B Edulis

Wow, sounds awful. I haven't had that experience, must be my guest list, tho' I don't make it based on culinary skill. Last Thanksgiving's dinner was a delectable feast from beginning to end (don't get me started).

Liza tipped me off to check out this thread. I'm working on the "Dinner Parties" chapter of a book on entertaining that I'm ghostwriting. I've been thinking about whether people entertain with dinner at home much, and how to encourage them to do it more. So this thread is anthropological research for me! So. Some comments and questions, if you would be good enough to humor me.... I'm thinking of starting the chapter with the simplest of dinners -- dinner at home for the family, then working up: carry-out dinners, cooperative (pot-luck) dinners, buffet dinners, barbeques, informal dinners, finally formal dinners. Restaurant entertaining is separate. It seems to me that simplest to most comples would be less intimidating than starting with formal. What do you think? Next, I'm getting the feeling that people don't do dinners because they're intimidated by the complexity and expertise required. Tho' it seems that other people are attracted by those same qualities. Do you think that promoting simple and frequent home entertaining will be effective? Also, I dislike the term pot-luck and feel like I have an opportunity to introduce a new term. What do you think of "cooperative dinner"? Anything other term you think is better? In terms of my own experience with dinner parties, I like to have just a few people over for simple dinners as often as I can. What I do is focus on the quality of the ingredients and cooking. Excellent olives and cheese for appetizers. The freshest fish for the main course. Farmer's market vegetables. Hagen Dasz ice cream. Everybody's happy. And I don't say no to help with clean up. I have done larger dinners, working with others. For years I shared a Catskills house with some fellow foodies. We loved cooking and we got to the point where we could start mid-afternoon, plan and cook a delicious dinner, soup to nuts, for 20 people by 8:00 pm. In a crappy little kitchen with a lousy stove! Tho' we did have a good charcoal grill. And many hands to help with prep. I've been having a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner for several years now. Even though I try to keep it at about 15 people, it always seems to inch up to 22-23-24. I organize it in advance -- it's definitely not pot luck. I cook the turkey. Those who don't cook bring wine, flowers, ice cream etc. The quality of the dishes varies, but in general, it's surprisingly good. And, contrary to feel less of a sense of accomplishment, I feel the pride of an orchestra conductor, and the guests feel happy and proud that they've contributed to a group experience that's greater than the sum of its parts.

I made another batch last weekend and followed Catseye's advice and made sure the butter was cold. Ther was a marked improvement -- the cookies were still too crumbly, but much firmer than they had been. I also turned the oven up as Steve Klc suggested and I think that helped, too. But they're melting and spreading in the oven, and my mother's held their shape and even the fork pricks that decorated each one. So, I'll start working my way down the list of other suggestions. Failure is such sweet sorrow.... That's it from the shortbread factory for now.....

Steve S, thanks for the reality check on Corian. Guess I believed the hype. Another surface made the same way is Fireslate, which is used in laboratories. I considered it when kitchen renoing 2 years ago, but it wasn't in my budget. Anyone out there tried it? What I did get for countertops (third choice after fireslate and stainless) is bluestone, which is slate. I do like it, even tho' people complain about the porousity. It's a great value -- about twice as much as formica and half as much as granite or corian, plus it comes from NY state. I sealed it with boiled linseed oil after trying several other methods, one of which was $50 a quart and recommend by a store that should have known better. I got it with a matt finish and I like that it's visually warmer than granite. It also goes great with my loft which has massive pine beams and other early industrial details.

Hi Wilfrid! The surface you're describing is formica, it's plastic laminated paper, and yes, it'll be beat to hell in a couple of years. An alternative that hasn't been mentioned is corian veneer. Corian is marble powder mixed with resin. It feels cold like stone but is more durable, doesn't react to acid like marble does, and you can rub out scratches. I don't know if you can have this done over existing tops or not. Home Depot carries it. But it's definitely not a d-i-y project. You could also have the countertops removed and replace them with your preference. I agree that tile's not the best surface, but if you're handy, it's amazingly easy to do. If you like, you can get more creative with the backsplash (I did my backsplash with broken commemorative plates). Go to a good tile store and they can fix you up with the right materials. There's a really good one one in NYC on East 10th St., Bella Tile.

Jinmyo, that was a really great description, but it wasn't recipe, that's one of the reasons it really worked. And the description -- terrific, what I already knew was described perfectly, and what I didn't know I can't wait to try. You really should think about writing a cookbook. Not a recipe book, a cookbook. It's the kind of advice and info you get only when you're cooking alongside someone else.

