Cusina
-
Posts
920 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Cusina
-
-
Absolutely gorgeous blog all the way around. You have raised the bar for sure. Thank you so much for sharing it all with us.
Hope your Boxing Day is relaxing after preparing such a feast.
-
I agree with those who said it above, wonderful blog. You have really given us a good taste of your world.
Thanks for the clarifications on the Pannetone. Your breads look beautiful. I'm intrigued by the oven in your yard as well. Is that something you built yourself?
-
I'm really hoping for the kitchen aid pasta maker accessory under the tree, fingers crossed.
I'm giving a digital oven thermometer to my mom and some measuring shot glasses (stocking stuffers)
A rabbit style wine opener to my dad.
$50 Williams Sonoma gift certificate, a red scoop rubber scraper and a molten chocolate cake kit to my bestest girlfriend.
Also gave my MIL a fish pattern salad bowl set with some lovely silver utensils.
Giving the book Culinary Artistry to another good friend who loves to cook.
-
And Varmint, my 6 year old giggled like crazy at that yellow mushroom weirdo cartoon guy. Thanks alot for introducing us to that one!
-
Sorry to hear that Dumpling. Good health to your brother.
I've not posted on this board before, but I've enjoyed reading it. I steal great meal ideas from you all when I'm low on inspiration.
Guajalote, what a beautiful crustacean you had there. Looks delicious.
We had sort of a tapas meal tonight. Roasted red pepper hummus with toasted pita and veggies and a glass of pino grigo, followed by green salad (house balsamic vinagrette) and beer battered coconut shrimp. A glass of Vouvray with the shrimp. A few assorted christmas cookies for dessert, especially the roll up cherry almond rejects which just aren't good enough to give away, but still manage to feed the sweet tooth. I try a few new cookies every year and these were definitely not keepers. Oh well, win some lose some.
-
Adrober, thanks for posting your paper. It is well written and a very interesting topic for dicussion. Here are my not-a-lawyer thoughts:
Growing and raising food for the sustenance of several thousand people year round is difficult. It requires serious skill no matter where you are in the country and can't be run on manual prison labor alone. I can't imagine that hiring people to plan/run/maintain this kind of prison operation would be cheap or easy to do. Here in WI my nearest prison is situated on cheap rocky land unsuitable for farming and sandwiched between landfills (lovely spot, really, can you believe they just built a new subdivision right next to it?!). The climate is hardly condusive. We have roughly a 5 month growing season. In December, they would all be enjoying snowballs and roadkill for lunch. For these reasons and others mentioned I just don't think self-sustaining prisons will ever be the norm.
I don't really subscribe to the freudian oral fixation theories. While interesting, it is far too simplistic to be viable. Boobs are popular in prisons I'm sure, but not the root of all evil.
The real question here is reformation. Can criminals be reformed? Some yes, some no. Can food help to reform criminals? Some yes, some no. The problem is that reformation is an individual learning process and each criminal needs different things to accomplish that feat. Prison treats everyone the same. I don't know if this is wrong or cruel, it just is. I think that better food is extremely unlikely to be a pancea. Fat Guy had a good point when he said we should do more studies, but studies also cost money and so don't happen often. It a huge viscious cycle of frustration.
I laughed out loud at the BK idea though. Bourdain, you have great comic timing.
-
Alright, I must be completely brainwashed by the television, but I'm in that 18 to 35 demographic and find myself a) wanting Lisa's haircut and b) kind of curious to see what their show is like. Might be fun or might be complete drivel, but I am at least on a base level, interested.
-
Beautiful pictures, very lovely scenery and the food looks wonderful. I am sorry about your trees though. I find it very sad to loose trees, they are such constant companions, somehow. You need a few nice young neighborhood felines to clear out the rabbit and squirrel population.
The Pannetone is particularily intriguing to me. What a beautiful rich looking dough. Your recipe, however, I think I'm losing alot in the translation. I'm sorry.
Am I understanding that you have converted to make 20% of the original recipe which would equal 500g, 2 servings? Did you double or triple that to make this Christmas version or is that the full recipe? How much egg yolk is 20g anyways?
Also, did you leave it to rise overnight? or was it a shorter time?
And finally, what are sultanas?
Sorry for so many questions. But you did want it to be an interactive blog, didn't you? Be careful what you ask for!
-
I've read this thread with interest as I am very undecided. I think I've finally settled on a chocolate mousse with a sabayon sauce, though the idea of an egg nog bread pudding with a brandy hard sauce really appeals too. Such difficult choices!!
Betts, thanks for posting that carrot pudding. I'm looking forward to giving it a try.
-
Malawry, I advise a sorority chapter now. We don't have a house or a cook, but I would say, before taking the job, you should evaluate how strong the national organization is and how much alumni support the chapter has. The sorority women themselves come and go and are generally kind of fickle (most 18-22 year olds are), but the alumni who are involved will be there to stay and ultimately set the tone of the chapter. If there aren't many alums around to ensure that things go the way they should, the job might be pretty unpredictable.
That said, it is really rewarding to feel like you are setting a good example for college aged women. You can teach them alot if they are open to it and you are up for the challenge (and can endure the DRAMA! holy moly). I really enjoy volunteering with the sorority.
-
I can remember being completely appalled at the way my husband ate in his fraternity house. It looked like wolves falling onto trays of onion rings, brownies and casseroles. 50% of the food was deep fried, the other 50% was cheese (actually, some of it was deep fried cheese). The only thing I remember being even remotely heathful in the place was the cereal bar and the milk machine.
