tryska

you could always go the keto-diet route (proven to affect blood lipid levels in a positive way) but then you miss out on all the good sugar-based foods. did your doctor suggest a low-fat diet?

In the US, a list of vegetables might include macaroni as well as ketchup. In France, the other name for lettuce is "salad." apparently mayonnaise holds some sort of vegetable status in the US as well.

good luck suvir!

yup - grease is your friend.

oh the poor steak. :(

well here is what i do.... meal 2 - either oats and a banana or cold ceareal and some milk meal 3 - whatever i cooked the weekend before and split out into gladware meal 4 - cottage cheese and fruit, or protein powder and gatorade (the protein i keep at my desk and i have a battery operated blender cup) all of the this is wrapped in gladware of various sizes and put in my small softsided cooler with one of those blue coldpacks. it used to be kept chilled with a frozen litre of water, but i wound up wanting to drink it before everything was out of the cooler.

i think they mean midwestern. ie jello salad. i have a tough time with salad not meaning green stuff. reminds me of a time i was in Schenectady NY, traveling for work. I was stuck over the weekend, and by Saturday i was craving something green - so i went to the convenience store across from the worst Holiday Inn in the world (i wouldn't get room service anymore because something i ordered came to the room lookign and smelling like a hockey puck covered in vomit - i think it was supposed to be pork)..anyways to make a long story short - i asked the guy at the counter if they had any salads he said - yeah right in that fridge - we got ham salad, macaroni salad, potato salad....

haha - well it took me roughly 20 years to figure out she might be right most of the time.

i go by smell until the dish is just about complete, and then i taste to ensure adequate salting. one thing taught to me by my mother is never put your mouth directly to the cooking spoon - always put it in your hand first.

i don't get russian or scandinavian food.

ah..i just found otu what festivus is....It's brown sugar flavored ice cream with gingerbread pieces and a caramel-ginger swirl. yum. i think.

ahh..pan that only helps me when i am in new york. bb - that is fascinating. i can definitely see the challenge in making things consistent. thank you so much, i have been wondering for a while how indian food gets cooked in restaurants.

paul newmans sockarooni with cut up and browned hot italian sausage in it.

what the heck flavor was "Festivus"?? oh and as for my favorites - i'm not a big chocolate ice cream fan anymore. i used to like ny fudge chunk, chunkey monkey and phish food, but i like mint cookie and karamel sutra now. i wish i had gotten to taste the malted milk ball flavor.

What was your family food culture when you were growing up? well i am 1st generation Christian Indian, so our dinners were primarily indian, or umm..indian fusion. reminds me of my roommate - she says no matter what her grandmother cooks it always tastes portuguese. same scenario with me. one important thing was having meat of some sort on the table. if there was no meat, there was no meal in my father's eyes. so it was basically meat, vegetable and starch. Was meal time important? meal time was very important - it changed as we grew older and we all started leading busier lives, but most of the time, everyone was at the table, and we all ate together. Was cooking important? my mother hated to cook, yet the dinner meal was very very important "to feed my father", so something from scratch was always made. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? none. i don't know that elbows on the table were relevant, yet none of us seem to eat with our elbows on the table. if that makes any sense. what was important, was eating with your mouth closed, not smacking your lips, not biting your silverware, and not talking with your mouth full. Who cooked in the family? My mother originally and then around 13 i started cooking. it was actually quite fun, because the family felt i was a much better cook, and around 16 i was given the checkbook and could shop for whatever looked good at the grocery store each day. that definitely opened up some creativity for me. My dad cooks as well, but not well, he tends to compose on the fly and sometimes it turns out good, sometimes not. he typically cooked on weekends. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? we would go out or have food brought in every couple weeks. we usually went out to try exotic foods from other cultures. my father also felt immense guilt if he got to have something special that we didn't get to have, so typically if he and my mother went to a special event or party, we got treat food (for us, pizza and wings), and he would bring back a doggie bag. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? never. When did you get that first sip of wine? It was Christmas when i was about 14 or so. One of my father's italian patients used to make fortified concord grape wine in his basement, and offloaded about 6 bottles on my dad. that became us kids first table wine. to this day Manischewitz brings back a touch of nostalgia. Was there a pre-meal prayer? not when i was growing up, but my mother apparently has found her religion the past few years, and now there are prayers. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? nope - meal-planning depended entirely on how much energy my mother had to spare. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? well - i'm single and i live with a room-mate. we both have very busy lives, so it's not quite like i ,or she, grew up with. we do tend to eat together on weekends, but it's typically in front of the tv...something my mother NEVER let me do!

*lol* if i win the lottery tomorrow, i will open an indian restaurant that delivers.

it is, but i have no idea how to even begin from a financial perspective. is that something you can take a small business loan out for?

awwww, gifted.....it's a place after my own heart tho. might have to make that trip to clairmont and briarcliff! *lol* my queendom for naan and dal makhani delivered to my house! i sincerely hope there are several locals reading my thread and thinking of ways they can start delivering. if not i may be forced to engage in a new business venture. *lol*

where is madras cafe? bb - thank you so much for your info. you said that basic curries are made and then doctored....how does that happen? is it just onions, ginger garlic, and spices? if so how does this work, since spice mixtures at least in my experience are different for each dish?

hee hee good to see butter chicken/CTM on the menu. Congratulations and good luck with your new venture! the goan shrimp and the idli upama sound fabulous....

well i guess i'm not so far when i explain to my friends that making a curry is similar in technique to making tex-mex chili - the difference is in the spicing.

thanks BBhasin! takeout taxi used to do that down here too, but it does wind up being very expensive, for everyone but takeout taxi it seems. do you not have a busboy you could spare for deliveries when the need arises, or does it just get too busy?

the escargot and peaky-toe crab sound delicious.

perhaps the resin erm.... clumps for lack of a better word? i know this happens when i drop resinous tinctures into water.

i had no idea they delivered in LA, Mongo - i' have never seen it anywhere on the east coast. which is strange. There may be places in NYC, but i didn't know about any when i lived there. thanks for your input tho, i'm glad to see that it is viable. those restaurants that deliver - are they dine-in restuarants first, and delivery and takeout second, or similar to the chinese takeout stands?