Cusina

August 11, 2004

Spinach is nice. I do about 2 large bunches with 1 1/2 cups basil for a batch.

August 10, 2004

Nice... good choices I think so far, though I still think you are kind of insane to do this all at once. Insane in a good way of course. :smile:

The heart pine and cypress is going to look beautiful next to the stainless. We have light maple floors, walnut cabinets and stainless appliances and I love the contrast.

I, personally, like a double bowl sink. One side with disposal for kitchen scraps, the other for soaking dirty dishes. Fairly deep, but not too deep because of the disposal. We have Corian, so mine is one of those seamless with the countertop ones. I'm a lefty, he's a righty too, so middle faucet for us. We went for this one, which I like very much and was at least a little less than the cost of a college education. Faucet link Soap dispenser on the side is nice too functionally, though the chrome hasn't held up well on that.

Don't forget to keep posting pictures as you go along, please.

August 9, 2004

I'm glad to see this thread. Thanks for being brave enough to post it. :)

I joined WW online too, about a month ago. My weight had crept up about 15 lbs. and I was ready to lose a few pounds. I like the journaling aspect of their site, it keeps me honest, and suprisingly, some of the recipes in their searchable archive are not that bad. Their cooking is extremely simple, which I don't mind. I'm really learning a lot about portion sizes and adding flavor to things without whole cream and plugra. *sigh* But, I'm down 5 lbs. in a month, so something must be going right.

I agree with the take on their community forums though. Ack. I refuse to use fat free cool whip, ever. I would love to see a 'healthy living' discussion be a regular feature here.

Cooking Light is a great resource. I'm very much a regular on their community boards and cook from the magazine quite a bit. Their portion sizes tend to be too large for WW weight loss mode though, so they take a bit of doctoring. Cooking Light Forums

July 27, 2004

We need to capitalize on this. The eGullet diet plan. Wander around a lot, preferably in search of the finest ingredients, smoke whenever possible, drink wine, nibble a wide variety of very small but tasty rich treats and voilà, you're thin! I also think spending the entire month of August swimming in the Mediterranean and having sex might be necessary.

Hmmm, being led by a guy named Fat Guy might be a marketing problem though... maybe he can carry a pair of big pants to publicity events and become Monsieur formerly known as Fat Guy?

July 27, 2004

Gosh, and here I thought it was all the cigarettes. ;)

July 25, 2004

woah... you are really brave!

Keep posting pictures of your progress, please. I love the idea of the reused cypress cabinet fronts. They will be beautiful.

You won't regret putting hardwood in for your floor either. We hemmed and hawed over that decision a lot and ended up with maple boards that match the rest of the house. Definitely was the right choice.

July 25, 2004

Gorgeous rolls and gorgeous boys. I'll bet those rolls don't last very long at your place. :)

Is the sourdough starter for pancakes the same as for a bread? How clever.

July 23, 2004

We generally make them with sliced strawberries and strawberry yogurt. The kids eat them like mad.

If my children weren't such little dictators I'd try gingerale peach, with chopped candied ginger.

July 22, 2004

I'm also a fine cooking fan. I like that they take one idea and run with it, giving lots of recipe variations. CI is just out to find the "best" recipe for whatever their focus is. I use their recipes, and many are quite good, but it isn't as inspiring. Fine cooking is more likely to get my creative juices going. Guess it just depends on your style.

The magazine I just can't stand is Better Homes and Gardens. Their layout is awful. Yish.

July 22, 2004

My 4.5 year old son is looking over my shoulder while I read this blog and now MUST have macaroni and cheese for dinner. You are not alone in resorting to the box.

I know I'm a little late in asking, but what is an oven rack squirrel?

The chimichurri sauce does look fabulous. Yum. I'll try that soon. :)

I'll love to see your grandmother's recipes too. I have a soft spot for those.

June 21, 2004

Thought I'd check in after my trip to thank you all for the advice and let you know how it went. Beautiful spot, Laguna is, and a great eating town as well. I definitely didn't go hungry. Lixey... I wish I had seen your post before I left!

Montage is an incredibly beautiful resort and it does have some good food. Studio, their high end restaurant is pricey, but tasty. Their casual spot, The Loft, was only fair, especially considering the price. The homemade granola was good, but their hot breakfasts were no better than Dennys. Las Brisas was not bad... the food was fine, our mains were good but not spectacular and the wine list was pretty pedestrian. My dessert however was marvelous. Chocolate mousse in an almond brittle cup. The view is incredible, especially at sunset. It was a congenial evening.

