Tess

OK, I'm actually embarrassed about how often I eat at certain restaurants, especially the ones where I always have exactly the same meal. I will often deliberately not go to one of these places for a month in hopes that I won't be known as that person who always orders the so-and-so.

Me neither. Perhaps people get that impression because booze before or with a meal can kill your appetite so you wind up eating less. Overall, though, it's still "bad carbs" and still fattening. Looking at what got this train of thought started, of course I agree with the person who said all booze is fattening, but I stand by my remark that pounding a drink with Bailey's and sweet liqueur in it is a humongous waste of calories. A nice coktail or a glass of wine? Not such a big waste.

OK, I like what few Dr. Praeger products I've tried, and wish my local Whole Foods and Trader Joe's would carry the full line. I must speak to them about that. When I shop at Jewel, I often buy some President's Choice frozen salmon burgers. I pan-fry them with a glaze of some kind-- balsamic vinegar, miso, what have you. I keep meaning to try the tuna burgers too. I would probably like some of the other things, like meat balls, if Iliked those things in the first place. I also like frozen hors d'oeuvres such as cheese puffs and pastry nibbles. The President's Choice ones are OK but I really like a line of stuff they make at a local chain called Foodstuffs (which also has a fair bit of other good frozen foods). Sinfully expensive but so handy when you have a bunch of drunks in the living room.

I like muffins if they are not huge fat and sugar bombs-- which unfortunately most of them seem to be. If I'm going to eat that much fat and sugar, I'll have chocolate cake, please. The only pastries I really like for breakfast are pastry twists you can buy in packages in supermarkets that come in all different flavors. I forget the brand name. They are heralded as being low-cholesterol but I don't think they are low fat. But they are just the right size and perfect if you want a little carbohydrate jump start for your system.

I don't know how expensive you're going for, but Skouras Megas Oinos is a widely available and usually reasonably priced red. Malmsey is Greek too, isn't it? That's a dessert wine that's good with some cheeses. For cheese, you'll have to go with what's available in your area. In some places the pickings might be quite slim, people in your church will probably know. You might want to supplement cheese with some olives, nuts, maybe taramoslata or tzatziki, all of which are good with wine.

I manage this by packing things like protein bars, nuts, packets of miso soup-- anything that is compact and tasty and has a decent shelf life. (I've experimented until I found some protein bars I really like and always have some in my carry-on.) I bring enough so I can get by just on that, and then supplement it if I get a chance with some fruit, vegetables, maybe some cheese and crackers. This really works out all right unless it's a lot of days in a row and then I start screaming for some cooked food.

I know what people mean about Boca Burgers tasting funny. I started with those and then moved to different vegetable burgers, like Praegers and some flavors of Gardenburgers, that are not trying so hard to taste like meat.

Cognac, armagnac and calvados. All very fine. Keeping my options for after-dinner drinks open. Anyone who wants a cocktail can have calvados on ice.

Since joining Weight Watchers, I have come to appreciate some of the Amy's and Dr. Praeger products. Certain items like the Dr. P's California Burgers and Amy's vegetable pies are quick, tasty and remarkably low in fat and calories. Their products that are higher-calorie are fine too, as far as I've tried them, but the real attraction of instant meals for me is the no-brain combination of speed and limited calories.

The purple sounds great. We have some Chambord, so I'll try it. Thanks!

There's also a chain called Teddy's that's all over the place. Very cheap prices on selected items. Be warned that they accept no credit cards.

Thank you for reminding me of Schaefer's. My grandfather is buried just across the street from the Skokie branch and we always say that he has a direct line put in underground. Now that my aunt's joined him, she's probably got one too. They do have interesting selections. I'll have to stop in sometime before we bury the next family member.

The lime rickey and the bitter lemon cooler both sound great! I even have a bottle of Riggs & Forsythe bitter lemon. I'll work on the proportions. A little more soda, a little more gin, a little more soda, oops, no, a little more gin... Sounds like an ideal experiment for a weekend.

