wrong choice in a very tough situation.

Warren says this case is not about Abortion Rights , but about “endangering the welfare of a child“.

Because sending a mother to prison is really good for her children, right?

Talk about bad judgement.

Putting Up Irene & Rita’s Fresh Summer Tomato Sauce

Ever since I first saw Mrs Frake putting up pickles and mincemeat in the movie State Fair, I’ve wanted to put up something.

As opposed to putting up with something, which basically describes my life.

I did once put up a few small jars of blackberry jam with the kids while vacationing on Block Island. We tried to sell the jam at the playground – I think someone bought one jar – then used the rest of the jars pretty much immediately. And that was the end of my putting up.

Until this week, when I was faced with forty pounds of South Jersey Roma tomatoes (Thanks Patty!) a few days after meeting blogger Marissa McClellan, who was selling her book Food in Jars at the Union Square Greenmarket and two days after my mother-in-law Irene sent me a recipe for what she is calling the best tomato sauce she’s ever made.

The stars had aligned. It was time for a real put up.

A Warning

First of all, I must warn you. This tomato sauce recipe has not been formally “tested” as safe for canning.  However, it is not dissimilar in amounts of olive oil, garlic and peppers to other recipes I found on the web that are tested for canning. Just to be safe, I’m freezing all but one jar of my canned sauce, and will update this post in 6 months or so when I open up the one unfrozen jar to see how it fared.

Of course, you don’t need to put up this sauce. You can just make it, use it and eat it right away.

A Second Warning

Forty pounds of tomatoes is a lot of tomatoes.  Unless you have a 3 day empty weekend, or are willing to give up three to four straight week nights (for me happily coinciding with Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts on PBS) and a bit of sleep, I do not recommend starting with such a large amount of tomatoes.  I spent an entire evening making 5 quarts of sauce, not to mention the clean up time, which left me getting to bed well after midnight and still with 20 pounds of tomatoes.

The next night I got smarter, I thought, and made oven dried tomatoes. (That post is coming up) The first batch was a disaster, and while the second batch turned out okay, I had to set the alarm to check the tomatoes every few hours overnight.  That left me with about 10 pounds of tomatoes. Those I will blanch, skin and can tonight.  Hopefully, it will go quickly.

How I canned this sauce

I canned my sauce using a water processing method. (This is as opposed to using a pressure canner.)

  • Make the sauce as directed, multiplying by 6 and using about 18 pounds of tomatoes.
  • Towards the end of the vegetable roast, fill a large stockpot with water, place a 12 inch metal cake cooling rack on the bottom, then fill and submerge 5 one quart mason jars in the water. (Your jars should not sit directly on the bottom of the pot – you can put a dish towel there if you don’t have a rack or a trivet to use).
  • Boil with the lid on for 10 minutes (My stock pot lid has a steam scape valve – very handy), then turn it down on a very low heat to keep the jars warm so that they will not break when I you add the hot sauce.
  • Boil the lids in small saucepan and turn them down to keep as well.
  • After the sauce is made, and has simmered for 10 mins or so as directed, remove the mason jars from the water bath with a pair of tongs (I need to get a jar lifter for future efforts, this was a bit precarious). Fill the jar, wiping away any excess sauce near the top and leaving 1/2 -1 inch airspace, then put on the lids and finger-tighten them.
  • Return the now-filled jars to the stock pot, sitting them neatly on the submerged cake racker and removing the excess water from the pot with a small sauce pan, so that the final water level is 1-2 inches above the top of the jars. (Since the jars are now filled, you don’t need as much water in the pot.) I was able to fit 5 quart jars in my large stock pot.
  • Bring the water to a rolling boil, cover the pot and let it boil for 45 minutes. (This is an extra ten minutes over the recommended processing time for quart jars at sea level, but I wanted to be  safe. Processing times do vary by elevation – you can check here for the right time for your location).
  • After processing, I remove the jars to a towel-covered counter top and let them sit and cool overnight. As mine cooled, I could hear the lids popping (a good sign that the vacuum seal has worked).  Although some folks say to remove the outer rings and just let the cans sit with the vacuumed lids atop, I’m leaving the rings on.

Bottom Line

Putting up is fun, but laborious. It’s not an undertaking to be taken lightly, and you must be sure to do it safely. I learned a lot this first go round.  Stay tuned for more next season.