Zinc cafe, on Ocean I believe, was a great local breakfast spot. I had huevos rancheros with paypaya that was delicious. It's cheap too, for this town at least and there was a great local vibe to the place. It was fun to read the bulletin board. Everything from tarot reading classes and used purple vw bugs, to job postings for "assistant screenwriters". There was a flyer for a middle eastern cooking class out of someone's house that looked really excellent. Wish I could have taken it.

The best guacamole, hands down, was at La Sirena. A very casual mexican place in the Albertsons strip mall directly across from the Montage. Great atmosphere (for a strip mall, I loved the detail of the tin wainscotting) and again, great local people watching. Everything from snowbirds perusing their vacation photos to surfer girls with rainbow hair and jewels in their navels. My quesadilla was pretty darn good too. I understand it's the second restaurant in a small local chain. Hope they do well. They made us very comfortable.

I also took a brief class at Laguna Culinary Artshttp://www.lagunaculinaryarts.com/, which was enjoyable. Though the menu was extremely simplistic, grilled Halibut in EVOO and herbs, rice pilaf, strawberry salad with balsamic vinagrette, I did learn a few things and it was fun to work in their environment. My favorite part was having a dishwasher boy all to ourselves. I need one of those at home. Again the dessert was the highlight. Individual chocolate soufles. Some of their other classes looked to be more challenging. Perhaps on the next trip. The shop was fun to peruse as well. I now want a stovetop smoker to play with. I couldn't see schlepping it home on the plane though. :)

As always there were many more spots I wanted to try than I actually got to. Next time!

June 11, 2004

This is a regionally specific question: Why don't you heat the bathrooms? When it's January in Wisconsin and I can see my breath in your restroom, I'm not really a happy customer.

Seriously though, why does it take me 20 minutes to cook a nice thick steak myself and yet it can be served to me perfectly done in 15 at a restaurant? I don't get the equation. Do they pre-cook them somewhat or is their grill hotter?

June 11, 2004

First off, congratulations on the new baby!

As far as the class goes, to each their own I suppose, but yeah... blech. I'm kind of suprised that the instructor isn't encouraging her class to eat more healthfully.

Eating healthfully during a pregnancy makes it easier on mother and baby all the way around.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of women feel like pregnancy is sort of a free for all. Hey, I feel lousy, I'm going to be fat no matter what I do, why not eat what I want? That can be coupled with low energy and smell aversions which kept even me out of the kitchen for a few months. I wish labor and delivery classes would generalize to pre-natal health classes. It would be great if they did a bit on nutrition, healthy exercise habits etc... in addition to the traditional delivery room stuff.

June 11, 2004

Boy I need to work on that clean as you go thing. Would help me tremendously. My problem is that the dishwasher seems to be in constant operation, so I have no place to put those prep. dishes. I'm getting better about emptying it regularly, but sometimes I feel like I spend my days wearing out the spot in front of the sink. Oy.

One more thing that I like to do to speed things up is to menu plan in advance. Sometimes it's fun to be spontaneous, but when I have a deadline (like two really hungry children at my heels asking for dinner) I like to have the entire meal planned out ahead of time and thought through how things will come together. Otherwise I find that I need to grow a thrid hand, which hasn't happened yet.

June 10, 2004

We'll be staying at Montage, I'm so glad to hear it's a good food spot. Las Brisas would be nice and I always have to get my fill of Mexican cuisine while I'm there. Somehow it's just not quite as good up here in the north.

Thanks for your response, and welcome to eGullet :smile:

June 10, 2004

I make a curried version with haved grapes and almonds and serve it on rasin bread. Interesting texture and flavor. Goes over well at something like a baby shower.

I'm not sure how many you are serving, but you might try making up two variteties. One more traditional, one fruity and more "exotic".

June 10, 2004

I'm headed to Laguna Beach for a vacation. Any good food suggestions? Those which are kid friendly would be especially appreciated as I'll be taking the little gremlins along.

June 10, 2004

Good Question! I've had this happen to me an awful lot too.

I think the answer might be practice. I cook at least 2 meals daily for my family and finally, after about 10 years, I feel like I might be getting a little faster. I now can look at a recipe or a bunch of ingredients that I want to become a meal and estimate pretty accurately for myself how long it will take.

I'll also suggest you take in the EGCI knife skills course, if you haven't already. That helped me cut my prep time (pun intended of course, :smile: ) by quite a bit. Plus I cry a whole lot less over the onions.

Of course, I spend all that time I save on prep. here reading this addictive board, so I think it might be a wash. :rolleyes:

Knife Skills Link

June 8, 2004

When we were newlyweds my husband used to make me the most wonderful fried egg sandwiches. White bread toast, lots of butter, fried egg (over hardish), ham or sausage and cheddar. Lots of salt and fresh pepper. yum.

