Years ago, some furious online detractor of low carb diets threw at me the accusation that I ate "pork rind cake." This is not true. I have never eaten a cake made from pork rinds, and had never heard of such a thing till the accusation was made. And though she subsequently posted a link to a recipe, that is the only time I have ever heard of pork rind cake in my near-decade on a low carb diet.

Writing a column on convenience foods goes against the grain for me - I'm always nagging people to just cook something, will you, for crying out loud?! A little simple, plain cooking is your best defense against bad food, not to mention a sky-high food budget. But I am aware that many people rarely eat anything that takes more preparation than three minutes in the microwave. Even folks who do cook occasionally have days when they just want something fast.

In a few weeks, we here in the US celebrate (if that's the word) National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Front Porch Day. This is because a single zucchini seed will flood an entire neighborhood with zucchini. And heaven forbid a novice gardener should make the error of planting more than one zucchini seed! We're talking Revenge of the Killer Squash, here, as zucchini take over your town, loitering on the sidewalks, bumping into old ladies, scaring the children.

Gosh, I love cherries. Talk about Nature's Candy - cherries couldn't be sweeter or more delicious. I have a vivid memory of a summer afternoon in my youth, when I ate a whole pint of cherries while walking home from the grocery store. Even my pug, Dexter, loves cherries! (And really, it's hard to think of a more charming diversion than feeding cherries to a pug.)

Sadly, Ketatoes are no longer with us, though I still have a stash I hoarded when the Keto company went under. There is a substitute: Dixie Diners Instant Mashers. I've tried them in several of my recipes, and they work just like the Ketatoes mix.

I recently got an email from reader Karen Kosel asking exactly that; she followed up by posting me a website that said some really unpleasant things about Splenda - to be specific, that it may cause shrinkage of the thymus gland, which is part of the immune system, and may also cause enlarged liver and kidneys. For balance, they also concluded that sucralose (the chemical that makes Splenda sweet) was probably "not as toxic as aspartame".

All of which makes this a great time to review a couple of products Andrew sent me last summer, and I neglected to review in a timely fashion: R.W. Garcia Soy and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips, and Baja Bob's Sugar Free Margarita Mix. I just love it when Andrew sends me a party in a box!

We're just a few weeks out from Easter, and you know what that means: eggs are going to be cheap. Religious holidays aside, late winter/early spring is always a great time for eggs - that's why they became a symbol of this spring religious festival. I have occasionally seen eggs as cheap as 4 dozen for a buck - these were medium-sized eggs, to be sure, but still, at that price they might as well be giving them away. At prices like that, we can eat a lot of eggs.

When I was a kid, I ate a lot of noodles - generally Butoni wagon-wheels - with Ragu's original "Old World Style" jarred spaghetti sauce and the cheap grated Parmesan out of the green shaker. Loved it. Had it for lunch at least once a week!

I find the pronouncements from the dieticians and the medical industry more and more amusing every day. I recently read a column by a dietician who admitted that all of the research demonstrates that a low carbohydrate diet works for weight loss, and contrary to the dire predictions, actually results in better blood work than a low fat/high carb diet. She also admitted that there have been no indications of a problem with low carb diets long term. Still, she said, people shouldn't go on low carb diets because, after all, antioxidants are terribly important, and to get them we need to eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Several years back, when I was writing for United Media, I wrote a column about pork. I mentioned that it is both the most popular meat on earth, and one of the most controversial. In societies with food taboos, pork is one of the meats most likely to be shunned. And even among folks who have no religious constrictions against particular foods, pork is often thought of as a guilty pleasure, something that's tasty, but not really good for us. Heart attack on a plate and all that.