RITA & IRENE’S FRESH SUMMER TOMATO SAUCE

Irene&Rita's Tomato Sauce

This recipe comes from my mother-in-law Irene, the world’s greatest home cook, via this delightful email she sent to me a few weeks ago-

Hi Peggy,  Here it is 10am Sunday morning and I just finished making the best tomato sauce I ever made.  I was sitting in the dentist’s chair on Thursday going through 2-1/2 hours of dental fun.  The dental assistant, Rita and I were having some delightful conversations about food.  She’s a vegetarian and we had a lot to talk about when I didn’t have a lot of stuff going on in my mouth.  At one point she told me of a fresh tomato sauce she makes that’s very good.  All she gave me were the basic ingredients, without amounts,  the oven temperature and the time —tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, olive oil, 350 oven for an hour and a half.  I had to figure out how to do it and season it.  Here’s what I came up with.

This recipe is for one batch of sauce. I multiplied the recipe by 6, using about 20 pounds of tomatoes, and got 5 quarts of sauce.

  • 5 large summer tomatoes, quartered (or 3-4 pounds roma tomatoes, halved)
  • 1 large red pepper, seeded and cut in 1/6ths
  • 1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled (that’s a bulb, not a clove)
  • 2 tsps. sea salt
  • lots of freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp. sugar
  • 1/4 cup olive oil

Do not peel the tomatoes, the pepper or the garlic, the skins come off easily when they’re finished roasting.  Place all ingredients in a large roasting pan. Place in 350 oven for 1-1/2 hours.

Remove from oven and let cool for about a half hour until the tomatoes and pepper and garlic are cool enough to handle and peel. Peel the tomatoes and peppers into a large sauce pot, discarding the skins. Squeeze the roast garlic into the pot and discard the skins. Using an immersion blender, blend tomatoes, peppers and garlic to a smooth sauce. Add back the oil and juices from the pan as needed to thin the sauce to the right consistency (I used about 3/4 of it). Heat to boiling and then simmer 10 mins.  Season as necessary.

Use immediately, or pour into prepared canning jars and process.

________________________________________________________

Some great links on canning

The Music of The Children Act

Music features prominently in Ian McEwan’s new book The Children Act. The book’s protagonist Fiona Mayes, a family court judge, is also an accomplished pianist, and both she and her husband Jack are lovers of jazz.  Almost every important moment in the book, aside from the first scene and Fiona’s time in the courtroom, occurs while music is being played or listened to.

I love how McEwan weaves the musical themes seamlessly throughout the story, informing character, time and place. I listened to the Audible book (a fabulous performance by Linsday Duncan), and found myself wishing that someone had thought to add a score to the recording.

For those of you reading the Children Act and also wondering what it might sound like, here are some recordings and a little context from the novel.

Bach’s Second Partita in C Minor for Keyboard

I loved this passage, as Fiona walks to work, trying to distract her thoughts from her failing marriage by recalling the Bach Partita, a distraction that of course, fails.

Children.

The inevitable thought recurred as she moved on to the demanding fugue she had mastered, for love of her husband, and played at full tilt, without fumbling, without failing to separate the voices. Yes, her childlessness was a fugue it itself. A flight. This was the habitual theme she was trying now to resist. A flight from her proper destiny. A failure to become a woman, as her mother understood the term.

How she arrived at her state was a slow patterned counterpoint, played out with Jack over two decades, dissonances appearing then retreating, always reintroduced by her in moments of alarm, even horror, as the fertile years slipped by, until they were gone, and she was almost too busy to notice.

Down by the Sally Gardens

Fiona visits a young man with leukemia in the hospital as she tries to decide if the court will force him, a Jehovah Witness, to take blood products that will save his life.  In a very non-judicial moment, as he plays Down by the Sully Gardens on his violin, she sings along. That moment and that song decide the case for her, sealing his fate and binding them together in a way she had never anticipated.

Keith Jarret – Facing You – (First track) In Front

Jarrett ‘s Facing You was “one of three or four albums that formed the soundtrack” of Fiona and Jack’s early relationship. Jack now uses the album to begin to bring them back together.

..the technical facility, the effortless outpouring of lyrical invention as copious as Mozart’s, and here it was again after so many years, still holding her to the spot, reminding her of who she and Jack once playfully were.

Hector Berlioz: Les Nuitsd’ete – Villanelle  / Gustav Mahler Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I Am Lost to the World)

The book culminates in a live performance by Fiona and a tenor colleague, a performance that coincides with her learning of the fate of the young boy. The combination of such beauty and such sadness in the two pieces they perform mirror the young man perfectly.

