You're French, you're hungry, all you have in the house is a bunch of bread, some water, left over cheese, and an onion. Your name is Brett Cross, you're hungry, and all you have in the house is a bunch of bread, some water, left over cheese, and an onion. Brett Cross, like a lot of French people, isn't intimidated by a bare cupboard. If life gives you bread, cheese, water and onions, you make Panade.

Thus begins a new feature here at Tastebud, in which we ask our friends to tell us what to write about. In this case, we went over to Brett and Jill Cross's house for dinner and Lost. Brett made panade, and took us along to France, via the magic of our imaginations.

But before we get to the recipe, let's play Q&A with Brett and Jill. Brett first learned about panade from an article in "Food and Wine" magazine. He tried making it on a whim, and it turned out great. So great, that he's had a hard time living up to that first panade experience. His favorite cooking style is "French to eat, Mexican to cook." His favorite kitchen tool is his terrifyingly sharp Kyocera Ceramic Chef's Knife, his snooty pepper mill, and his wooden spoons. Jill's favorite kitchen tool is Brett. Brett is one of the two editors at Victim of Time, Jill takes care of kittens (including ours) at Blum veterinary on Clark Street.

On to the panade. I couldn't find a direct translation of panade into English, so it's sort of like burrito, or taco, it's just "panade." The idea behind it is to take whatever's left in your cupboard, introduce it to some water and your oven, then eat. It's classic French desperation food.

There's two basic ways to make a panade, both of which Brett demonstrated for us. The first, Brett's favorite, is as a soup. In a big french oven, put several handfuls of chopped up bread, four cups of chicken broth (or water), and caramelized onions. Put the whole pot in a 350 degree oven for two hours, or until the bread is pretty much disintegrated. Strain the bits and chunks from the soup, top with fresh green onions and cheese, and serve. You get a thick soup with a lot of chicken and onion flavors, but with a bread base that's really great.

The second way of making panade is Jill's favorite. Take another couple of handfuls of bread and put them in your french oven, add two cups of broth, some caramelized onions, and a few handfuls of cheese, Gruyeres is great for this, as is any semi-hard stinky cheese. Put the whole thing in your 350 degree oven for forty five minutes. What comes out is still sort of soup like, but it's closer to a casserole or stew.

Either way is really excellent, very easy to make, and provides a great base for variation and experimentation. It was a great night. It's a shame that Lost is sort of tanking this season, at least we can console ourselves with French leftovers.