Big Bunny

Maggie - I'm from Joliet. I spent my early life with my Italian grandmother, dairy maid from Piemonte, and German grandfather, steel-worker from Essen, in an Italian neighborhood, which included Grandma's brother and two sisters as neighbors. My mother's family were coal miners, originally from Kentucky, then southern Illinois, then up to Joliet. Nobody liked anybody else, but they could all cook. Grandma was born sometime in the late nineties, has been gone for over thirty years now. BB

Pasta - all kinds, East and West. I occasionally run out of rice, never pasta. BB

I'm from Illinois. My Italian Grandmother would cook chicken in tomatoes until it not only fell off the bones, it seemed to start to dissolve them. This was medium hot with red and black pepper, and served over polenta. We wolfed it. Any left-over polenta was cut into circles with a cookie cutter and fried for breakfast - with Karo syrup. I will always be corny. Once, in a pinch, I made polenta with masa harina. It looked weird, but tasted ok. But, then, i'm a "cornaholic". BB edit - im -> i'm

Re: turnip cake Rhoda Yee gives an excellent recipe in her dim sum book. She insists on Swan's Down(sp?) cake flour. This recipe always works for me (and company.) You can easily substitute sausage for the roast pork. BB

This may go slightly off-topic, but it may help. I work downtown, surrounded by lots of "NY-style" eateries. They usually have maki and gari (pickled ginger). They also have lots of raw vegetables and "whatever" for 4.59/lb. That's kind of expensive, but if you have a brain-storm at work for what to fix for supper, it can be well worth the premium to save lots of time. I have never used pickled ginger to replace "raw" ginger in a stir-fry, but it would certainly beat powder, or doing without. Oh, yes. The New York style delis are also a more reliable source of ready-to-eat whole fruit than groceries in my area (downtown Baltimore.) BB

Ideally, I would use canned/store-bought stuff for my self, then switch to cooking more from scratch for company. Paradoxically, when I cook for company is when I need the convenience. If there is time for prep, that is not a major problem. Otherwise, fine herbes and olive oil can do wonders for canned green beans (I know, I know). I started using Mae Ploy coconut milk years ago, haven't fooled with a coconut since. Chaokoh (sp?) is good, too. I love to do things like pickles and liqueurs. One of my favorite books is Aglaia Kremezi's "Mediterranean Pantry". I make her cherry liqueur most years, did two batches with two kinds of cherries this year. I am fascinated by pickles in general, everything from Vlasic to home-made pao cai. I think that Irene Kuo even gives a recipe for fried pao cai on its own as a dish. Anyway, if the meal "works", it will be greater than the sum of its parts. Oh, yes! A good home-made sherbet of whatever is in season covers all sins. BB

Whatever you have to cook in, mise en place is very important - especially if you are as absent-minded as I am. I would be lost without about two dozen small- to-medium sized, inexpensive stainless bowls and saucers ... an odd assortment of useful shapes. I got this habit from Chinese cooking - it is just the way I work now. BB

Definitely prettier. BB

Here is a good recipe using dried mushrooms from Andrea Nguyen's Viet World Kitchen site: http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/recipes/veg/asparagus.htm The textures, color, and flavors work very nicely here, and instead of being buried, the mushrooms "co-star." BB

Another old-fashioned approach. For years, I have used 240-page, 3-subject notebooks. I *can* improvise, but I am not good at it. It is a bit time-consuming, but I reformat each recipe to my liking, usually putting a menu together, then each time I cook the rx I add notes to it. The cookbooks stay pretty(usually), and the rx improves. Some authors have great ideas about food, but I find it difficult to follow their layout - hence developing my own system. Special recipes are copied onto 3-ring paper, and put in a binder, with a sheet protector. "Special" means that I think I've "got it" and it's good enough for company. BB

essvee: Amen to "Fragrant Harbor Taste" fifi: The almost-rote way to prepare dried black mushrooms is to soak them in hot - not boiling - water for 15-30 minutes. They sometimes need to be cleaned a bit - the stems are always discarded - some authors throw the soaking water away - some use it in soup. Because of their "meatiness", they are a mainstay of Chinese vegetarian cooking. I usually cut them in two, next to the stem, remove the stem but waste as little as possible - then julienne/dice or whatever the recipe asks. That slippery, gummy feel is just part of their "thing." Chinese cooking thrives on various, often unfamiliar, textures. BB

