Priscilla

Last evening, salt bagels made by me, split, toasted. With cream cheese, what turned out to be very nice mild tender hot-smoked salmon, the last of the Romas from the garden thinly sliced, copious amounts of white onion, a few capote capers for the Consort to strew, not-too-bad-for-being-from-a-jar Sevilla olives, and pickled green tomatoes I put up last fall with last fall's end-of-the-garden. Bonny Doon L'Etoile dry Muscat, kinda delicious. To accompany the deleted-scenes and bonus-whatnot DVD packaged with Pulp Fiction ... rewatching the catalogue in advance of seeing Kill Bill.

Going to do one of those half-in half-out-of-the-oven chicken dishes, right quick here. Sounds good, FoodMan. Last evening, lovely pale bockwursts from the German sausage maker. The Duesseldorf-style mustard that comes in the handy reusable glass beer mug. (I just gave more than a dozen to a neighbor who likes to serve from a keg -- how many of these over the years we've amassed and passed along. I guess it's here we go again.) Boiled potatoes, peeled after boiling, melted butter over. What the sausage folks call their cooked sauerkraut, deep gold in color, bits of smoked this & that throughout. Excellent pickles. Rye bread with no nothin' in it ain't supposed to be there, and very fresh too. Saltylicious Tillamook butter. Bonny Doon Pacific Rim Dry Riesling, really surprisingly good, way exceeded mere suitability. Suitableness.

Wait a minute ... you mean you're NOT just a common-or-garden misogynistic chauvinistic bastard? What is true is if one pre-eliminates, consciously or sub-, a percentage of the available literature, one stands to miss out on what could be some good or important or even life-changing stuff. Casting one's eye over the full unedited panoply of cookery writers and practitioners can only be good for the old personal cooking continuum.

If I may spitchcock this in here, wasn't it a butterflied/spatch/spitchcocked turkey you prepared last Thanksgiving Maggie? Or similar.

This could be a great thing, extrapolating Richard Olney's stuffed-under-the-skin butterflied chicken to a big old turkey.

There does seem to be a lot of support -- to a surprising degree, really. In Trader Joe's on Sunday, the first day of the strike, it was like full-on holiday shopping, long lines, holes in the inventory, etc. Bristol Farms, that's a good one. Excellent fish, if one can avoid being run down by a crispy new Porsche Turbo Cayenne in the parking structure.

Thank you Tommy. Aaah isn't it nice to Refresh and Simplify™? Is it worth mentioning I label the tops of the jars whose tops are what I see in my aforementioned bus tray? A small thing but easy to do and nice. Only I use pink round stickers -- herbs, spices, whatevah. All pink, all the time.

I have mine in a bus tray that slides on a shelf so the effect is quite drawerlike. Wish I HAD a designated drawer, but this ain't bad, plus I can remove the whole thing to the table and root around freely. (Addition: With smaller sub-bins dividing the contents of the bus tray, not unlike the Container Store ones in the above hot link.) Also, ruthlessly chuck duplicates, olds, poxy blends, etc. Don't even both with some, such as dried parsley, except MAYBE for sausage making. Refresh and Simplify™.

Yes, Tejon, it's the Best Saag Aloo Ever, over to Taste of India. And, when I can tear myself away from the Saag Aloo, there's often Bharta, and the best Aloo Gobi, and so on. Perfection in naan. And the ethereal green chutney that accompanies the ethereal samosas ... well it's all just excellent. And non-union!

Thanks for that, Russ ... not meaning to suggest a market-research orientation, merely wondering what the food section editorial team perceives suits its readership, decided upon through application of experience or vision, rather than focus group results. (Restaurant reviews in Food rather than Calendar ... much much better.)

KitWilliams funny you should mention Plowboys ... I have just stepped in once for garlic, but it was very nice garlic. In the same shopping center there is a fantastic Indian takeaway place, Taste of India. Complex, subtle, delicious. And the people are nice. Don't forget the masala chai.

Dear Russ, In answering a question from eGullet's Caroline you mentioned that a newspaper food section should fit into its surrounding community, seamlessly was the word I believe. Do you think the LA Times food section achieves this? Is there an optimum intended ratio of local-to-international stories? How popular, or necessary, is the single-subject-short-lead-several-recipes story model? (Aside from columns exploring a single subject -- different!) Priscilla

One's personal cuisine interests influence the ratio a bit, at least on my shelves. Anne Volokh and Darra Goldstein in the Eastern Bloc section, Elizabeth Andoh in Japanese. Add in Marcella Hazan for Italian and one could make a facile analysis of women being better represented in the soi-disant "ethnic" category. But then there's all those M.F.K. Fisher first editions ... how do they fit in? But I see no need to unnaturally shape one's cookbook collection -- rather it should grow organically into a foundation that supports the type of cooking and research its owner wants to do. Don't matter a whit to me whether the book's written by a man or a woman, so long as it earns its keep, intellectually and culinarily.

