sequim

I'm just agog at all the out-of-the-closet raisin haters here. I love the chew, I love the squish. Raisins are it for me.

I was so happy to see the chicken livers in the one salad because I recently discovered how good they are in a salad. It was a revelation of taste. I actually enjoy salads with a multitude of different baby greens and having a different taste in each bite which links through the vinaigrette. But I love salads and always looking for new combinations.

I'm with you. But I think your friend should have said why NEVER to eat them. If I worried about what goes into food and what's done in the back I'd never eat anything. So with the idea of what I don't see won't hurt me, I dig in because I love coleslaw and I love pickles. Plus I always ask the others in my group if they don't want their pickle, then I scarf it.

Nessa, All I gotta say is don't go to your grave clutching that secret recipe, please. I wish I could have written down recipes of my grandmother who was such an excellent Polish cook - the noodles, the soup, the stuffed cabbage, oh! And I think about my friend with his Chinese parents who create so many wonderful dishes, wishing that he would bother them to get those written down. So much greatness lost because it wasn't written down. I guess that makes me firmly on the side of sharing recipes.

I have a Chinese friend whose parents grow coffee trees in their house and have gotten beans, then roasted them. They're always starting new trees from the beans just because they like to grow stuff. But they don't do anything special for growing them - I've seen them growing in full sun and partial, also in a house kept quite hot during the winter. However the coffee plant I have is a pain. I'm starting to send out negative vibrations to it because the edges of its leaves always turn brown no matter what I do. grrr. But I only have it for the decorative value and now I feel it's not long for the garbage can if it keeps up it's present course of action....

I'm late to this New Year's resolution thread, however, I want to join as I always like resolutions.... 1. Learn to make good pie as I love pie. Currently have to rely on my mother for pie. I'd like a whole pie to eat. I have also had pastry dough issues in the past that I need to work out... 2. Learn more about pairing wine with food and learn more about other wines like Italian and French as I'm overly Washington/California/Australian-centric. 3. Start using tools I have but haven't touched yet, ie ravioli cutter/crimper, ice cream machine, Le Creuset dutch oven. This week I began using the pasta maker I got for Christmas and I used the dutch oven a couple times. So I have had progress on this resolution. 4. Now that I've followed Fat Guy's stock making class, I need to start making stock and freezing it. 5. Get a new dishwasher so I can actually hear the television or radio while the dishwasher is on. 6. As always, try new things.

I went to Matt's in the Market for the first time last week and loved it. Now I see what everybody is talking about I had the recommended catfish po boy and it was huge and delicious with a salad of baby greens, blue cheese and sunflower seeds. They were so friendly and I even got in on a little wine tasting because the owner of Syncline was there with an open bottle of his new Subduction Red. They were pretty booked even at 11:30 although if you're a single you can usually get a spot then. I was just there for a to-go order.

It's so great to hear of an adventurous eater's travels, thank you

Ah ha. I kept wondering why recipes would say to fold the dough and then run it through. I really have a hard time doing something if I don't know why, so thanks for going into such a lengthy explanation! When I was thinking of overkneading, I was thinking of admonitions to not overly work pastry and pie doughs. I get confused as to when is kneading good and when too much handling is bad. It's all flour, water and eggs, right?? I'm thinking it probably depends on the texture you're trying to get so with pastry, you want flake and with pasta you want something chewier.

Cmon now, translate! Bench flour? Nidi?

Yes, I liked that he was so frugal, too. I think it's rare for people today; they're so used to throwing stuff out or considering certain things inedible. It's also cool that he would go hunting/foraging for food. And I agree with you on Ruth's books. I love her stories, particularly of her mother who's quite like mine....serving food quite past it's prime I'll have to check out the other book you mentioned.

Oh I thought that was a joke! You know I have a wooden clothes drying rack, I think that would be perfect. I'd need to take a picture of that!

What I'd like to know is how do you find the blogs of the past? I went back to Fat Guy's original one, then followed the links but the link then stopped with NeroW...

What I'm wondering is when you cook meat in a crockpot, do you take skin off chicken, etc, or trim fat? I always get a bunch of fat pooled in the pot. Or do you just cool it and skim?

