Gifted Gourmet
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To me the term "special dietary needs" would refer to all types of individual concerns, especially those which require careful monitoring of either certain types of foods and/or specific foods due to a specific disease, allergy, possibly other serious medical conditions. Some examples of conditions that may require special diets include:
Diabetes Type 1
Crohn's Disease
Celiac Disease
Food Allergies
Weight Management
Vegetarian/ vegan
Religious requirements (kosher, halal)
Low gluten issues
Lactose intolerance
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You are aware, perhaps, of the Locavores of the San Francisco Bay area?
websiteWe are a group of concerned culinary adventurers who are making an effort to eat only foods grown or harvested within a 100 mile radius of San Francisco for an entire month. We recognize that the choices we make about what foods we choose to eat are important politically, environmentally, economically, and healthfully. In 2005, we challenged people from the bay area (and all over the world) to eat within a 100 mile radius of their home for the month of August. -
On the other hand there is this short, but interesting and insightful essay: Eat local? No thanks from Too Many Chefs blog ...
It's important to remember that the quest for different varieties of food is one of the great driving forces of human history. The expansion of Rome into Egypt was as much for control of the grain grown along the Nile as for the cotton or Cleopatra's charms. The merchants of Venice built an empire on spices like cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and pepper, and the Portuguese desire to break that monopoly led to the financing of Columbus's expedition to India, which was blocked by a New World of opportunity. All this movement and trade and conflict brought new foods to old cultures and transformed them. -
A suggestion: you can place Pirouette cookies standing upright around outside of vanilla frosted cake using a bit of the frosting as glue.
Then take grosgrain ribbon and place (around the cake and) around those cookies. Make a separate bow to place on seam.
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I always thought that use of the term "prawn" was something British, and European ... sort of like the use of "aubergine" for the American term eggplant ... I personally like both of those terms and it does make one sound so, you know, cosmopolitan ...
As far as Adam Balic's comments on Rock Lobster: wasn't that a song made famous by The B-52's from Athens, Georgia, in 1978?
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Spinach and strawberry salad isn't particularly southern .. that is unless you drown it in a hot sugary bacon dressing ....
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This is a remarkable article on incredible wine from 2005 ... enjoy yourself!"The perfect year, the year when everything went right." M. Llose, 54, believes that the 2005 vintage of Lynch-Bages, one of the great châteaux of the Médoc, is incomparably the best in his 30 years as a wine-maker. "It may even be better than the mythical vintages, like 1961. It may be even more special than the great vintages of the 1940s," he said.The same story was being reported - some say spun - from all the leading châteaux of the Médoc and the other great vineyards of the Bordeaux region this week as pundits and traders flocked from all over the world to "pre-taste" the 2005 vintage for themselves."It has a precise balance between richness and acidity, between fruitiness and the tannins [which make the wine more complex as it matures]. It has an extremely punchy nose [smell] but it also lingers in the mouth. Even drunk so young, it has great complexity, great depth." -
Men's Vogue this month: related article from Jeffrey Steingarten
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There are about 5,000 ice-cream vans in Britain. In times gone by they would have parked at the side of most roads; but times have changed. The amendment would grant local authorities the power to ban ice-cream vans from parking near schools. One dietitian told The Times that a ban on ice-cream vans near schools would be a draconian policy that may drive children to buy even less healthy foods at nearby shops.
Scroll down to: TREAT OR HEALTH HAZARD? for some amazing facts
... stuff I never even considered ...Think this type of ban makes sense?
Will it help to end childhood obesity?
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I thought that most states have declared electrocution
inhumane!
Assuming that lethal injection is also none too utilitarian for those who cook large volumes of these hapless creatures ... what would one inject them with anyway?
Prozac? 
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These are giving me some great incentives to try out all these cool variations!
Keep them coming please!
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One of my very favorite summer treats is chicken salad. Everyone has their own version of this delectable dish .. how about yours?
Chinese chicken salad is said to have come from Wolfgang Puck .. another variation which is popular has grapes and fruits among the chicken bits ... still another has crunchiness added through the use of nuts ... and then there is curried chicken salad ... served on bread or a lettuce leaf .... so many variations!
Is yours more salty than sweet?
Unusual or standard?
Mayo-dressed or vinaigrette?
Ladies' delicate fancy chicken salad or heartier men's?
Tell me about your own version!
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Kinda ... but they are guilty of nothing less than tasting delicious ...
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Operation: the individual shellfish is placed on a sprung lower steel plate resting in a shallow bath of brine (sea-water concentration) and the lid closed. The Operator simply presses a button. The Unit is pre-set to deliver the required duration of electric current to produce instant anaesthesia and kill within 5 seconds in the case of Lobsters and Crayfish and within 10 seconds in Crabs.
Fast, clean & efficient
Reduces stress & improves meat quality in terms of texture & flavour
Can be used by unskilled staff
Conforms to Standards of Humane killing & acceptable to the general public
thus ending the dilemma over whether one should throw a lobster into boiling water ...
and the stress?So? What have you to say about this device?
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The most excellent resource which I have found on photographing food is on Michael Ray's website which is right here.
To get the entire "picture" (a poor choice of wording), scroll down, enjoy his text, and luxuriate in his photographs which are remarkable!
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how about alliumphobia (A fear of garlic)? That would be a truly terrifying condition to live with.
Mostly for Italians, I presume ...
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I realize that in the world of food, many words are used interchangeably. So my question is about which is which here ...
What is the distinction made between shrimp, prawns, scampi, and langoustines?
Is it all about size? origin?
Or are they simply variations on the same theme, so to speak?
If sauteed in garlic, butter, and a bit of lemon juice, does it really matter?
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Of course another variation New Orleans style on this is Chef John Folse' Creole Peach Cream Cheese Ice Cream
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Have read about cream cheese ice cream which resembles a frozen cheesecake. Has anyone made or eaten this one? The recipe I will be using is from epicurious:recipe here and I think it will go nicely with a strawberry or raspberry topping.
Your impressions? Ideas to make it more interesting?
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1) breakfast casserole (we'll be there at like 9am setting up the tent)
2) chess pie or key lime tarts
3) chocolate peanut butter cookies
4) sausage dip
5) maybe fried green tomato blt sammiches
6) bacon-stuffed tomato shooters
For those of you not going, any suggestions for sides that will last sitting out for a while?
I think that the best thing to make would be those fried green tomato blt sandwiches but they may develop a soggy crust due to the long wait period ... the cookies and pies will handle the time issues ... the rest is a crap shoot, so to speak
.. enjoy this splendid day that you all have planned! -
I've also heard that Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos is very worth checking out.
Manresa is glorious and one of the best tasting menus I have yet to experience! Here is a very long, but highly interesting, thread on Manresa in all its splendor
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In earlier generations, by all accounts, children were seen and not heard, fed early and tucked away in their nurseries before company came — perhaps creeping down for a peep at the party, or even serving a canapé or two if they were very well behaved about it. The grown-ups would ooh and aah and then get back to the adult business at hand. "That's changed, and I can't figure out why,"... These days, when parents tend to be older and more reluctant to change their lifestyles, tots are more likely to be integrated into evening plans, often less than seamlessly.
Are you sanguine about bringing your child(ren) to an adult dinner party?
As the host(ess), does it make you uncomfortable for the child? the parents? yourself?
"Uncorking the joys of wine dinners"
in Wine
Posted
article from the Chicago Tribune
If you are a wine dinner enthusiast, do you agree with the last statement about a "focused tasting"?