And what about umame, the lost taste? Actually the recently-accepted-by-western-food-scientist taste. The Japanese have recognised it for years. It's the taste of meatiness, also found in mushrooms, nuts and seeds, and msg. It's related to glutimates, which are, I think, associated with protein. And, replying to Steve S.'s query, very tardily -- I taste tested salts on a perfect juicy, end of summer tomato. It was a blind taste test, but not a double-blind test. I could have been influenced, ever so subtly, by my pal who was doing the testing. I actually blind taste test lots of things. It's fun and you learn things about flavor and aroma.

This is really interesting, since I'm currently (ghost)writing a book on manners and etiquette. Was this ignorant person an adult? I can understand such a response, maybe, if the atmosphere is one of playful experimentation. But since you chose the food just for their interest, it's disrespectful to both you and the fowl who gave their lives for her sustenance and pleasure. Jeez. What an ingrate. Sounds like she just degenerated into infantilism. Perhaps your suspicion that "strange" food gives some people license to be strange themselves is correct.

That's the same reason I learned to cook! But luckily, good home cooking is some of the best cooking ever (in my opinion). I know you're on a budget, but I suggest getting Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, it's cheap for its size, about $30, for hardcover. It has information on cooking from the ground up. I like it because it contains lots of very basic formulas, rather than strict recipes, with ideas for variations, substitutions, etc. Before you know it, you'll be making stuff up on your own. Also, the cheapest food is almost always the least processed -- dried beans cheaper than canned, plain rice rather than rice in a pilaf kit. And it'll taste better in the end, too. And Jinmyo so right about eggs, they're cheap, but they're so great and versatile that if they were rare, they'd be as costly as foie gras. You can get lots of rock-bottom priced cookware at thrift stores and yard sales. And get a sharpening stone for your knives. Check out ethnic markets and foods. Lots of ethnic groups have figured out ways to make the cheapest foods delicious. Plus, since you know about EGullet, advice is just a click away..... Good luck!

Thank you, Steve, well said. Jinmyo, I had put off getting a food processor for years, and as a result got skilled at using (and sharpening) knives. Now that I have the counter space, it's nice to have a processor out and ready to be used. But I still use a mortar and pestle for most spices -- and grinding 'em fresh is key. I'm going to have to check out that JB Prince spice grinder, sometime. I wanted an immersion blender because I often need to blend more than fits in my blender pitcher, and the only way other way to do that is to use yet another container. Guess I'll wait til my blender wears out.

I'm beginning to feel a little like that Venitian blind-crazed woman from Twin Peaks. The mechanics just get more and more complicated. Soon you've got a Rube Goldberg contraption just to cream some soup. Well, I was just a little over-enthusiastic about new power tool, that's all......

As a matter of fact, I had pulled the butter out of the freezer, then popped it into the mike to soften it. It got a little softer than I had planned, sorta melty. But since I was going to refrigerate the dough, anyway, I didn't think it made any difference. But maybe it does. I'm going back in the kitchen this weekend, and try out some of these suggestions. If I don't report back, send help....

I got my first cordless drill not long ago and I love it. Can I get an immersion blender stick and use it in my drill? Seems doable, the drill is very adjustable for speed and even has a feature that keeps it from over-tightening screws, so you can set it to stop spinning when your mixture has reached a specific density, if you like. And I like that I only have to have one device -- saves space, money, and the environment. But maybe there's some problem I'm overlooking that would lead to some Lucy Arnez like spatter scene in the kitchen..... I've checked one or two places for immersion blender sticks and haven't been able to find one for sale. Williams Sonomas is integral to the motored part.

wow, great! Lots of good ideas to try. One of the things I like about Mother's recipe is its mathematical elegance: one part sugar, twice as much butter, twice as much flour. So I think I'll try Steve's log method first. Then move on, if necessary, to other possibilities. I'll let you know! Thanks!

Once again, I tried to recreate my mother's shortbread cookies, using her recipe, and they didn't turn out. They were so crumbly they fell apart when you picked them up. I'm very attached to this particular recipe -- she told me that she got it from the first boy who ever kissed her, whose Scottish mother was renowned for them. That's one way to get a recipe!) She made them at all holidays. Here the recipe: 1 cup of butter 1/2 cup of sugar 2 cups of flour pinch salt I've been creaming the butter and suger and adding the flour, chilling it and rolling it out and baking them at about 300 degrees. They spread more than hers did and they're just way crumbly. The taste is good, though. I wish I could as her for advice, but she's no longer with us -- can anyone help me?