I also "reformed" over the travel and guest issues. My vegetarianism wasn't that educated though; pretty much emotional and aesthetic. I actually got back into eating meat largely by eating birds and other things people had hunted; it seemed less gross than eating mass-produced meat-- and more of an insult to the host to reject it.

I bought some Bombay Sapphire for a recipe, which as I recall involved champagne with a tiny bit of gin. I then tried a cocktail Nigella made on TV out of limoncello and gin. That was too sweet for me. The "reverse martini" sounds like the best thing. I also think I would like gin and tonics, if tonic were not like sweet pop but more like the bitter tonic I hear tell they used to make.

It's definitely more about the ingredients for me. Partly, I have more choices where I live now and it's much more feasible for me to cook based on what looks good in the store. When I lived in a remote area, it was all about making long shopping lists and a lot of ingredients had to be dried, frozen or canned. (There was also usually more of a time crunch.) Spur-of-the-moment cooking with fresh stuff happened the day of a shopping trip, and that was it.

chefzadi, I think it is the fact that you're a native speaker. It happens to me because I can only partially understand French, and then I hear someone who can only partially speak it, so I try to make sense of it thinking of the few words I know.

Yeah, my impression was that "baiser" had received an upgrade (or downgrade) in meaning, sort of like "gamei" which meant "marry" in ancient Greek. I don't think all those people walking around saying "gamei ti, gamei to" are talking about marriage.

I always hear "cul de gras." Another thing people say a lot in business is "tay a tay" for a one-to-one meeting. Yeah, just leave off the last couple letters. I shouldn't laugh at people's French. I stilll can't speak a word of it without provoking gales of laughter, despite being married to a french speaker. What kills me is pronouncing items from a Greek menu. It's so easy to get the accented syllable wrong. It's not like Japanese, where you can just try not to accent any syllable.

It always sounds to me like it means "fat ass" when they pronounce it that way. Generally it's funny when people think you pronounce French right every time by leaving off the last few letters, like "Vichyswah." My favorite is still "bouillaBAIZE," with the last syllable sounding like the f-word.

Hmm. We see age as the enemy of sexuality, but we also see overweight as being un-sexual. So you think maybe people think after a certain age, why bother keeping thin? It's paradoxical, though, because a lot of the older women I know are super-skinny. I suspect that's the healthiest way to be after a certain age, unless you achieve it by living on cigarettes and booze, like a lot of the ladies in my family. I'm aiming to be a tough, skinny old lady myself (sans tobacco if not booze), for the sake of my joints and my mobility. But I don't think that's sexy, and I don't think most people do. Even when you're young, you're supposed to be thin but voluptuous to look good in a bathing suit. You can't be fat, but you can't be flat either. Just to bring this back on the subject of that diet, it did ring a bell for me when I read about it, because I also had the experience of moving from the US to Europe (in my case, Italy) and feeling like I was eating more but losing weight. I walked a lot over there, but it wasn't like I was a sloth back in the US. I ate a lot more carbohydrates there, bread and pasta, and less meat. I drank more alcohol too. I sometimes think I lose weight when shifting a different cuisine and/or lifestyle just because it makes my choices a little more conscious, gives me a little shock to my system, and gets me out of my rut. I also lost weight in Greece, living mainly on beer, cheese and fried things.

Thanks for the suggestions! Noilly Prat is what I buy and it's fine; I've just been intrigued by people talking about different vermouths and it seems like something that would be interesting. I like Lillet; that's a good idea. We sometimes have bottles of sake around-- the kind that's recommended to be served cold-- and I've wondered about making cocktails with that.

I would love to make reverse martinis, but I never see vermouth in the stores that's not Noilly Prat or Martini and Rossi. Where do people get good vermouth? I'm in the Chicago area and it's true I haven't explored liquor stores that much, but I would for this.

But my comment (which is the one you were referring to) was in direct response to the topic.

The pine nuts look like a great idea. I'm going to try that. I love poke in Hawaii, but for some reason, I never make it at home although I occasionally give raw fish (usually salmon or tuna) the ceviche treatment. That will have to change.