Jensen

Fortunately, I'll be able to say "Oh, I learned how to cook my oatmeal this way from one of the blogs on eGullet..." I'll give it a try tonight!

That looks incredible. Is it really as simple as outlined in your blog? no onions? no garlic? just those couple of ingredients?

I'm not sure. I didn't really pay too much attention to the discussion around it.

I can only add a little anecdotal advice. My dog meat buying group got a line on a couple of hundred chickens from a local university. The chickens were dead when we took possession but we had to skin them (quicker than plucking) and clean them (including removing head and feet). I was booked to pitch in but then one of my dogs ended up in surgery for an unexpected accident so had to bow out of the experience. And the advice...make sure you bleed them well. Because these were for the dogs, the people processing the birds didn't bleed them. Some people's dogs wouldn't eat them because they tasted "different".

This should be a fun week! Owen's blog was one of the first I ever read, way back in 2004. I could be wrong but weren't you seriously into coffee back then? Are you still roasting your own?

I've decided that, when I die, I want to come back as anyone who might eat C. sapidus' cooking on a regular basis. I'd settle for being the family dog.

For a single crust: 1 cup flour 1/3 cup lard salt 3-5 T. ice water (Mmmmm. Lard... )

Asparagus

Quark = topfen = tvaroch = farmer's cheese. It's popular in Europe, but is usually hard to find in the U.S. I think of it as loose cream cheese. It's great for dumplings and cakes. And when you can't find cream cheese in Europe, it makes a decent frosting for carrot cake. ← I'll add that it is an acid cheese, like yogurt cheese. If you make yogurt at home, then you can easily adapt your routine to make quark by substituting buttermilk for the milk (or using a mixture of buttermilk and milk, if you like sweeter quark) and then straining the finished product.

Maybe it's a cultural difference. I don't see much difference between that poster and a poster of Maria Montessori sayings in a Montessori school or Rudolf Steiner quotes in a Waldorf school. Such statements of philosophy are not at all unusual in private schools in Canada and, although the Berkeley school is public, the Edible Schoolyard is not. Its staff are not school employees. From my perspective, a statement of philosophy is a key part of the Edible Schoolyard curriculum.

Thanks for a great blog, Suzilightning. Also, thank you for allowing me to appear far more intelligent than I am at dinner last night. A colleague of the Spouse was in town from New Jersey and so I was able to ask seemingly knowledgeable questions about his home state thanks to your blog!

Wattacetti, could you write more about the salmon ceviche? (please and thank you!) Do you find one type of salmon better than others? I like ceviche but I doubt anyone else in the house would eat any. (Hmmmm. Maybe it's time to invite the neighbours for dinner!) That being said, the thought of salmon ceviche makes me glad that no one else would eat it...more for me! (Why is there no piggy emoticon?)

Since I doubt we're going to hear from Scargo about the evening and what he ultimately decided to do until tomorrow, I thought I'd pick up on Busboy's move to broaden discussion a wee bit (which I should note Scargo did do in the original post). The only real accommodations I've had to make in the past have been for vegetarian guests. About twice or three times per year, I host my book club for breakfast; about half of book club is vegetarian. I used to try to make vegetarian versions of dishes but after one meeting at which the vegetarian version of a dish was waaaayyy better than the omnivore version, I've just started making the entire thing vegetarian. Interestingly enough, our last meeting was held at one of the vegetarian's and she prepared turkey sausages for the omnivorous guests! I thought that rather cool. Recently, a very good friend's daughter was visiting from out of town. Since his spouse was away caring for a very ill parent, we invited B. and his daughter for dinner, knowing full well that she was a raw vegan. I have to confess, the tricky part about the meal was the "raw", not the "vegan". It worked out though...three substantial salads for all of us and then some grilled beef and bread for the omnivores. I really don't have a problem accommodating people's eating habits; I'll usually just make an alternative for them.

I fall on the side of "pick up some rotisserie chicken for the girl and plate it in the kitchen". Eight hours notice is just not enough to justify changing the entire menu. Edited to add: I really disagree with Petite tete du chou on this one. Unless the invitation to the party went out nine hours ago, this really sounds like a control issue the girl has. "Oh, let's see what hoops I can make [fill in the blank] jump through!" I don't see any point in encouraging it; the rotisserie chicken is a polite and workable alternative to rearranging everything for her.