I have become lost to the world, where I used to waste so much time;
It has been so long since it heard from me, that it may well think that I have died!
I don’t care if it thinks me dead, for I really have died to the world.
I have died to all the world’s turmoil, and I rest in a silent realm.
I live in solitude in my heaven, In my love, in my song.

Patient Identifiers, Hospitals & the EHR

FIngerprintCurrent Joint Commission standards call for the use of two patient identifiers to avoid mixing up patients with the same or similar names. For inpatients, these identifiers are usually the name and the medical record number (MRN).

Which is fine if the only place you need to identify the patient is your own hospital.

But your hospital’s MRN is meaningless to me and my EHR.

So if you send me a copy of my patient’s chart (or her lab result or mammogram report) and all that’s listed on the top of the page is her very common name and your MRN, I have no clue who this patient is.

(My EHR gives me a box to check to confine the search to my own patients, but that button only works about 10% of the time.)

So please, hospitals, start adding the patient’s date of birth to your printed reports and records.  And EHR vendors, you could make it easier for all of us by defaulting to a header that includes the date of birth as an identifier.

Thank you.

 

The Not So Scary Truth About HPV

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-emotion-2-image597604There’s a downside, I think, to educating the public about the link between HPV infection and cervical cancer.  And that’s scaring the bejesus out of every woman who happens to find out she has HPV.

It’s not surprising that you’re scared.

You see, we want you to know that HPV infection is linked to cervical cancer, and that we have a vaccine against HPV that can prevent cervical cancer. So we’ve been doing our best to get the word out. (With no small bit of help from the HPV test and vaccine manufacturers.)

But in our zeal to get you screened and vaccinated, we sort of forgot to tell you something equally important. And that something is this –

Pretty much everyone – 80% of US adults- will get HPV at least once, if not more than once, in their lifetime. At any given time, 20-30% of US women ages 14-59 have HPV. That’s right – a third of the female population. If you include men, there are about 20 million persons at any given time in the US who have HPV.

The overwhelming majority of HPV infections do NOT lead to cervical cancer. Around 95% of the time, the infection clears, usually within 1-2 years, without you, or anyone, doing anything

Yes, the problem with HPV disease awareness is that it ultimately makes every woman feel like she have a bull’s eye on her cervix. Which may a good way to get her in for HPV testing and vaccination, but is actually misleading women about an infection that basically everyone gets at some point in their lives.

The Not So Scary Truth About HPV

The truth is that while having HPV is a necessary precondition for getting cervical cancer, it’s also true that almost all HPV infections DO NOT lead to cancer

Think of it this way. Getting in a car is a necessary condition for having an automobile accident, but in fact, most of us will make it to our destination alive. Same thing with HPV. The chain of events that ultimately leads to cervical cancer starts with HPV infection, but almost all the time something intervenes to prevent cancer. That something is called your immune system.

If for some reason, your immune systems doesn’t do the job, and you’re in the 5% of women with HPV who don’t clear the infection, we have ways to monitor you closely so that if a precancerous lesion arises, we can treat it. Years before it becomes cancer.

But I have “High Risk” HPV 

So does everyone else with a positive HPV test.

“High risk” HPV subtypes are called that simply to distinguish them from the “low risk” types that cause genital warts.  Current HPV tests only screen for the “high-risk” types. So by definition, if you’re HPV positive, you have a “high risk” strain. (Someone really needs to change the name of that test…)

But if everyone has HPV, and most infections clear without treatment, then why do we test for it? 

HPV testing is better at finding precancerous lesions that Pap smear alone, so what the Pap misses, the HPV test will find. It’s so good that it’s being considered as a replacement for the pap smear as the first line test for cervical cancer screening.

The HPV test is also good for weeding out the false positive Pap smears. A mildly abnormal pap (ASCUS) can be safely ignored and repeated in a year if the HPV test is negative. This saves a lot of women unnecessary testing.

The other good thing about HPV testing is that if it’s negative, you’re really in the clear. So much so that if both the Pap and HPV test are normal, the risk for cervical cancer plummets, and you can safely wait up to 5 years between pap smears.

The problem with HPV Testing

The problem with HPV testing is that it has a very high false positive rate. Most of the women with HPV  actually do not have precancerous lesions. They just have HPV.

