jgm

We have a Jason's in Wichita, too, and I love their muffaletta (sp?) sandwiches. They're probably not comparable to what one could get in New Orleans, but there's nothing else in town like them. I also noticed a Planet Sub on North Rock Road this morning when I was in the neighborhood. Haven't tried them out yet. Lawrence, watch out, you're about to get the first non-Wichita Spangles. It's a local hamburger chain. The only remarkable thing on the menu is their orange juice slushes. I never grow tired of them. And their bagles with eggs/cheese/bacon etc. are pretty good, especially for fast food.

I swear, if I had space, I'd probably have at least two dozen sets of dishes. I cannot go into a department store, Williams-Sonoma, or even Target, without doing a mental checkbook calculation to see if I could afford the latest set of dishes to catch my eye. (I can't. Not a whole set, anyway.) Ditto serving bowls, pitchers, trays... and everything else. I want it all! And of course, I would have to have wonderful tablecloths and matching napkins to go with all that stuff. And more so I could have variations and not use the same thing all the time. I'm also currently lusting after some tapas plates at the Sur la Table website; available in glass or wood, they neatly fit atop wine glasses. Do I have parties? . Do I serve tapas? Have I ever even eaten something someone calls tapas? Do I "need" these plates? No, no, no, and yes. Who else has the same lust of tableware, etc. that they have for the food they serve it on? How much do you indulge yourself? Are you fighting with your siblings over Grandma's china???? Some women go shoe shopping when they're down. I can be found at Dillard's, Williams-Sonoma, or maybe on the couch with a stack of catalogs. And one size fits all!

Andie, have you received your apple slicer yet, and if so, is it indeed perfect?

I'm guessing it holds a bagel while you turn it and it slices it in half. If that's the case, the idea behind it, is that it would be difficult to slice your hand in half using this thing. I've noticed lots of gadgets, over the years, have been designed to allow bagels to be sliced, without slicing the hands that hold them. So I figure I've got pretty good odds, working in this category.

At the risk of hijacking this thread, which is absolutely not my intention, I will say this: I would be hard pressed to name even one thing I eat during a typical day that does not exploit the poor, children, or the environment; or does not endanger biodiversity, or use more oil than I would imagine, in its transport, or bring about a cruel life to an innocent animal. Although I would be the first to agree that we do need to think about this, we do need to do something about it, and that things need to change, I see far fewer articles about how to accomplish that, than those that point out things that make me feel guilty for eating anything at all. I'm just getting overwhelmed with information like this. I do raise some of my own vegetables in summer, not only for taste and quality purposes, but also in an attempt to have some food to eat that doesn't exploit something or someone. Given what's available locally, I don't know what more I can do than that. How does one get a balanced diet without doing something nasty to the poor, the environment, or an animal?

hrmm, I'm not a baker .. by any stretch of the imagination. But perhaps a good ginger cookie recipe can be adapted? Allowing for the right moisture content to withstand a second baking? the 'mellow could be included as a frosting/glaze .. then dunked in to your fondue? i'm getting hungry ← I'm working with the idea. Can't do fondue right now; the carpet's new and the owners want to be veeeeeeerrrrrrrry careful. After a couple of years, when they aren't worried about spots anymore (because of several that will be there already by that time), we'll start dunking things.

I'm getting lots of great ideas here! I really appreciate it. Tug, do you have a recipe for the homemade graham biscotti... or ideas about how to adapt a recipe? Mmmmm. A friend suggested flavoring some mascarpone cheese, and substituting that for the marshmallow. That's not really the direction I was going in, but I am definitely intrigued. And I like the idea of adding flavors to the chocolate. I'm definitely going to have to play around with that!

I do a few hors d'oeuvres once a month for a friend who owns a gallery. We serve both sweet and savory items. I'd like to do a version of s'mores that will be tasty and, perhaps, amusing. One of my requirements is that what I serve must be close enough to the original that people will instantly understand what it is. One idea I've had is this: Use 1/4 graham cracker (the piece that's about 1" x 3"), spread it with ganache, top with several mini-marshmallows, and use a torch to brown. The gallery doesn't have any kind of toaster oven, so any heating/browning will have to be done in a microwave or with a torch. I have a feeling that I can do better than this. I'd be willing to do homemade graham crackers, if the consensus was that they'd be much better than what I can buy. I think I have a recipe in "Better Than Store Bought." What ideas do you have?

