Gifted Gourmet

I was once asked the name of a parfum I was wearing ... without skipping a beat, I said "Shake'n'Bake" .. sadly, the listener believed me! and then there is my gumbo deodorant .... okay, I'll stop ..

That's true, I guess it was "gag me with a spoon" which is so "age oriented" ...

Or, at the very outside, saying "Duh" if under the age of thirty ....

It actually constitutes the base of my most popular soup: Creme du Cialis Potage ... makes those veggies stand up and be counted, as it were ...

More to the point? Unapologetic bacon ... in your face bacon ...

http://www.gratefulpalate.com/Templates/fr...SubfolderID0132

This is terrific! and I will take your well considered advice! Rare is my preference and this option will enable me to feed the others who laugh at my preference, to gnaw on something resembling nothing so much as dried rawhide dog chewy strips .... Thanks, as always, for clarifying and reducing things to their most common sense base ....

Are you implying that use of the term "fresh" is an insult to our intelligence? Now I am truly horrified .... you have dashed my illusions upon the sharp rocks of reality ....

A sadder but healthier Ribeye ... The limp, flaccid, barely drained vegetable medley to which you, most perceptively, refer is very much in evidence on plates of southeastern origin .... no doubt a remnant of "meat and three" which resembles nothing so much as overcooked pantyliners .... only thing even more annoying? a bunch of poorly trimmed, barely cooked (and I don't mean ad dente here) broccoli, replete with the obligatory yellowing buds .. sulphurous and chewy but hardly appetizing ...

Rather imagine Miami and other large populations of "interested people" will have the same concept ... for the rest of us, suffice it to say, there is now a great deal of new passover food on the shelves which has appeared since I began keeping kosher ... potato chips for Passover! How would the Israelites ever get out of Egypt in time with the loads of new, hip, very clever Pesachdik offerings?

I have ordered the crystal Pig Wine Stoppers for my Hadassah fund raiser ...

I really don't think the population warrants it .. Kroger and Publix and kosher meat market will fill the local needs ....

If I fly in for this, I guess I will have to add the price of my airline tickets to the total which will make it my most expensive Passover ever! Seriously, thanks for telling us in the hinterlands about this annual event! Perhaps some day, we will conceive of such an idea here locally ... nah, it is a NY thing, plain and simple ...

For those of us who keep kosher homes, this is quite a find! One can sin without actually sinning! Will have to see if they make cheeseburger scented candles for the exact same reason! Oy!

Not exactly untrue of many downtown areas, especially if they cater to the conventions which fill them ... Atlanta is just such a case ... we do have a large number of conventions here and the large hotels downtown house them ... and, if one opts to explore the plethora of our dining opportunities in the outlying areas not too far from downtown, the prices are not always so exorbitant ...

Cool! Bright colors for spring is a mood brightener as well as watching flowers blooming and trees with buds! Red is so "now" ... go for it!!

My first experience with kosher l'Pesach imitation noodles some years ago was disastrous! Dropped them into the soup and they disintegrated ... only evidence that I had put them in? White "powdery" goop on the bottom ... this year I see they have reinvented the concept ... a few wheat pastas now available ... me? I'll do without pasta for the full eight days, thank you!

Potatoes in and of themselves are fine for Passover ...even possible to make a Passover cholent with them: http://starchefs.com/Passover/Contest/entry8.html ever look up the Passover concept of "gebroks"? This is a stringency in which some Orthodox Jews do not eat starches made from matzo meal or cake meal mixed with a liquid for seven of the eight days of Passover ... so they can not make matzo balls because the liquid might make the matzo flour "rise" ... instead, they use lots of potatoes and sometimes slice up a flat egg pancake into "noodles" for their soup ... a better explanation, yet essentially what I have posted, can be found here (just scroll down to "gebroks"): http://www.jewish-holiday.com/Pes63laws.html

Bloviatrix, low carb cholent is like a steak ... pure protein ... Low carb cholent does not fulfill the mitzvah of feel bloated and sleep it off ...

I am quite sure lamb would make for an entirely different cholent/cassoulet ... and, should one add barley, is this not a more solid form of scotch broth? You know, with all this talk of trying out different ingredients, I feel totally compelled to try out some of these variations and let the carbs fall where they may!

Homestyle, peasant desserts sometimes qualify as "messy" ... I have made freeform apple croustades which are delicious, but not particularly neat... freeform anything is not always symmetrical ... but don't tell Martha ... The creme anglaise with pieces of cake is something I have done ... sort of a pastry "oeufs a la neige" ... and the hollowed out domed cake filled with mousse? Hasn't that been done and given various names? Rather an unfrozen bombe?

Yes, there it is out in the open ... we have been meeting secretly in a sordid little oneupsmanship contest on the differences between purist cassoulet and its johnny come lately upstart, cholent ... whew! I feel better now that it is public knowledge! Cassoulet takes longer (some three days!), and contains more pork, mutton, and/or goose ... will opt for the kosher cholent for now ... an excerpt from something about cassoulet http://www.luxuryweb.com/Recipes/Cassoulet/cassoulet.htm one of the most famous dishes of France, Cassoulet, a rich, hearty stew of various meats, beans, fats, and aromatic vegetables and herbs, all simmered in layers for three days and topped with a fine golden crust

I have always thought of cholent as the Jewish form of "cassoulet", minus the duck ... but, then again, why not add the duck?

V'nomar omain, Bloviatrix! Most definitely not a warm weather idea ... even if it is followed by a parve sorbet and begun with a chilled gazpacho ... but when the snows of winter arrive? Perfection! (we don't have snows of winter in Atlanta, you fully comprehend.. this is purely poetic license on my part ... and a bit of wishful, or wistful, thinking)

Lays' "Fighting Grandparents" spot ... boggles the mind and does not stimulate me to buy the product whatsoever ...