Carrie, their cook, was a huge sweetie though. She loved those guys, dispensed lots of care, advice and chocolate chip cookies to her boys and even to a few stray girlfriends.
-
Not to pander, but when I have dined with a Sommelier present, they were genuinely interested in our dining experience and happy to share their knowledge. I don't think I remember one with a smirk.
I do like big wines, on their own, but even my uneducated taste buds learned after about 3 minutes at the table that they overpower even reasonably simple cooking and are best saved for later on in the evening. This article seems overly dramatic to me. It is hard to believe that a trend toward showy wines in the wide spectrum of wine production could possibly overturn a two thousand year old (more, actually) habit of drinking wine with dinner. I think it was written to entertain the in-flight crowd.
-
Thanks, everyone, for the good exchange and credit card tips. We will be travelling to London early April. I think, for us, the compensation point for the weak dollar is that our airfare was VERY cheap through BA. It was actually cheaper to fly to London than to Orange County. The hotel we have booked (Millennium Baileys in S. Kensington) is roughly the same cost as a hotel in Chicago would be, so that doesn't seem outrageous (that 17.5% tax does bite though). I do anticipate food and shopping will be more expensive than I would like.
We rarely travel to Europe (young kids tend to tie one down) so I think we will stick our heads in the sand and just enjoy it. I don't anticipate purchasing less, just maybe complaining a little more.
-
I think this could be parlayed into one of those literary smackdowns. Write the worst possible restraunt review. Nauseate us in 10 paragraphs or less.
-
Do you have the Ravinia cookbooks Ronnie? Noteworthy Two is one of my most used books of all time. They must put some serious effort into publishing those.
-
I can't believe there were 5 pages in this thread and not one slash of
"It's a good thing" {insert plastic smile here}
Just awful. Even more painful when other reviewers attempt to recycle the phrase.
-
My mother has been washing her melons for decades.
You know, I tried, you just can't write that particular idea without double entandre.
But she has. I have openly laughed at her wrestling with a soapy watermelon in the sink. Not only that but she refuses to buy the cut melons at the grocery for fear of contamination. Don't you just hate it when your mother is always right (or at least supported in writing by the NYTimes)? I wonder, are we supposed to wash bananas before we peel them too? Mom never does that.
-
This is way off the flu topic and not exactly curative, but the most welcome relief I've ever had was brought on by drinking strong raspberry tea with almond extract. Supposedly brings on labor if you are at the very end of a pregnancy and just want your body to be your own again, finally, please and now. Hard to prove if it actually worked or not as I'm sure I was likely to deliver anyways, but it sure tasted good.
hillvalley, that doesn't help you any I suppose. Raw almonds are supposed to have anti-nausea effects. Maybe those would be good? Also, my mom always made me peppermint tea when I felt yishy. Get better!
-
Sorry, asleep at the switch, I missed the assistant references. Guajolote gets the kudos for the bacon fat in the eggs then? Bravo! I also owe you Chi town boys thanks for introducing me to neuskes. Wow. It's excellent!
Lou Mal's *sigh*. Great stuff. It is second, in my mind, only to the original Pizza Uno downtown. The slight edge being mostly atmosphere and some something in the crust. We hypothesize that the secret is in the pans and the oven temp.
-
So, progress, I have:
2000 Vouvray - Appellation Vouvray Controlee - M. Robin, Newcastle brown ale and a soon to be purchased bottle of young Chablis.
I haven't yet been able to find a port or sherry worthy of the challenge. Unfortunately, I am a long way from a really good wine shop and I am wary of what they had in stock here. It all seemed too cheap to be worthwhile. Any thoughts on the best of the moderate brands or should I just skip this if I can't find something of good caliber?
I still welcome any other suggestions.
I'll let you know what the verdict is later on in the week. I'm anticipating the fun of the comparison. Thanks again for your help!
-
Thanks very much for the suggestions. I think a little mid-afternoon tasting might be in order to decide for sure. I'll pick up a little of each and see what happens.
-
When I think Toast and England in the same phrase... I remember waiting at the corner shop at just the right time for the hot baguettes to be brought out. Racing through checkout, back to my flat, cracking it open, still steaming and slathering that bad boy with butter and wolfing it down. No toaster necessary. Hot bread + fresh cold butter = Yum.
-
I too own one of these big un-glamorous plastic boxes. You can make a mighty fine pizza crust dough in it. I think that is what I use mine for the most, followed by the dough for yeast rolls and cinnamon rolls. I hardly ever use the baking cycle as we don't really enjoy the crust or the shape of the resulting loaf. The high end breads at the grocery and the bakery are better, IMHO.
-
In a previous soup and wine pairing thread it was suggested that wine and soup are a difficult match. What if the soup is the center of a light meal? I'm planning an "in front of the fireplace" dinner of cream and butter rich clam chowder, sourdough bread and a cheese and fruit board. I envision a smooth white wine with this, but am not sure what would work, if anything. Could you please give me some ideas? Suggestions for good cheeses would be welcome too. Thanks in advance for your input.
eG Foodblog: hillvalley - Back to normal eating.....
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Very glad to see you pick up the blog hillvalley. I'll look forward to hearing more about your students and your foodie life. Be sure to put in pictures if you can and you are definitely granted spelling forgiveness. Mine is just as bad! I'm glad you are feeling better too. Being sick sucks.
Torakris, I missed a wonderful trip to Japan while I was away. I just read through it and it is a beautiful chronicle. I feel like you are my parallel life in Japan as we have kids similar ages and some similar interests (I even have a daughter Julia!) Loved hearing about your family and their tastes. Thanks for the great read!
Onward....