Isn't this consistency of quality at The Olive Garden more a function of boil-in-bag soups, sauces, and salad dressings procured from distibution centers than good cooking from an onsite chef? ← Perhaps. But it's good soup. And in my opinion, one of the better items on the menu. My point is, not that you should go to OG to get this soup, but if "you find yourself in an Olive Garden"... such as when out-of-town relatives show up and that's where they decide to treat you to dinner, or maybe it's a co-worker's birthday and that's where he or she wants to eat. I've eaten at a number of places where I'm not crazy about the food, but I go because that's where whatever group I'm a part of, has chosen to go. Just because it's a chain restaurant doesn't automatically mean the food isn't good. In a previous post, I spoke of living in a city where sometimes chain food, and the food of this chain restaurant in particular, is among the better food in town. OG is where my elderly parents choose to eat when they visit. (And Judy, while I do also find cooking therapeutic, I do not find cooking for my parents therapeutic, which is why I do not do it. You don't wanna know the details! ) Hence... I eat at OG about once a month.

My husband brought home some Emeril tomatoes the other day. I don't mind, if the food is of a higher quality than I can buy at that same location. A Wolfgang Puck food stand in an airport would be welcome if I were assured of buying really good food there, especially if the other food available is of significantly lesser quality. Significantly being the most important word in that sentence. Emeril's vegetables, however, are another matter. It smacks of greed, and of a marketing plan that's out of control. He's well on his way to overexposure. Unless, of course, he somehow manages to offer vegetables that are clearly of a higher quality than the other vegetables available at the same store. I have my doubts. I think Americans need to learn to "Just say no to marketing."

Well, I think I'm getting closer to an explanation, and one of the elements in my way seems to be where I live. We have, for example, a couple of home-grown Italian places to eat in Wichita -- Angelo's and DeFazio's. Angelo's has an incredible pizza; everything else is good, but no better than that. DeFazio's also has good pizza, and their canneloni carbonara is to die for; their cream of mushroom soup is something I've stopped just short of homicide to get the recipe for.* Other entrees are good; but I don't think they're any better than the food I've had at Olive Garden. I have a feeling the chains tend to vary significantly in the quality of their food and their service. I've had some outstanding service at Olive Garden here in Wichita. Too good, almost, but that's another story. But the bottom line is, although the food isn't particularly imaginative, it's really pretty good at this particular location. A few years ago, we had a chef/restaurant owner, the late Antoine Toubia, who owned several remarkable restaurants. Some of my fondest memories of restaurant dining are from Sak Souk and Chantilly (gone but not forgotten); likewise with Olive Tree/Chelsea's and Picadilly, which are still open. And even though Picadilly offers a few outstanding dishes, some are really not worth ordering. I think the difference is, that in some of the larger cities, you have a range (for lack of a better word) of restaurants that offer excellent dining and are not chains, nor are they high-end. We have those from time to time in Wichita, but obviously, not enough of them. Mystery solved, I think. And although RMG hasn't come up with anything that will bring me back, Olive Garden, in Wichita at least, is not a bad place to eat. *Okay, to make this soup, take Tony Bourdain's mushroom soup recipe from the Les Halles cookbook. Leave some mushroom slices, un-pureed, in the soup; add white wine instead of sherry, and finish off with a little cream. And, I'm happy to say, I figured this out with a little help from friends on eGullet, and not a single drop of blood was shed.

I find myself using a combination of homemade and storebought on just about everything. I still use Hellman's mayo, because we just don't use enough mayo in our house to make up our own every time we want some. I would like to make our own ketchup and mustard, and other condiments. I still use quite a bit of canned chicken broth, although I also do make my own a lot. On the other hand... I've never used a piecrust that I didn't make myself. I've rarely used a cake mix, and don't now, other than to make my boss's birthday cake, which is a special concoction that starts with a white cake mix. I'm looking for a bread recipe that I can make about 2 to 3 days per week. I'm looking for something French, or "rustic" (but not whole grain), I guess. Any recipes would be gratefully received. Bread machine recipes would be especially good; I work full-time and have to schedule risings, etc. around that. I also have quite a bit of arthritis in my hands, but I have a Kitchen Aid mixer that can handle kneading if necessary.