Really good three-item survey, Andy. And, serious. I am loathe to do what it would take to get an exact accounting, but I have relied over the years on many cookery books by women. Many by men, more, I suppose in fact, but to ascertain the ratio would be doing the aforementioned what it takes. And yes, they are not restauranty books. Lessee, Madeleine Kamman, entire catalogue (her In Madeleine's Kitchen is perhaps the most restauranty of the bunch). Mapie, the Countess de Toulouse-Lautrec, indispensable. Marcella Hazan, as previously mentioned, entire. (Who puts me in mind of Ada Boni.) Elizabeth David, of course -- entire. Sheila Hibben, the cookery writer who worked on the Nero Wolfe Cookbook with Rex Stout. And some others. Not meaning to dispute, Andy. Just got me to thinkin' is all.

I'm not crossing the picket lines, neither. Not only do I support the protest of the health-care issues, but I most certainly do not want to offend the nice produce guy who will roll out a whole case of Brussels sprouts for me to root around in, or the long-suffering meat counter guy who will crack open today's box of Alaskan halibut just for meeee, or the lovely checker who just got her braces off who is so kind to my child. You can't scare me I'm stickin' with the Union.

I like passing the cooked peeled potatoes through the finest Mouli disc ... dry smooth perfect puree, can be kept as light as you desire. For the times when I want a denser more rustic result, I will use a conventional in-the-pot masher, but care must be taken to avoid overworking lest glueyness develop.

Last evening was Tri-Tip-Off 2003. Three tri-tips from three different sources, grilled over mesquite. Tacos, is what we do with 'em, often. Corn tortillas that were still warm in their package when purchased, heated and softened. I made Victoria's salsa verde, and chunky tomato-jalapeno-white onion-cilantro salsa Mexicana, and guacamole, and refried pintos. A guest brought the smoky sort of regular salsa we all like at the local Mexican joint one canyon over. Chips, also from the local Mexican joint, for the guacamole, which also was accompanied by very very good margaritas from the Consort's bottomless cocktail shaker -- shaken, with ice, is key, to me. Shaken and then poured over more ice in the glass, a glass which had spent time in the freezer before being dusted around the rim with a whisper of flaked sea salt. And not one of those cartoony glasses, neither, a nice dignified real-life glass with some self-respect. Overall just what one oughta get when one orders margarita-salt-rocks, but often does not. Another guest made those flour tortilla wedges fried and topped with cinnamon-sugar, and a blackberry pie from blackberries hand-gathered on a recent Oregon trip.

Last evening, an I Ran for CA Governor, Did You gathering featuring Kit Anderson's Bad Attitude Chili, a link to which is found in this eGullet chili discussion. Excellent recipe. I used about half & half New Mexico and California chili powders. And then some accompaniments for folks to add at will, boiled pinto beans, steamed Mahatma long-grain (Craig Claiborne's suggestion), grated medium cheddar, minced white onion, sour cream. Coleslaw, cornbread muffins, honey & butter together again.

Wait a minute. On the fundamentalist front -- is Bayless the fundamentalist? Is anyone who adheres, even putatively, to doctrine (in this case the Chef's Collaborative Rules to Live By), a fundamentalist? Is our starting analogue a literal interpretation of the Bible by groups we consider religious fundamentalists? Or are we merely saying that the CC doctrine itself is fundamentalist? Or, are we saying the stance requiring total adherence to a doctrine is what's fundamentalist? (Even when it's nonparticipants doing the requiring OF participants.) In this case, is it the requiring nonparticipants who would be considered fundamentalist, or the participating requirees?

Hey, is this the hypocrite discussion? OK, I wanna talk about Rush Limbaugh now.

Like Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta memorably discussed in Pulp Fiction.

Wow who knew.

I was SO hoping it was that one. (White over turquoise for preference.)

Dear Mr. Graham: Did I read that you drive or drove a French car? If so do you agree with Daniel Pinkwater (in my certainly incomplete paraphrase of Daniel Pinkwater, anyways) that one doesn't know the true meaning of despair until one HAS a French car?

Well. That is just one ass-kicker of an article.