Priscilla

Wonderful blog, Amy. Your meals are beautiful! Could you tell about the spring cabbage preparation? And eagle-eyed Hiroyuki got me wondering why you have homemade ponzu as well as Ajipon... do you use one or the other for specific dishes? Did you say that was just your second time preparing the tamago? Looked absolutely perfect.

Helen, Jamie also has a recent book called Cook with Jamie that is described as a compendium of basic skills for cooks... I have not vetted it, but might be worth a look-see for your purposes.

Went to the Burbank Bob's Saturday while visiting my sister. Those present with prior Bob's experience agreed it was still excellent. Tasted quite as we remembered, owing to the proprietary special red relish. There is also something about the bun and the shredded lettuce which contribute to its singularity. The salad actually comes on its own discrete plate now, too, rather than in the little triangular dish that used to nestle next to the burger and fries. The chocolate shake, which looks the same, is not called Bob's Silver Goblet Shake on the menu as before but which did come with its overage in the stainless mixing beaker alongside, was pronounced Best Shake Ever by its consumer, and that ain't no small thing. A short wait, alleviated by absorbing people watching and eavesdropping, and cheery, even enthusiastic service from a nice waiter. Sadly, the wiglets are no more. But thinking about Elvis's '68 comeback special, particularly his black leather jeans-style suit, buoyed me.

Thank you, Rachel. That onion lesson is a biggie. No surprise it is ingrained in good Southern cooking, because of course it is part of good cooking no matter the tradition. In the beginning it is so easy to think of onion as one of the strongest flavors in the cook's arsenal, what with the attention it gets from picky eaters refusing to eat it and so forth, and, like garlic, it is one of those ingredients a novice cook is likely to multiply unreasonably in a preparation, or chop unpleasantly coarsely and (very common, in my experience, producing the dread slimey squares) seriously under-saute. Knowing how to deal with onions, like lemons, no matter how you feel about them personally, is beyond essential. As Nora Ephron said in Heartburn, you really can't cook without onions.

Thank you, Jeanne. Was the tomato-sauce fish common in your region, or a family tradition? Victoria returned to Mexico several years ago, where one of her sons and two grandchildren had remained, and died soon after.

Thank you, Heidi. And yes. I think of it adding up to what Madeleine Kamman calls cuisine personnelle, a life-long thing. The life-long aspect is one of the very best things about cooking.

I bought the book through Amazon UK, received this week. Making very good reading. It's due for American release this month I believe.

Well, my goodness, if FoF can save nice greyhounds and collaterally usher them to good rescue homes, that lowly fast-food sandwich has far exceeded whatever potential I might imagine its provenance could provide. I have neighbors with three beautiful rescue greyhounds, all brindle (which I consider the canine equivalent of my beloved feline tortoiseshell), and I never fail to stop and admire the array when the greyhound rescue people are outside the pet food big-box emporium on the wknd. Extremely sweet nice dogs. Puts me in mind of how the writer Daniel Pinkwater on his NPR commentaries said how his Malamutes howled for English muffins when they saw by the Golden Arches.

Wonderful blog, Ilana. Your children and your kitties are beautiful. How could I have grown up all those years with all that hibiscus and never tried the green-thing-on-the-nose? When I am next at my Mom's I am SO doing that. That same mallow always wants to grow in my garden, and I've been yanking it out with the rest of the weeds. There are a couple of little ones just now I'll have to let mature.

Thank you, Molly. It all worked out wonderfully. I love the potato treatment especially... really showed off the fingerling characteristics.

Wow this is great. Anna N so nicely PMed me the recipe, and now I see Molly Stevens has provided it as well. Thank you so much! Molly, if you have another second, is there any reason not to put the potatoes in the oven after bringing them to a simmer when I put your World's Best Cabbage in and cook them that way? If I can do that, (and my roast chicken will be in there as well), I think I could achieve the energy-saving rainy-day Sunday dinner trifecta of my dreams. The squishy rolls, with their considerably higher temp, will conveniently have already been baked.

I would definitely not do it for $2.79, the regular price at the store I visited, I saw on the menu. The $1.29 Filet-o-Fish Friday poster in the window was key. Also, my bun was griddled not steamed, which is OK with me, and had sesame seeds, and the tartar sauce was loaded with pickles, a help.

Thank you, Margo... I saw the free trial thing, but was hoping I could avoid getting entangled in something I'd have to remember to cancel, etc. However as the afternoon wears on I will keep it in my back pocket.

