Priscilla

So very cool. And, at the risk of repetition and worse, you go, girl.

Relevance, at long last.

The Ada Boni Italian Regional Cooking mentioned above by Moby is just a stupendous and beautiful book ... it has never been stymied, even when asked to cough up the MOST obscure research. I got a copy in the 1980s after starting on Marcella Hazan's first two books, which I prefer to the condensed and edited Essentials of reissue. I suppose I am generally suspicious of "updating" recipes. The newer book (1992) does reflects the much greater ease in finding ingredients, a huge change from the 1970s of the originals. Of COURSE I hadda buy it when it came out, and I have given it as a gift many times, but The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classic Italian Cooking are the loose-spined overused ones on my Italian shelf. I have found Mario Batali's work to be greatly complementary to Marcella's, as I proceed along my personal Italian-cookery continuum ... some people find one or both excessively doctrinaire, however.

H-O-T. Last evening for dinner, nice Cobb salad. All diced to a similar not-teensy size: leftover mesquite-grilled chicken wing and leg, tomatoes from a neighbor's garden, Hass avocado, h.b. egg, butter lettuce, supersmokey delicious Niman Ranch uncured bacon. Croutons spread with Maytag blue cheese & beurre d'Isigny, toasted until just browning. (The delivery system for the requisite blue cheese; croutons not trad but I wanted 'em in there and so it came to pass.) Nice mustardy vinaigrette. Cold pink Coteaux de Languedoc.

Majorly digging this discussion. Been reading Jeremiah Tower Cooks (so inspiring -- and what a too-long interim since New American Classics) in preparation for moving on to CA Dish just asap.

Adam certainly this may well be so. I'd be very interested -- I've been living among wild gourds here in Southern California my whole life, and latterly assumed somebody did SOMEthing with them besides make miniature Jack-o-Lanterns as I did as a child. I defer without hesitation to your knowledge. And as I said, taking nothing, and meaning to take nothing, from Italian preparations. However I see no benefit in deriding Mexican cuisine and its ancient foundations in an effort to boost others. To me it seems only good to cite such connections.

Maggie before your foodblog is made Beyond Comment I hasten to put in: I was and remain ABSOLUTELY FLABBERGASTED!!! And I mean that in the BEST possible sense.

I was thinking the same thing Guajolote aren't squash a New World veg? Also I first encountered them in Mexican/Southwestern American cookery. Not to take away anything from Italian preparations, certainly.

Aaah Dehillerin. The gear I have toted home from Dehillerin enriches my cooking life every day.

Trillium, I love Upton. Over the years they have supplied me with an untold number of Assams, and their consistently excellent very lightly oxidized Osmanthus, a staple. And ... sage in tea? Steeped in there with black tea leaves? Interesting.

I like some black pepper in the masala for chai, also a little anise. But of course this is a personal thing -- there are lots of variations.

Thank you, Elizabeth. I have made masala chai at home (with some success), but only occasionally, only occasionally because it is sososo nice and convenient and DELICIOUS when the nice lady at my fave Indian takeaway makes it for me! Masala chai is a great morning tea. Hmmm perhaps I oughta be making it for myself more often! (Superfine tea strainers capable of holding back ground spices should be pretty easy to find, either from tea specialists or on the ubiquitous Gadget Wall in housewares departments.)

Hardly more thoughtful nor heartfelt eGullet contributions have ever been wrought than those I find here. Just the topic title hitself is quite provocative ain't it. Must add, this evening I used Niman Ranch no-nitrate, erm, nitrITE bacon (experimentally) with green beans, you know, a green beans with bacon and onion trip and WOW was that good bacon. Bacon is as bacon does, uh huh.

I know I know I know! Mine are like, oblique. I was chastened, just watching. Made me wanna get out there in the kitchen and work on 'em.

Finally saw this movie -- really good. Yes, aloo gobi. Also funny when her mother fretted about how she Jess couldn't even make a round chapati.

