Mabelline

How about different things , but all presented in puff pastries? Some could be red-sauced but savory, some sweet, artichokes and crab agree with everyone, and then something real shocking for a last plate, like ... ahh... I'm thinking.....

I guess I am lucky to have my own sources of meat, but can't one buy a roast , blade, shoulder, and have it ground to their order? All the butchers I know would be happy to fill your order, and especially if they are a craftsman at their trade, be glad to give you somethiing out of the norm? I realize the cases full of gray sorry sad looking stuff is what you are referring to, but can't you find someone to make you some good food? But under no circumstances would I accept water and/or salt impregnated meat. I see what you are saying, and believe me, I been there, however the squeaky wheel gets the grease; stand there and bitch!

Ah, but, Hell, different cultures have looked upon vegetal, herbal, or even animal(sucking them ugly little toads and I don't even want to talk about them here) "aids" in making them transcend a different plane---that's the point, no?-as a legitimate aid for seeking a greater wisdom, as opposed to a high, is an honorable and ancient tradition-and I speak as a person who has a "government " permit to gather the peyot as well as the psilosybin as a religious right. All this makes me sound like Jerry Garcia's Channel. No such luck. I did the spaghetti I referred to in 1968. I do nothing stronger than tea on a day to day basis now. But I deny no one their right to experience a mind expanding experience. It is not my place, any more than it is the government's. We can easily confuse recreational with educational because the government is so screwed up on these same questions.

Well then, let's go to the mines, girlfriend! Believe me, I had HOT chiles smuggled in to me, and nobody minded, as a customary practical deal, they kept track of me 'behind' my native meds! I have found a couple of new peppers, also!

When the Conquistadores were in Mexico in the 1500's , one of their padres wrote about the effect the chiles had on the "indios": "They will eat this at their leisure so that their mouths' froth, and then continue the rest of the day in their abysmal duties," keeping in mind that this forced labor had on the average, according to documents of that era, a lifespan of six months once engaged as "labor". So I suggest it was ancestrally a "pick-me-up" if you will, but was always a way to prevent ailnesses or make having them more bearable. And, They just taste good! Think about someone with a bland diet- for the cheap price of raising chiles, they knocked the spice monopoly of pepper on it's butt. In the 1100's in Narbonne, a warhorse could be had for the equivilent of a 3# bag of black peppercorns. The difficulty lay in getting them there.

phlawless, were those some of your punkins with the real imaginitive carvings?

This is an entirely serious question, Craig, if I can intrude on your wineknowledge...have the gene researchers of grape varieties found like the ancient varieties, where their locus originated, and what were like say Roman Empire or Moor origins? I know that people like the A.& M. sea research teams have retrieved wine residues from ancient wrecks, so I was wondering what you have found to be authenticated grape varieties from an ancient source? When you read the old literature, you come across all these famous ancient vintages, and I know there has been wine dna'd from Crete and Thera. I don't even know what I'm asking except can we trace a line to what kept Homer happy?

As a child, I was told "don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see," and that has pretty well helped me along. I view A.A.Gill as a 'personality' who is trying to come across as an acerbic cross of Oscar Wilde and Ab Fab. When someone is that vitriolic in their outright condemnation of a place with vastly different reviews from other less 'motivated' places, I cast a jaundiced eye. After all verbal volleyball is the main pastime with a lot of the tabloid writers, no? It is not fun, amuuussswiiinngg, or informative about a particular place. They MAY have a bad day; understood- but a machinegun job out of pure hedonistic preening is something most people will take for what it is---plain old bull****.

Don't you all think the amount of 'uncontrollable' salt you consume has a lot to do with your perception of salt-taste? If I use canned goods in a large amount in a recipe, I drain, rinse, and depending on the meat salt very little, or don't salt at all. With meat, I feel it has to have some salt. And, I agree wholeheartedly with the acidic suggestion- I use lemon, lime, and a variety of vinegars to bring up the salt/sweet balance. And I don't ever leave out the pepper...which varies in what type of pepper to the type of food.

The claypot chicken with lily buds sounded scrumptious to me-for I am just home from radical hospital time and any kind of Asian cold weather eats is sounding good. I am also a complete sucker for anything lily buds, velvet chicken, or heroically hot thick and pork. And I am now starting to sound fanatical.Sorry...

