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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Hey, what good is it to exist in a world of competing mama rags if you can't hold up your competitors to ridicule once in a while? In "Mommymilk" (Mothering, Fall 1997), an article so saccharine and absurd that it reads like a parody of the magazine in which it appears, author/psychotherapist Anjelina Citron is rendered apoplectic while defrosting her freezer by the sight of her own paleolithic baggies of breast milk, forgotten and abandoned in the arctic depths of her kitchen. This is a quote, we kid you not: "The sight of the baggies threw me. My entire rhythm interrupted, I closed the door, leaned against it, and could not go on with my job." After that she waxes nostalgic for a couple of paragraphs, yadda yadda kids grown up, yadda yadda cute things they said, as you'd expect. Now if learning that a psychotherapist falls apart over the sight of her old breast milk doesn't make you begin to wonder about the kinds of folk attracted to psychotherapy, reading what comes next will certainly make you feel glad you're not married to Anjelina's husband. "Ever sensitive," he asks his stricken wife if she "would like to do a ceremony" with the baggies. Poor Anjelina is so bereft that she can't imagine a ritual "that would speak to the ache, the emptiness" she feels. So instead they decide to make sourdough starter. Yup! Breast milk waffles for the whole family, and if they're vigilant with the starter, pancakes for generations to come! And you can make some too, because there's a recipe. So here at Mothers Who Think, we got to thinking. Why stop at pancakes? And why wait till your nurslings have moved on to Lunchables (TM) and gum-by-the-yard and your frozen milk takes on that stale chalky freezer taste, like the last two bites of ice cream in the sticky container no one will throw away? Why not cook with breast milk now? Oh, there are lots of things you can make. Think comfort food. Think bread pudding (a creative use for that day-old bread) with a nutmeggy breast-milk custard. Or a new twist on an Italian classic -- Tittimisu! If you're a gourmet with a blowtorch, you could try your own unique version of crème booblée. Or chew up a vanilla bean to infuse your milk in preparation for some delicious hand-cranked ice cream. Our Editors Choice, though, is a breast milk coeur à la crème, and this time you can really say you made it straight from your heart. "Yum!" your smiling family and friends will croon as they spoon up the creamy curds, "It's so watery, and so strange tasting, too!" As fun and convenient as it is to use breast milk as a cooking ingredient, it's also vulnerable to picking up off flavors, becoming an unintentional alcoholic beverage and passing on certain drugs and health issues courtesy its source. So don't forget to lay off the broccoli and garlic and heroin before you pump, and wash your hands and call for the results of your HIV test before you start cooking. Remember how bad you felt after the whole clan came down with salmonella after your Easter brunch? Well, just think how awful you'd feel if -- oh, let's not even go in to it. Sept. 24, 1997

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