That’s what happened to NYC Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who then went public with her HPV diagnosis on Twitter. Ultimately, when she had additional testing after her HPV diagnosis, she found out that she was fine.

Of course, you don’t want to ignore the fact that you have HPV.

You should take it as a sign that you, of all people, need to get your pap smears regularly. Or , if your doctor recommends it, have a simple office procedure called a colposcopy – a magnifying lens that looks for tiny abnormalities on the cervix that are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but if found, can be treated so that you never get cervical cancer.

But know that it would be exceedingly unusual for you to actually have cervical cancer just because your HPV test is positive. This is about finding precancerous lesions, and ultimately, preventing cancer.

So if you have HPV, don’t be scared. But be smart.

If you have HPV, odds are overwhelming that you’re going to be fine.  Between the HPV test and the pap smear, if you have anything precancerous, we’ll find it and we’ll treat it. Years before it becomes cervical cancer.

In the meantime, there are things you can do to help your immune system along. Things like not smoking, using condoms, getting enough sleep and getting 4-6 servings of fruits and veggies each day. Women who do these things clear the virus faster, although ultimately most will clear it anyway.

So do be smart and get screened. And follow through on whatever testing is recommended based on that result.

But please. Don’t be scared.

_____________________________________________________________________

More good info on HPV and cervical cancer.

A slightly modified version of this post first appeared on WebMD.

Corn, Zucchini and Chickpea Fritters

Fritters corn zucchini chickpea
Our first dinner in the empty nest.

We dropped our youngest off at college, which to our delight is a mere two hours drive north along the lovely Taconic Parkway. To say the campus is bucolic is an understatement, with the Catskill mountains on the horizon, and a lovely little town just a short ride away.  This was a happy day for us all, the culmination of an amazing summer for the entire family. She’s launched and we’re so happy for her. (And can’t wait to come back up to visit on parent’s weekend…)

After settling her in, we explore the area, following dead end roads like fingers that end at the Hudson River. We stop at an amazing little farm stand, where we find fresh corn and heirloom tomatoes.

Heirloom tomatoes

A little further down the road, the guy who owns the pastry store is selling huge zucchini from his garden at a little table out front of his shop. Of course we have to buy one.

At home later that evening, we find a recipe to combine our farm finds, and eat delicious vegetable fritters al fresco on one of the warmer days of this unseasonably cool summer, sitting on the terrace at the table which until now was too small for a family dinner. Now with just the two of us, it’s just the right size.

We share a beer and talk about the future.  Yes we miss the kids, but then we think of each of them – one settling in at her new college, the other launching a theater career (and a play opening!) in our hometown -and we are just so happy for them that we would not have it any other way.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CORN, CHICKPEA AND ZUCCHINI FRITTERSfritters cooking

This is my own modification of a recipe from The Wednesday Chef, who herself modified a recipe from Taste.com/Au. Feel free to change up the herbs you use. Makes 12 fritters. If that’s too many fritters for one meal, the leftovers heat up nicely for lunch the following day. My mother in law Irene, who made these a few days after we did, instead froze the extra batter to make another day.

  • 1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained & rinsed
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 large zucchini, grate
  • 2 large ears of corn kernels (about 2 cups)
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
  • 3 scallions, thinly sliced
  • Zest of one lemon
  • Canola Oil
  • Plain sheep’s yogurt and hot sauce for serving

Process chickpeas until roughly chopped.

Whisk milk and eggs in a measuring cup. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Gradually add milk mixture to flour, whisking until smooth. Stir in chickpeas, zucchini, corn, mint, scallions and lemon zest.

Heat a shallow layer of canola oil in a large skillet over moderately high heat. Add 1/4 cup mixture to pan. Spread slightly with a spatula. Repeat to make 3 more fritters. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and cover or keep warm in a 200 degree oven. Repeat with remaining mixture to make 12 fritters. Serve with freshly sliced heirloom tomatoes, a dollop of sheep’s milk yogurt and a splash of hot sauce.

I’m Writing for WebMD

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-typewriter-keys-image14524512

I’m now writing for WebMD. Just one to two blog posts a month.

Here’s my first post.

It’s kind of exciting to actually be paid to write, although I don’t think I’ll be quitting my day job anytime soon.

I’ll be cross posting the Web MD posts here a week later, so you can read me here or there, and nothing will be lost from this blog.  (It is, after all, my baby.)