MobyP, thanks, I'll be sure to look for your upcoming course. Okay, here's Pasta Making Take 2: I tried again last night and the results were much better. It's so gratifying what practise can do. This time I put less water in and kneaded the dough while it was dry and eventually it came together and was less sticky than the night before and quite easy to knead for about 5 minutes. I was afraid to overknead it as I thought that might toughen the dough. Maybe I'm wrong about that? I also added a dash of oil, so I'm not sure which thing might have caused this dough to be better. When I made my sheets, because the dough was less sticky, I could roll it through thinner and then when running them through the cutter, I very carefully gathered them up - they were the fettucine size - and placed them all around the counters (I'll keep the pasta drying rack in mind Toliver!). I also added salt this time and some ground pepper to the pasta which gave it a nice flecked appearance. I made a cream sauce with bacon, peas, sour cream, whipping cream, shallots and butter and when the pasta was boiled about a minute, served it up and it was great! Very tender this time although some of the strands weren't fully cut through. I also could have used more sauce as the pasta did absorb alot of it. This is so exciting to have finally made homemade pasta as I am such an Italian food freak. My sister has made raviolis by hand before and they always come out a bit thick so now I'm quite interested in making the perfect ravioli. And now I know what to get her for Christmas.

Omigod, I thought it was all the natives in Seattle calling it soda. Being a non-native Seattleite (see post above) I call it pop! Nope, I won't switch, it's too ingrained.

Not my Wisconsin. In my northwoods, rural Wisconsin it's pop, drinking fountain, and sack.

Where is this separate recipe?

Well, yes and no. My culinary outlook and kitchen learning experience is mostly regional Italian. However, I wouldn't say that most of the food I make is Italian per se. Which is to say that most of the dishes I make aren't traditional Italian dishes, but rather dishes made with an Italian-influenced approach to ingredients. Nothing in our meal of last night, for example, strikes me as particularly Italian. I agree. After I made that remark, I started thinking that there wasn't anything particularly Italian about that meal, yet I thought "Italian food" when I saw the pictures. Wonder why that is. Maybe the simpleness of the food and using olives and artichokes.

Thanks Adam, I was already thinking I should grab them out of the cutter and keep them flat. I did flour quite a bit as I noticed the dough is very sticky if not floured up. The good thing about practising pasta is it's so cheap - eggs and flour. Better than practising over and over on roasts which I need to do also! Hey, if anybody has a good pumpkin/squash recipe I wouldn't mind a link or the actual recipe here.

Okay pasta makers, I'm a newbie chiming in here. So I was using the xmas present machine last night for the first time. Um, the resulting pasta needs work.... But it sure was fun to play. I had a problem with the cutting and wonder how everybody does it. The pasta maker I have has the sheet side and then two cutting rollers. I put my sheet through until it was pretty thin (5 of 7). Then I sent each sheet through the cutter and let them lay in a pile until I was done with all the slices of dough. So I had about four little piles of cut pasta. However, when I put the pasta into the boiling water, the piles all kinda stayed clumped together as if they hadn't been fully cut, and I had to take a fork to them and try to break them apart. This wasn't too successful and the end result were some clumped pieces that I didn't like. The pasta could have been more tender too, and I wonder if I worked it too much. I used regular all-purpose flour, nothing special and one egg. I did let it rest before putting through the roller. Am I doing something wrong with the cutter - can the cutter be adjusted to fully cut through? Or do many people just cut their own? I'm doing a birthday dinner for my sister next week and I'd like to do clams linguine but my attempt last night makes me think I better try for something less ambitious. Maybe ravioli are easier? I like doing this though, as the dough is so easy to make. Thanks for all advice and any good recipes...

Some awesome looking dishes. Are those fresh or canned artichokes? You tend to cook alot of Italian?

Definitely belongs in Vegas.

what were those things in there, anyway? Got me. Wheat berries?

Oh because it's a chain restaurant versus fine dining. But as he explained, he helped make the food at HoJo's better which is good! Of course it's declined since then...