Surprisingly, IKEA makes a great peppermill. They had some plastic bowling pin shaped ones that were only ů, so I picked up a few for extras -- to take in a picnic basket or a traveling cooking kit. I was really surprised to find how well they work. They have a ceramic adjustable grinder, and when I tested the output against my Alessi stainless grinder the IKEA produced 3X as much with the same amount of grinding. The only drawback was the small capacity. When I went back to get more (for other spices) I found that they don't make that model anymore, but now they're making a new kind -- you get a glass jar with the same ceramic grinder, then you can get extra lidded jars for other herbs, so you can just swap the grinder. Still just seven bucks or so, less for the plain jars! Can't say how long they'll last, but the original plastic ones are 3 years old and doing fine.

That's an interesting article, but I've got to take issue with a central point-- the reason heirlooms and more varieties of apples with real flavor are available here in recent years. She says it was because of competition from New Zealand -- I suspect that it was a direct result of the demands of an increasingly food savvy populace -- gourmets and natural foodies. She also seems to set up the anarchists as straw dogs -- it doesn't seem that they want to "dictate" who eats what apples -- just level the playing field. Course, that a whole other discussion, and one I don't think I'm particularly informed about. Getting back to the original thread -- I got some Granny Smiths and found them to be almost tasteless. Is this the norm?

You don't have to go all the way -- I was strict for years, then began eating seafood. After I had to quit eating dairy products, I began to eat chicken and turkey occasionally, otherwise my diet was just too limited to be able to eat in restaurants. But that's where I draw the line -- no ducks, pheasant, other fowl or warm blooded creatures. But, I'm not completely strict -- if there's an error, and a small amount of pork, or if I'm a guest and the host has served red meat, I'll eat a little with compliments to the chef. Seems only polite.

When I first started hearing about differences in salt I was skeptical, so I did a blind taste test of iodized and sea salt. I found that the iodized did taste metallic in comparison. I use kosher or sea salt for daily use now. And I use sel gris and fleur de sel for special purposes -- like a perfectly ripe August tomato -- and I think it tastes great. But it probably would with plain salt, too.

Wow, you know, in a way I'm really pleased to hear that there's that much competition to create wonderful food. I live in New York City, and my forays on road trips have been sustained by mostly dismal road food, and not much home cooking. This is a really encouraging peak into home culture...

Wow, Ben Davis! I'll bet that's it. My grandfather's farm was in the Alleghenny Mountains in southwestern Pennsylvania. But, as I mentioned, he specialized in unusual fruits, so maybe that's why he had one so far afield. There's really no one alive to ask, tho' the farm's still in the family and so maybe one day we can check the old trees and find out. I think apple trees can live a long time....

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm beginning to see that there could be an entire cookbook devoted to apple pies and their cousins. BTW, there's a recipe for a pie-like apple confit in the Jean George/Mark Bittman cookbook. If memory serves, it takes over 24 hours to make and has only 3 ingredients. In the teen's, 1920s and 1930s my grandfather had a farm that specialized in a wide variety of fruit and fruit trees. My mother said he grew one type of apple that was supposed to store especially well -- I think the name was "Ben Grimm" (or is that the alter-name of the Incredible Hulk?). Anyway, she said they were terrible -- tasteless and hard; my uncle said they were only useful as doorstops. I guess it's no wonder we don't hear of that heirloom variety today!

In days gone by, a woman's cooking skills were of equivalent importantance as a man's professional status, and perhaps, sometimes, just as competitively guarded. I recently heard a story somewhere (hopefully not here!) about someone who inherited her great-granny's hand-written cookbook. The problem was that granny left one ingredient out of each recipe. She had made a separate book with the missing ingredients, and that book, alas, was lost. I've also heard lots of stories of pros being less than candid with recipes, even for publication.....

When I'm traveling around the US I used to be able to tell how far I was from NYC by the transparency of the coffee in the cup. Once, on a road trip, my traveling companions and I got a clerk at a convenience store to brew a double-strength pot especially for our thermos by paying for two pots of coffee. But thanks, Peter, now I know why the coffee out there tastes weak and lousy. As sad as I am that Starbucks has put a lot of Mom and Pops out of business, I do think they have had a positive effect on commercial coffee-making in general. But for really great homemade coffee, does anyone use a vacuum coffee maker? The kind that's got two stacked glass bubbles with a filter in between -- you heat water in the bottom and it's forced up a tube into the top bubble that contains the ground coffee. After it bubbles a bit, you remove it from the heat and it gets sucked down below by the vacuum that results from the air cooling. The idea is that the water rises at the perfect temperature -- not quite boiling. The coffee is spectacular, but it does take some practice to make it all work -- half cooking, half science experiment. I've got an old one with a glass rod filter and I finally found a web site that helped me work out the glitches. Bodum makes a new version.

Cream....ginger....Calvados....hazelnuts....great ideas! I'm printing this out and taking it with me to the market this morning. I'm so excited about the apple mixes....