You forgot dragooned.

Yep, as Hollywood said, absolutely for real. There is usually some combination of animal style and regular in any group order, any group I'm with anyways. I do insist on Secret Menu extra-well-done fries, although others are not so doctrinaire.

Naw, although years ago one used to see In-n-Out Burger bumper stickers which had been modified into naughty folk art by excising the B and the final r ... the company, a Christian outfit with actual Bible quotes on its paper goods, shut that right down.

Yes, yes, the so-called Secret Menu was previously addressed in that link Steven Shaw provided up there ... however I would dispute the often-repeated-but-incorrect "fried in mustard," I mean, really. Impossible. More sauce, yes indeedy. Dill pickle slices, check. Grilled onions. But fried-in-mustard? Fried, in mustard? "Fried in mustard"? Myth, I say. Watch the grill guy, if you can take your eyes off his giant safety pin ... how could there be mustard on there without adulterating all over the place. Also I reiterate: How Secret can a Secret Menu be when the nice young thing behind the cash register has a dedicated button for said so-called Secret Menu options?

OK I just read The Apprentice. Fantastic great book. Tremendous insight, from a nearly unimpeachable first-hand expert informant, into U.S. cookery and dining habits during a period of major change. Good to see Craig Claiborne covered in what seemed to me a reasonably balanced manner -- dovetailed with Craig Claiborne's Favorites, collections of Claiborne's NYT columns providing another window into the period. At least a couple of the events written up by CC also appear in The Apprentice. Also it is so cool how French chef types forage, seriously forage, for wild foodstuffs whatever their immediate environment.

Well, I am SO preparing Duck Mondor, just as soon as the temp drops below the 100ish-degree range. It was even too hot for the trad Bastille Day duck, and I missed it so. Ongoing for like, years, in my cooking is an informal exploration of Rich-Upon-Rich ... it is unfailingly surprising, as D. the C. found after girding his loins and going ahead with the saucing and cheesing of the already-toothsome duck. Sometimes when something is rich, something ELSE rich is just the thing. I always say you gotta have eggs to cook, gotta have the eggs to yank that piece of fish off the grill knowing it will be JUST right by the time it gets to the plates, e.g., and analogously you gotta have the eggs to sometimes go Rich-Upon-Rich. Iron Chef Morimoto is also a great and inspiring proponent of Rich-Upon-Rich, although I wonder if he sees it that way.

Bastille Day. Hot. Poulet frites. The poulet butterflied on the grill, basted with butter with a little bundle of thyme. The frites run through the old deep fryer two times. Nice salad of butter lettuce. Sourdough bread. Salty Tillamook butter. Pink French wine, cold. Liberte egalite fraternite.

Swing-a-Way. Only. Bulletproof design aesthetic, modestly fits in the drawer, and works LAMF.

Hot weather composed salad, composed salads are what come to mind, besides basil, when the weather is hot. Leftover grilled top sirloin that was already good the first time around, sliced thinly across the grain, left to soak briefly in an emulsified mustard vinaigrette bath. Potato salad, nice red potatoes with minced shallots already in the bowl awaiting the drained hot potatoes, white wine vinegar over while hot, toss toss toss, as room-temp approached mayonnaise (Best Foods Orange Top) and a load of chopped chives and s & p, toss. Lovely bed of, bed of lovely, butter lettuce, thickly padding the platter. Potato salad, sliced beef arrayed over, h.b. egg quarters here & there, extra dressing/marinade poured overall. Sourdough bread with salty Tillamook butter ... what a treat!

I fried some pumpkin flowers last night for a first course, using an Ada Boni recipe, and once again it was remarkable how delicate a pumpkin flavor they have. More substantial texture than zucchini flowers, I would say, but a more delicate flavor. Very very good to look at, and good to eat, too. Planning on trying the mozz/anchovy raised-batter next.