Rachel Perlow

I've never been to Restaurant Depot. Please tell us about it.

I like the description of the server upselling (actually, it's not necessarily upselling, more good pushing). Do any of you restaurant people ever have practice roll playing sessions with your servers? (whether actors or not?)

Those lobsters we got at Shop Rite were definitely hard shells. I'm surprised I didn't break my kitchen shears on them, I had to go to the tool box for a hammer for the claws.

Here is a link to Trader Joe's website where you can search for a location near you.

I was looking for a picture of that online at the same time when I was looking for those drawer dividers. Yes! I have that too, but not in my kitchen - I used it during college, it was very handy. I wish I had the blank wall space to install it in my new kitchen, very useful. You know, it would fit on the side of my pantry. Is it very horrible to drill screws into the side of maple cabinets?

I agree about not bothering with 1 - 1 1/4 lb lobsters, I thought the sale price at Shop Rite was worth dealing with them, but when we were able to get the larger ones 2+ pounders were 5.99/lb we bought two monsters instead (3.5 and 4 lbs). I just had the leftovers as lobster salad for dinner. Incidentally, even though it was supposed to be last week's special, I was in the same Shop Rite on Sunday and those prices were still on display. re: Meson Madrid - We used to like this place, and returned after we moved back to the area last year. It just sucked (bad service, cold food, wrong food). Haven't been able to get myself to go back there since. Perhaps we'll try it again if you say it's improved.

A couple of summers ago, I did an experiment with tomato sauce. I bought a case of plum tomatoes a farmers market and my mom and I made three batches of sauce, all simmered for a couple hours with a little garlic and basil, no salt or oil. They were subsequently bagged and frozen for future use. Here are the results. Batch 1 - Not skinned or seeded, just cut in quarters, stem end removed. This produced a very rustic, rather thin sauce. It was good for using in rustic recipes like chicken cacciatore. Batch 2 - Same as batch one, except put through a food mill after cooking. This was a thin, smooth sauce. Good as a base for future recipes, but was such a messy PITA. Batch 3 - Skinned by blanching and cut to remove seed pods. This produced the thickest sauce and was just a little chunky, an excellent sauce as it was. The "guts" were strained and made a delicious fresh tomato juice that Jason enjoyed. I had about half a years worth of sauce after this, but I really think it most convenient to have some good quality canned tomatoes on hand, all year.

Did the roe look black before mixed with the butter? I suppose it could have just been really dark green and when dispersed in the creamy butter it would appear lighter.

I recommend you take my advice from my post above, here's an excerpt, I forgot to mention the metal skewers share the compartment with the electric knife blades.

Yes, so don't hang the sharp things, and use nails with big heads so the things don't easily slip off. How about putting the nails one the inside of cupboard doors? Still accessibly, but your kitchen won't look like the gadget wall at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I'm confused. I learned from my recent lobster experience that lobster roe is black when raw and bright orange-red when cooked. How are you getting a green paste? The liver is green, is that what you meant to say?

In my old kitchen I had two miscellaneous utensil drawers and a flatware drawer, and a junk drawer in the kitchen desk (as defined by Laurie, above). I'll actually have less drawer space in the remodeled kitchen (we're on hiatus right now, some cabinets had to be reordered). I did have those (non-junk) drawers semi-organized though. What I found helpful is simple drawer organizers. I have several simple plain white ones I bought at Ikea and a few others found at garage sales. Like these: and These are in use in bathroom cabinet drawers as well as kitchen drawers. While not ultra-organized (it's not like they're labeled* or anything), the organizers help keep all the bamboo skewers in line and my fingers out of danger from poking, protects the glass thermometers from breaking, all the garnishing tools are in one spot, separate from the blades for the electric knife, etc. These organizers weren't big enough to fill the whole drawer, so the open areas held big flat things like a bench scaper and porceline ginger grater, or chunky things like measuring cups. Oh, and I also had a smaller drawer next to the stove, that was used exclusively for spatulas and other chunky stove-top gadgets, like a potato masher. The counter top container (next to the stove) was exclusively the home of wooden spoons and rubber scrapers. Basically, one drawer held the pretty useful stuff and the other held the rarely useful stuff. Items in use practically every day, such as the Oxo Good Grips vegetable peeler and measuring spoons, were actually kept in the flatware drawer with the miscellaneous spoons and butter spreaders. The flatware drawer is the only one that had a specialized organizer in it (with the utensil shaped openings), similar to this one, but mine has a couple more compartments including big and little spoon outlines: Once again, this helps to keep the big forks seperate from the salad forks and the soup spoons from the teaspoons. It has a couple extra compartments that said butter spreaders, demitasse spoons, vegetable peeler and small flat grater go in. * I do own a Brother P-touch and did label cabinet shelves. I will now admit to having a housekeeper once a week and it helps to keep things in the right place. I also use it to label generic spice jars, vacuum sealed mason jars and DVD shelves (by genre).