Ah me, I've got to tell you about Cosmic Spaghetti. You have a lot of empty-pockets college kids. You throw down all your money. You have enough to get 4 or 5 gallons of wine. You also have enough to get the fixin's for a humongous-ass pot of spaghetti. And you got a convenient non-student dealer who never ups his share of nothing, and he has first-class thai sticks. Go get all the ingredients, start passing wine around, and pinch a goodly quantity of that t.s. to make up your sauce. You can wilt it down in oil, or just use like a seasoning, but you will not ever forget that spaghetti. I can verify you'll end up with a very untypically peaceful assembly for collegiates, because it'll knock their mind off it's pedistal. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas?Are you all just figments of my imagination? Gertrude Stein made a comment once that she always kept some live lobsters in her bathtub in Paris so they would be fresh at hand "And besides, it kept Ernest (Hemingway) from passing out in their bathtub." You gotta love that.

Nessa, I don,t know if these are the best fajitas in DFW, but for Valentine's day, you could not miss by going to Joe T. Garcia's. It's a texmex landmark and you'll get good groceries.

Lemons.

On the subject of tomatoes that are good in Texas: Porter Pink - I understand that after the Porter Seedsmen all died in Stephensville, they tried to improve the Porter with limited success. But I recommend any of their seedstock or plants, because they are GOOD! Wilhite Seeds in Poolville Texas has an excellent Texas Grown program. Get their catalogue... Onion sets definitely from Brown's Omaha Plant Farm in Omaha, TX (duh). These are beautiful starts, believe me.www.bopf.com You asked about the lightbulbs, the yellow pears are stupendacular! I have always had extreme success by transplanting about 6 to 8 plants in a circle about 5 feet in diameter, and caging it with a circle of wire mesh (for pouring concrete) about 6 feet in diameter. It's 5 feet high. The tomatoes will be SOOO good after they have grown themselves some shade. Tomato is the true crop that thrives on neglect! I read on another thread lovebenton0, that you used some back-fence grapes. They are mustang grapes, no? Those grapes make phenominal wine, jams, jellies, and preserves. I really miss those grapes, as well as the good time spent out chasing them down! Lucky, LUCKY you, girl! One more thing. There's a GOOD roma-which the old fellers called sheeps' cods- that'll make you an excellent paste tomato- you can get a lot of success off'n them, too.

I guess I've got horns right now, because I don't like the taste any alcohol picks up from aluminum cans. Drink my beer in a bottle, can't even imagine wine. But hey, there's a market, so that'll bypass me. I'm thinking that PERHAPS this may be a way for guys to score with college girls, since that's around the same time girls swear off beer as too many calories in sororities!

Damn, I feel like this calls for a missive about that on again, off again relationship I'm in with Beef (that big hunk!). Will have to look our old letters up!

Pan, I reckon he meant that eGers don't pay too much attention to required crap to be healthy because we pretty much eat from all the food groups by choice and availability. Edit to disregard the bad english and unintended pun

Yep,and if you can't eat the geese, you could always use them to patch blown-out tires!

This is kind of OT but you see that unrelenting population of sparrows everywhere; they stem from 18,gads 18!! that were brought back to America by an industrialist who liked their song(??) and set them loose in a park. I cannot, however remember if it was Central Park or somewhere else like Baltimore or Boston. 18 lousy little birds! Grrrrr!

What he he both said. The only thing I would add is to get yourself a marble slab from a monument company, and keep it exclusively for the cold- sensitive stuff.

Ah, you must have read my mind. We contacted the owner who was actually letting them out because he was too cheap to feed them properly. He starts getting a genuine case of the ass with me and my sister. At any rate, we went down to the neighborhood CO-OP and invited anyone with a shotgun to come to that field at dawn. It sounded like a Dick Cheney pheasant hunt. What made me sooo mad about the alfalfa was that it had been cut and baled about 1 1/2 weeks before. We were irrigating it at that time, so the alfalfa was real susceptible to non- recovery at that point.

While we are talking about animals causing havoc to be wreaked in fields, etc., I have to add the effect that 200 of my neighbor's guinea hens made to a 50 acre alfalfa field. It was pitiful.

Hot about a kick-butt Chicken and Dumplings? Chili, chili, chili (I love chili). Thai roasted green curry pork. Posole!

And some still have their little bitty shoelaces attached

Man, I did a survey for Nielsen, and I didn't get to taste any wines! I was robbed!