In Chinese cooking, 'black mushrooms' which have been dried, then reconstituted are a 'different animal' from the fresh. They are delicious, turn up everywhere in Chinese dishes. From the Chinese point oF view they have it all - flavor, fragrance and texture. BB

as I read along ... He says that he holds with the water people. I stayed with water because I didn't want motor oil on my knives. Of course, it does wash off pretty easily. BB

You are am over my head on that. I have 'Sharpening Hand Tools' by Max Alth - Storey Pub. He seems to say that people choose one or the other, but says nothing about stones being specifically one way or the other. Mainly, he says that 'oil people' soak their stones in 10 or 20 weight oil before use - never vegetable or cooking oil - clean them with alcohol, gasoline or kerosene. 'Water people' use them dry and clean them with soap and water. I get the impression that the 'schools' are reversible, but I this is only one source. Is the stone very expensive? BB edit - replace ambiguous comma with 'or'

I have a big, old stone that I bought in an Asian grocery years ago. It came unpackaged and unlabeled. I have always used running water - I prop it up under the faucet - and it works fine. BB

I'm having breakfast - Hershey's with almonds and Sam Adams Boston lager.

Here in Baltimore I haven't found a six-pack of Anchor's seasonal. At Brewer's Art, I had a Storm King on Wednesday. It was very good, but I was eating sausage at the time - can't remenber the flavors well. At Dougherty's they have lots of Sierra Nevada's seasonal, I can never remember names. It is good, very herby, with a pronounced celery/fennel aftertaste. I may get back to BA tonight. They have several more I'd like to try. BB edit - pakk -> pack

I enjoy collecting cookbooks as much as I enjoy eating, maybe more. My rule is to try at least two recipes from each book. Of course, a lucky trip to a used book store or a cut-out table will lead me astray. For about two-and-a-half years, I have been delving fairly seriously into Vietnamese cooking. Because there are relatively few books, I have studied each more carefully. I like it when I "feel" that the cook is actually talking to me - definitely get this from Routhier and Pham. My real cookbook is my journal. I like to work from recipes written in my own style. Everything goes into a note book - often several versions of the same dish. Then I cook from that. edit - remove unneeded word

I sometimes get carrots that smell of kerosene. Not all carrots, just some ... and these usually lack flavor otherwise. Anyone else? BB

Stilton. Almost anything cooked with chevre. All of the great Italian cooking cheeses, in all of their respective dishes. BB

I once found a 2 liter Erlenmeyer flask in a second hand shop. It looks SO COOL holding a magnum of wine. BB

Is it "Cleo": http://www.thebaytree.com.au/products/glas...cantersetc.html

I've never had a decent bottle of the stuff in my life. Always skunky. We have a large number of Indian restaurants in and around Princeton, and Kingfisher is on every menu, and, try as I might, I've not been able to even remotely like the stuff. You may be right. I'm not sure, though. I'm 61, have drunk beer since I was 4 (Midwest German Grandfather.) I like Asian food, thought Tsingtao and Kingfisher were excellent before The micro "revolution." My tastes probably have been "upgraded" by the availability of better beers. On the other hand, there has been plenty of time for the beers to change, too. BB

Apparently it's not just me. Kingfisher used to be crisper and more flavorful. BB

And here: http://www.best-vietnamese-cookbooks.com/list.html My favorites here are Routhier, Isaak, and Pham. Also, S,T & C's "The Best of Nicole Routhier" is easily available on abebooks. It is a little gem, but not a good first Vietnamese cookbook. BB