I have created a new topic on the Food Media forum. After this point, please do not discuss Chilean Sea Bass here, instead, click the link and continue the discussion over there. Thank you. You may now continue to discuss La Casa Vecchia if you wish.

Congratulations! Have you told your classmates about this diary yet?

Mmmm Lobster! In the bottom of my canning pot I put a couple inches of water, brought to a boil with some lemon rind, a handful of sage from the garden and some kosher salt. The bigger lobster went in first for about five minutes then was joined by her slightly smaller sister. After 10 more minutes I took the bigger one out, cut it in half (boy was she full of roe) and put her on the grill (keep in mind this was convenient because the lobster pot was on the side burner of the Weber (kitchen under renovation remember)). Ten minutes later they were both done. One with slightly charred shell the other only steamed. (I do have claw and body of the steamed lobster left over to play with tomorrow. That's a lot of lobster.) Both were delicious in their own way. But I think I prefer the moistness retained by the steamed only lobster, as the grilling dries out the smaller legs - the meat within which is one of the benefits to springing for the larger lobster in the first place. I suppose if you are just doing chicks, you may as well benefit from the brittling of the shell and additional flavor that grilling adds since there is no meat in those little legs of lobsters under 1.5 lbs. PS - poodles love cooked lobster roe.

The time ranges you all gave me range from 20 minutes to 35. How do you know when it is done? PS - I'll have to use by canning kettle to steam these suckers, my regular pasta pot is too small.

In the NY forum we've been discussing the great prices for lobster this week at Shop Rite in NJ. I got a couple 3+ pound beasts (at the Englewood location - last day of the sale). Normally I steam them (an inch or so of water at the bottom of the pot, throw in the chicks and steam for about 12 minutes), but I'm at a slight loss as to how to deal with the monsters. Can I just steam them whole? How long? Should I boil them instead? Grill them? Par cook and butcher into parts? I'm not going to do anything fancy or make stock with the leftover shells. And, I don't want to pre-kill them either. I just want a simple lobster dinner. OK - hit me with your advice.

OK, we stocked up on Kellers, but upgraded to the huge lobsters at $5.99/lb. This seemed like a pretty good price for the big boys, which in the past I've paid ~$12-15/lb for them. Over to Cooking for the how to cook'm question.

Thanks Tony. I did a little weather research and the chances for hurricanes on St. Maartin at the end of September is around 6% so hopefully we'll be OK. Though, I'll have to look through my travel insurance docs to see if that's covered... Thanks for all your great suggestions! Also, I've heard it is best to rent a cell phone locally as opposed to using the hotel phone or payphones (even for local calls). True? Anyone have a clue where to get one?

Lobster and butter on sale! Dare I ask, what about the lemons?

And I though I was the queen of the run-on sentence.

Lord, everything is online now, even supermarket circulars.

Mazel Tov!

Where??? Oh, congratulations. I think Jason and I will follow your tradition and have a lobster anniversary too. But that's next year. Our 7th is upcoming. What do you suggest should be the theme?

Raisin Bran was a staple in my house growing up. I preferred the Kelloggs with the non-sugar coated raisins as opposed to the Post sugary raisins. There wasn't an all-out ban on sweet cereal, but it was very rare. Rice Krispies is pretty much the only cereal we buy now (once or twice a year?), but it is mostly used for Rice Krispies Treats.