Hello, Molly Stevens acolytes. I see in online searching that she had a recipe for braised fingerling potatoes w/butter & thyme in a recent issue of Fine Cooking, which I do not get, and which does not have the recipe online. If someone with the magazine, or who knows another source for the recipe, happens to be perusing eG today and sees fit to either PM me the recipe or post the general guidelines I would be ever so grateful. I'm making Molly Stevens's World's Best Braised Cabbage (recipe online on her website) today to accompany roast chicken and saw the description of the fingerling recipe and fingerlings happen to be the potatoes I have. Kthxbye

The profane and the sacred. OK I had one on Filet-o-Fish Friday, thanks to you all. $1.29, $1.39 w/tax. It was good! A nitpick would be it now comes in an unbleached-style box, (possibly actually unbleached?) rather than the crackly paper of yesteryear, and by yesteryear I mean like 20+ years ago when I last had one, and I missed the steaming and compression of having been wrapped. But no big. And then I proceeded on to the farmer's market and bought my usual passel of organic fruit & veg from my friends the farmers.

I don't see how composting answers the question entirely, as Plk said up there. I compost only raw veg trimmings and similar, and coffee grounds and tea leaves. Tea leaves, in fact, were the decisive article behind our installing a disposal under a new sink after years living without one. Getting the last few stragglers of the sink, even with a Chatsford infuser insert containing most of them, was a daily drag. Also a few grains of rice or pieces of pasta, having eluded the dutifully-inserted wire mesh strainer, can, as as been mentioned, cause plumbing trouble. I have lived with and without disposals over the years, and prefer with. Where I live presently there is varying opinion among plumbers and residents whether disposals are compatible with septic systems. But then, like Onrushpam, I have never used a garbage disposal, when I have had one, for fibrous things, or large amounts of anything, only the last bits of this and that when cleaning the sink.

In the mushroom show Jamie did the prep and cooking Italian nonna style, sitting on a stool. Kind of evocative, esp. with the risotto making. But maybe he hurt a foot or ankle while foraging?

You SDians are lucky to get a Marukai -- I absolutely rely on the Costa Mesa store up here. We also have a big Mitsuwa, which is not bad at all, but Marukai is just more of a cook's store. Excellent meat, and fish, (both for cooking and for eating raw), and well-chosen well-priced veg. Be sure to become a member, in order to get their cheery monthly flyer in the mail.

Helen, I keep 10 lbs. of flour in containers marked with both 8 quarts and 8 liters. (5 lbs. of sugar fits in the same sort of container with a 4 qt./4 l. capacity.) If that helps in extrapolation. In addition to ease in handling, sometimes I prefer multiple smaller containers because I don't like the diminishing product having so much, and forever increasing, air space. Also, maybe rice storage could be a help in estimation? 20 lbs. of rice fits in yet another of these containers, an 18 qt.. The highest liter marking on this one is 15 l., but that line is well below the higher 18 qt., and well below the top of the container.

This is cool. In re new arrival: They sure are nice and squishy when they're little, aren't they? Riffing logically on Rachel's idea, William comes to mind. But first I thought French, hypenated, to coordinate with J-L. I know how you feel: Ivan passed that b.d. milestone in 2007, and was actually carded buying beer in the last year. And I treasure the driving talking with my 16-year-old, too. Blog on!

I've been getting some really snappy delicious Fujis from the farmer's market, and while I haven't baked them I have sauteed with onions to accompany meat and they hold their shape admirably.

I tiptoed around this subject in December in a Letter from the Canyon.

I forget where I first saw it, but baked apples with almond paste and seasonings in the middle are good. Could do with your ground hazelnuts Ludja, plus a hit of Frangelico maybe?

Please: TrekkER. Not that I am personally invested, but some of my best friends & c. Hmmm: Fooder?

What about Gary Larson-LOLcatsesque FUD. Fudee? Craig Claiborne, and, I think, Nero Wolfe, preferred gourmand. In a magazine piece reprinted in the collection Is There a Nutmeg in the House? Elizabeth David pretty well eviscerates Paul Levy and Ann Barr's celebration of the term in their Official Foodie Handbook (mentioned in the linked column), while also mentioning the "whopping gaffes" they committed to print regarding her personal biographical details before concluding they are good at "toadying to their public." (Paul Levy just can't catch a break, or maybe never learns; his dubious recent Slate piece decrying "macho" food writing drew a typically withering response from one of its main targets, Anthony Bourdain.)