June 1, 2004

Beautiful brisket. And cute pets too, of course. :) But the pie was what I was really drooling over. Crust flaws just add character and make it look homemade, or at least that is what I tell myself. What exactly is a morello?

Also, what do you usually drink with a dinner like that one?

Edited to thank you for the salsa Revelation! I've always made mine with fresh tomatoes and it's been exclusively a late summer recipe as the winter tomatoes here are awful. I'd never even considered using canned, but yours looks delicious. Does it freeze well?

May 31, 2004

Thanks gus... I particularily like the idea of nori strips. Would not have thought of that.

May 31, 2004

I always considered vanilla as an alcohol, so I store it the way I store my cordials. In a dark cupboard and as sealed as possible. I use a homemade variety... a bottle of cognac with a few beans immersed in it.

May 31, 2004

It's been raining like crazy here and I needed something soothing. I've been making a broth with a mix of dried mushrooms, adding miso and a bit of sesame or chili oil. What are your favorite variations?

Also, as I understand it miso is an aged product, yes? Is there a limit as to how long it will keep in my fridge? There is a sell by date on the bottom of the container of 6/15.

May 25, 2004

Disclaimer: I really believe the best way to stay sane as a parent is to keep your sense of humor. Please keep this in mind as you read the following.

Hokay, so armed with lots of good advice and intentions, we decided to take the kids to the Japanese Hibachi place last night in search of something different for them, to broaden their horizons.

5:30, Monday night, place is empty. We are shown to our grill/table at which point we explain carefully to the children (4 and 6) what is going to happen. The table is a stove, it's going to get really hot, the meal will be cooked in front of us, yadda yadda. Now, this isn't too much of a stretch, the kids love the Mongolian BBQ grill style place here in town and so they seem to understand. We order. My son, 4, says straight out he isn't interested in anything except grilled cheese or popcorn shrimp. Oh boy...

So we order him the shrimp (non-popcorn, but oh well). My daughter orders the filet mignon, which I know she will love. The choice of soup or salad with their meal is met with hesitation and then an order of the soup. Which they actually both eat and enjoy. Gee, we think, this was a good idea.

The chef arrives, tall funny toque, nice young hispanic guy (I know, I know... serious shortage of Japanese folks in the upper midwest). He proceeds to do his stchick, tossing knives and spatulas every which way. My son's eyes get HUGE and he very seriously warns the chef. "Be careful" We laugh, thinking this is cute. The vegetables come out. My son declares he doesn't like mushrooms. The chef makes a little tower with the onions, my son declares he doesn't like onions either. The chef fills the tower full of oil, pours quite a bit of another substance into it and then lights a match. WHOOMMMM, a giant fireball flies out of the tower right at us. Startled me, freaked my son out to no end. He was HOWLING, climbing up my leg. Holy shit. When we have done this before there was a polite little pflume of flame coming out of the top of the tower, not a rolling inferno.

At this point my son is in hysterics, in my lap crying. I am apologizing profusely to the chef and suggesting that maybe the pyro-technics shouldn't continue. Thank god the restaurant was still empty. Son finally calms down after about 5 minutes and many reassurances there will be no more fire. He makes it through the rest of the show, crying intermittently every time the chef makes a loud noise or tosses something his way. Eats half his bowl of rice, a few spoonfulls of soup, a bowl of orange sherbert and finally we manage to drag ourselves out of there. In the meantime my son has declared that he hates shrimp, hates steak, hates vegetables and doesn't like this restaurant either. I, literally, had never heard the word 'hate' spoken by him before.

So, um, yeah. We basically scarred him for life. He will never try a new food again without fearing for his life and now associates chicken soup with giant fireballs. We, as parents, learned such a good lesson tonight. There is serious truth in that old saying: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. :rolleyes:

May 24, 2004

I agree with Suzanne. When I go into a restaurant I want someone else to balance the plate for me. Someone with more experience than I have. That I'm willing to pay for, even if it is something simple.

This is artistry. The chef does need to add something creative to the balance and the presentation that I couldn't add myself or I am going to get very bored with the menu. I might go once or twice, but I won't be tempted to go to a restaurant without that creativity very often.

I think Vivenne Westwood said that design is like walking a tightrope, one step beyond genuis is absurdity and it's mighty easy to fall off. This goes for food too in my mind. A chef has to risk absuridity to do something amazing, but the truly great ones are experienced enough at the balance not to fall off the tight rope.

Sign In

Profiles

Forums

Store

Help Articles

Posts posted by Cusina