Mabelline

Probably some guy sitting around wondering what to do with two pieces of bread and a flat rock by a fire...

Many thanks! Though I used to buy mine from Smith's, WallyWorld chased them outta town, so I am digging in my heels and making some!

Calabacitas: garlic, green chiles,green onions,zucchini,olive oil,butter,heavy cream,Monterrey Jack, and fresh kernels of ( preferrably) white shoepeg corn, all sauteed and combined as a vegetable side dish. Ummm, you can make a meal out of nothing but this!

First, for youall with fresh corn from farmers, what do you pay for it? Billings is literally surrounded by cornfields, and once it's ready, we can get 12 ears for 2.00. Very good buy, seems to me. And I'd pay more, anyway, just to give it to the folks that grew it. Corn relish!!!! My favorite. Take a morning and put you up some. Your belly will thank you, for sure!

Sometimes it just seems that the only explanation of your dining experience is that perhaps you at your table and they in their kitchen are not operating in the same dimensions. Maybe that explains why some good Twilight Zone and Night Gallery episodes were so spooky--because we've been there, and it hits close to home.

There's always an assumption by paleobotanists, etc., that accidental fire brought about such changes. But the Hopi, for instance, use a particular type of desert brushwood, and it is a sacred ceremony involved in the site preparation, 2 days' burning, gathering the ashes, and the containers it's apportioned in. This ash has been analyzed, and found to be an adequate supplement. It is used in other recipes, as well as a variety of tonics, and the cleansing diet before religious fasts.

I got the pineapple vinegar started, as well as a banana and date one, too. I am the original 'can't have too many vinegars' kind of gal. For the banana-date one, I did use palm vinegar as the kicker. We'll see what happens. andie, what's your tips for pitas? You ought to make a thread on them...I for one would be glad of any help.

Artichokes and cardoons!

That is a weird sensation, isn't it? I swear, if I had heard the first notes of Dueling Banjos, I'd have beat my skin back across the road!

I suppose kinda like: "If I don't like your food, you'll exchange for something gourmet?''

The first guy to steal honey from bees by smoking them out gets a big hoorah, too!

So simple, it's embaressing. 1/4 c. sugar, Peel of one pineapple,scrubbed clean,water, and 1/4 c. of cider vinegar. Dissolve sugar in a qt. of water, add clean and coarsely chopped pineapple rind, add cider vinegar. Cover with a tea towel or tightly woven cheesecloth to keep maggots someplace else, and leave in room temp. After a week or so,you should see the liquid darken. Remove the peels and toss. Ferment 1-3 weeks longer,stirring or agitating every once in awhile. That's it.

Nay, fifi, nor munchin' it!

Yes, for sure, scottie. Susan Fallon's position and book receive some serious consideration in the book I am reading, as well. I find her to be very astute and interesting! There's some very good info and resources about genetic modifiers, and the agendas they've got in mind for us. I don't think people realize how far from corn, particularly, that the stewards of pure strains have to be in order to prevent introduction of modified pollen. Some day corn will be Monsanto--and that's it.

I'm thinking that I can start them in the juices and tekillya, and sort of stabilize the coconut milk with palm sugar vinegar, and maybe some condensed milk, instead of the chicken broth. Then as you say, spray some on the pork while its roasting, to glaze it up. I think the condensed milk will help, and it is a Mex flavor, to me. I'm sticking with Mexican spices this time...next comes my favorite green thai curry.

Sometimes some people cannot discern between their i.q. and their shoe size. If she's like my own daemon, she probably also conveniently forgot she even said it... Wait a minute...was she a nurse from Montana??

Oh, should've added that this is a slightly more polite pineapple vinegar, but it is based on DK's; she got the credit for it. Not to fear, no maggots in this heathen's vinegar. I'm getting hungry enough to use some palm vinegar, anyway, and make the vinegar for next time...the ongoing carnitas!

Thanks, jackal10...as you can tell, medlars are quite rare in the states. I was interested in them for so many reasons...they are hardy here in Montana; they produce in just 2 or 3 years; and mature height is just 8-10 feet. And they are noted as an exceptional taste!! I had some pears--Seckel, I think--which were enormous, green, and I would pick in late fall, still hard, wrap in newsprint and store in closed-up cardboard boxes, where they finished ripening all fall, to eat them all winter. As kids we used to call these 'chunking' pears, because they made very respectable missiles to 'chunk' at the BOYS!

spinoza, welcome! I am finding that as I age, I am not prepared to hassle myself with pain in the butt guests. If they eat, fine...if they play with the food like an erector set, fine as well. If the real party monsters are there, I just remind myself that, hey, it could be worse--I could have the big pains in the butt who I'm related to there as well!!

Totally agreed about the cumin. I don't even have any preground, because it smells like cardboard boxes that have been rained on to me--go figure!

I know what a peeping tom feels like, between Chad's Butt and this beautiful leg. (There goes that weird-sounding commentary again). I was just going to post that I am going to make some of Diana Kennedy's pineapple vinegar, then I was gonna do fifi's coconut milk, jaymes' tequila,and the vinegar to do carnitas. I wonder what spices I ought to use? I'll have the 14 or so days while the vinegar is making, so I figured I'd drive myself crazy in the meantime thinking about. But I cannot resist praising this masterful rendering of a great meat. Way to go, andie!!

A truly moving tail of butts and requited love. Beautiful pictures, and lively commentary. I am so glad I waited till I ate my supper before I read it from nose to tail. Whenever you can get pearwood, grab that stuff and run! It makes any meat, fowl, or fish excellent...my favorite; I like it much better than applewood.

Closeted lipophiliacs.

My ex (Thank the Stars) ate mushrooms premarriage so enthusiastically that one meal I made crab-stuffed mushrooms. He sat there looking at the plate so morosely, that I thought "Oh, no, he hates crab!" Then he looks at me and says, "I gotta tell you--I can't stand mushrooms..." I did not know whether to be embaressed, or wring his neck. On reflection, I should've wrung his neck.

Look up medlars, fifi. I reckon its like the Southern Persimmons, where they don't get edible till they've gotten mooshy and aged (or froze, in the 'simmon's case). Medlar has been considered one of the most desirable of fruits for hundreds of years. Marlena Spieler and I had a lot of discussion about it. I was considering trees for a crop, since they are cast iron-tough, and very uncommon here. I can't remember where the bletting explanation was, but medlar oughta help. I reckon J10's asleep.