Janine MacLachlan blogs at the Rustic Kitchen.

She and I had met in Michigan a few summers ago, when I was working at an orchard there. And I had run into her from time to time at farmers markets. But I had never been to her place in the city.

Now I was at her place in the city.

I signed in at the lobby check-in desk.

Name? "Dan."

Time in? "10:02."

Purpose of visit? "Waffling."

Janine welcomed me in and we got right down to business. She had given a lot of thought to things that, frankly, I had never considered.

Whereas I am generally content if something does not collapse into a molten mess — and even, let's face it, sometimes if it does — Janine took a bit of a different tack in approaching this project, one that seemed a bit obvious once I thought about it, even if it didn't turn me around completely on the subject.

What I'm trying to say is that Janine made something with an eye toward nutrition that is convenient to prepare.

I know; it's just crazy enough to work.

Janine served her waffled dipping cookies with strained yogurt, honey and a dusting of cinnamon.

If you've never made strained yogurt, it's one of those transformative processes you'll love having in your repertoire. Plain yogurt becomes incomparably creamy and decadent.

You can find the technique for strained yogurt, as well as the recipe for the cookies, on Janine's site.

* * *

I'm just back from Montreal.

I ate more french fries in the last five days than I've eaten in the last five years. I ate a few bagels, too.

But really I ate my weight in french fries.

This is harder than it sounds because, the more french fries I ate, the more french fries I had to eat in order to eat my weight in french fries.

It almost killed me.

But what a way to go.