Where has Frost Street been? Hard at work, of course. 80, 90 hours a week, again, since the last time I was here. My blog, after weeks of neglect, has gone stale.

When your food blog starts to turn, you have to fall back on provisions. No time to cook, no energy to dine out, you'd best throw together some ready-made, well-preserved nourishment.

This is an embellishment on antipasto all'Italiana, a collection of dried cured meats (prosciutto san daniele, domestic bresaola, genoa salami, and the salt-cured fatty pork cheek known as guanciale), marinated artichoke hearts, and olives, spruced up with some cheeses (bufala and locatelli romano), fresh basil, and tomatoes. Of course, you have to round the lot out with some extra virgin olive oil, good aged balsamic vinegar of Modena, and a bottle of chianti, slightly chilled. Have a good crusty bread at the ready, and you've got a soul-mending meal that takes more time to shop for than it does to prepare -- and fits snugly into a busy lawyer's schedule.

You can find just about all the ingredients you need for this simple but satisfying spread at Fairway.