Tonight was "leftover" night. In the fridge: rice from last night's dinner. In the freezer: some black beans with chiles I'd made a month or so ago. In the crisper: pasilla chiles and tomatillos. I love the before and after changes when you roast chiles: After they were cooled, I skinned and gutted them and stuffed them with a mixture of the rice and beans. The sauce was made from the tomatillos and a couple of cloves of garlic: And then it was into the "oven" for about 30 or 40 minutes: (I didn't really turn on the oven...I'm not crazy! I heated the Weber to around 350 and then put the dish in the barbecue.) Served with sliced heirloom tomatoes and sliced avocado.

Obviously, you've never worked in a chip shop! (Okay, maybe it was only so much work for me because I only weighed about 95 pounds at the time.)

I certainly didn't see it as 'hagiographic'. Good lord, it's not like they had some sort of shrine set up. Considering that Alice Waters spearheaded/developed the concept of "The Edible Schoolyard" and is currently president of its Board of Directors, it doesn't seem inappropriate at all to me.

This past winter I did ravioli stuffed with leftover braised shortribs (well, the meat from them) and then served in a broth made from the braising liquid. It was super (but I hear you about stuffing ravioli in the heat!). Edited for prepositional correction.

If a trip to Canada isn't in your near future, you might try a Cost Plus World Market. I've never looked for Worcestershire sauce there but they do have other British items (HP, Coleman's, Marmite, etc.,). And if that doesn't work out, there are a lot of websites catering to British ex-pats that might carry it.

Even though it's well into the 90s here, that looks wonderful, David. I hope I remember the combination of braised beef and pasta come fall!

Sometimes updating the old stand-bys works out really well though. A couple of years ago, I decided to update shepherd's pie too (well, technically cottage pie). This is what came of that: I've since made the same updated pies using chicken (with leeks instead of mushrooms) and leftover lamb shanks (a true shepherd's pie).

Friends came for dinner last night and we did some chicken legs on the barbecue. Well, the Spouse did the chicken; I was in charge of the salad. The legs looked so good while cooking that I had to take a shot of them: And, on the plate along with a Ciabbata bun, local white corn on the cob, and a salad made from Chocolate Cherokee tomatoes, cucumber, and red onion: Yes, those tomatoes really were called "chocolate cherokee". I even confirmed their name with the farmer because of their colour! For some reason, we actually calculated the cost of this dinner...$15 for all ingredients for a grand total of $3 per plate. Not bad...

Anna, have I told you lately how much I love you? Thank you so much for the Lee Valley link. I see some new glasses in my future. Cookie (you know I'm going to call you that forever now), yeah, the glasses I have are not Kölsch glasses. The real key in knowing that came when I said I got them in Münster... (Okay, maybe that's only funny if you know Germans.) I've looked at some German websites for department stores, etc., but haven't found any Stangen. I think because they are such a local item, they're just not available outside of Cologne. Also, buying stuff from a German company involves using an IBAN rather than a credit card and my bank charges an arm and leg to do that. I will be happy with the glasses from Lee Valley; they're close enough.

I have been on a quest for about a dozen Stange/Kölsch glasses but (and this is key) without any logo on the side. For those who aren't familiar with them, Wikipedia has a photo of one on their Kölsch page. I have two glasses from Münster (so more of an Altbier-style, I think) that I love but they have a beer logo on one side and the club logo on the other. To be honest, this is real shape that I want: They hold 200 mL and are about 5.5 inches high. Help! (Please and thank you) (Oh, I should add that I have googled and searched all the beer glass and stein websites.)

Something I read recently led me to ponder the spread of the concept of "food miles" and localvore-osity. My thoughts were that the localvore movement is really kind of a grass-roots one. I also believe it will be (if it hasn't already) taking the food corps a little by surprise. Had an interesting conversation with my brother-in-law yesterday about an experience he had with food miles. He and a friend had an opportunity to participate in a Coors Light focus group. As he said, while not by any stretch of the imagination was he fond of Coors Light, it was an opportunity to get paid $85 to hopefully drink free beer. At any rate, when the CL guy told him that people in the west were far more likely to go for a microbrew than a big brewery product, BIL told him about a neighbourhood party they'd had. Five families from their cul-de-sac had got together for a potluck bbq. The only requirement for the meal was that everything, beer and wine included, had to have been produced within 25 miles. This was not a hard task nor was it something anyone thought was "out there" but it was something that absolutely astounded the CL guy. Again, this took place a year ago and the BIL has never read anything on "food miles" (in fact, I mailed him my copy of 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' yesterday after our phone call). If that's what's happening in somewhere like Victoria, who needs the illumanati? And a movement that begins as a groundswell just seems more likely to succeed.