Let’s see where this thing goes…

Appetizers for Summer Book Club

Book Club appetizers

As much as I love book club, I love hosting it even more. Because hosting means I get to leave work early and do my favorite thing in the whole world – spend the late afternoon in my kitchen. I’m rarely at home at that time of day, when something wonderful happens to the light in our apartment as the sun begins to peek out from behind the tall apartment towers just south of us, and pours into my kitchen.  Add in NPR or a good book on tape and I’m in heaven.

The evening promised good weather, so we planned to meet on the roof.  I took my cue for the menu from the book we were discussing – “My Brilliant Friend”, set in Naples – and went for a Mediterranean theme. (Plus I had a whole mess of amazing, pitted Castelvetanos olives and a jar of fig preserves.)

In an amazing feat of pre-planning, something highly unusual for me, I actually decided on the menu and bought all my ingredients the day before, so I was able to head straight home and got to work around 4 pm. Luckily, Mr TBTAM was home early as well, and I put him to work weeding the rooftop garden, which we had ignored for most of the summer.  Somehow I managed to pull it all together by the time the group arrived at 6:30, with a little help from my friends who arrived first.

The discussion was as always, interesting and spirited, and we went till dark. This is one great bunch of women, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the group.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Book Club Appetizer Menu

  • Fig & Blue Cheese Savories
  • Olive all’Ascolana
  • Manchego cheese with Firehook Za’Atar flatbreads
  • Nectarine segments and dried apricots
  • Wine; Mint lemonade
  • Cappucino almonds (Thanks, Amy!)
  • Sunflowers for the table (Thanks Stacy!)

Fig and Blue Cheese Savories

FIG AND BLUE CHEESE SAVORIES

These delicious babies come from The Runaway Spoon, found via Food 52.  I used a wonderfully pungent Roquefort style sheep cheese (Ewe’s Blue) from Nancy & Tom Clark’s Old Chatham Sheepherding Company.  I did not have a one inch round cookie cutter, so I used a floured 1 inch soda bottle cap. You may be tempted to make these bigger, but do not. The small size is perfect. They can be made ahead and kept in layers separated by waxed paper. They freeze beautifully.

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature, cut into four pieces
  • 4 ounces blue cheese, cut into several chunks
  • Ground black pepper
  • Fig preserves (about 1/4 cup total)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Process the butter, blue cheese, flour and a few grinds of black pepper in the food processor until the dough starts to form a ball. Dump onto a lightly floured surface, knead a few times to pull the dough together and roll out to 1/8 inch thick with a floured rolling pin. Cut rounds out of the dough with a floured 1-inch cutter and transfer to the parchment-lined baking sheet. Using the back of a round half-teaspoon measure or your knuckle, make an indentation in the top of each dough round. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indentation. Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, the remove to a wire rack to cool.

Can be made ahead or frozen in an airtight container in layers separated by waxed paper.

Olive all'Ascolana

OLIVE ALL’ASCOLANA  – Vegetarian Version

This recipe comes from Arielle Clementine via Food 52. It’s inspired by the classic Italian stuffed olives, which have a spicy meat stuffing and use olives from the Ascoli region of Italy. (Here’s a wonderful video on how to make the real thing, which I must try one of these days.)  I made some fresh breadcrumbs for this recipe, but did not toast the crumbs as I usually do, since they would get crisped as they fried. I had no mustard seeds, so used a pinch of dried mustard instead.  I fried them in my electric fryer, a kitchen appliance I only use otherwise for latkes, and it worked beautifully.

  • 24 large green olives, pitted
  • 1/2 cup goat cheese
  • 1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
  • 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped fine
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 cup breadcrumbs (fresh or panko)
  • 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
  • parmigiano reggiano, for sprinkling
  • zest and juice from one lemon, for sprinkling

Mix the goat cheese, mustard seed, rosemary, chile flakes, and garlic in a small bowl. Stuff the olives with the cheese mixture (I used my fingers, rolling the filling like a small cigar and sliding it into the pitted olive.) Put the stuffed olives on a plate and refrigerate for 20 minutes. While the olives are chilling, heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan to 375 degrees. Set up three plates for your breading station (Flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs+grated Parmesan) When the olives have chilled, roll half of them in the flour, then in the egg, then in the bread crumb/Parmesan and carefully drop them into the heated oil. Fry until golden brown, about one minute per side. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to drain, and repeat with the remaining olives. Pile on a plate and finish with a shower of freshly grated cheese and lemon zest and a spritz of lemon.