I'll offer this: I've been doing hors d'oeuvres for a monthly gathering for a friend, and the lactose intolerant people are complaining about all the cheese I use. This is a somewhat older crowd, and I don't know whether lactose intolerance tends to be an age-related problem. One guy is allergic to tree nuts, so I try to watch out for him to, and to be very careful about contamination if I've used any pecans, hazelnuts, or walnuts. And we have other frequent guests whose religious dietary guidelines need to be taken into consideration. I figure the vegans can hang out at the crudite tray. You might check with your daughter to see if any of her friends can't eat certain kinds of foods.

Truthfully, I only pretend to be a K-State fan (usually whenever I can use it to stir up a conversation). I did spend 4 years there, and was bestowed a degree. That was the last involvement I had with the place. My decision to go to K-State was based on my father's fears of turning his passionate, politically involved daughter loose in a place where she could actually have an opportunity to get into trouble. He perceived K-State as a tame campus, having evidently forgotten about the building that was burned down (by arson) a couple of years before I arrived. K-State's a good school for certain things. But in retrospect, I suspect I would have been better off elsewhere. Or maybe not. My whole reason to go, was simply to get out of my parents' house, and that was accomplished; but that was about all. But damn, that was some good blue cheese salad dressing at JD's! If I remember right, it was a combination of blue cheese, salad oil, whipped cream (you saw that right, yes, whipped cream) and black pepper. I'd say that dressing made it worth 4 years of not being able to find much trouble to get into.

Rock chalk chickenhawk. . . (ahem) I've never even heard of Coco Bolo's, but it's not a stretch for me to believe there's a truly excellent restaurant in Manhattan. When I went to school there, JD's Pizza was incredible. Their blue cheese salad dressing was to die for. Unfortunately, JD's is long gone, but fondly remembered. Now where was I... Rock chalk chickenhawk... (Judy, if you'd gone to a GOOD school, I bet you could spell derogatory.)

Ron, if you ever do find yourself in an Olive Garden, I suggest you try the Toscana soup. Chicken broth base with potatoes, sausage, and "cavolo greens" (kale), finished off with a little bit of cream. Simple food, maybe not 3- or 4-star dining, but so far, every time I've ordered it, they haven't managed to mess it up. Their salads are always fresh, so far. Their soup and salad combo have always managed to make me happy. Entrees are kind of a wild card; some are better than others. I want to get back to something I brought up earlier. I guess there probably are people who dine only at the finest restaurants. I have lived a somewhat sheltered/limited life; most of it's been right here in River City, and I don't travel much. When I go to Olive Garden, I think of it as basic, decent food. Maybe not highly imaginative or creative, and maybe not the finest freshest olive oil from some obscure little Tuscan village is on my table. In fact, the abovementioned soup is, in my opinion, really good. Yet OG is a favorite example of several eGulleters of the kind of dining that horrifies them... or something like that. (Don't take that paraphrase too seriously or literally.) Do people disparage OG because they've never eaten there and just assume it's mediocre because it's a chain? Or are there people who eat better food than that, routinely? I guess that's kind of a naive question. But I'm puzzled. I've had some good meals at OG. I've had some good meals at our local upscale restaurants, but I don't see that big a gap between them. The upscale places usually have a handful of excellent dishes, but the rest of the menu really is nothing to write home about. Given descriptions I've seen of food in 3- and 4-star restaurants, I can understand that the food at those places is a whole 'nother thing than what's available to me. But I feel like there's an important fact or something that I'm missing here. What is it? The people who would never set foot in Olive Garden ... just what is it they eat every day, anyway? Maybe my question just boils down to this: what the hell is wrong with Olive Garden? Don't fear offending me. I really am trying to figure this out. Explain away.

If, without damaging the trust and loyalty that are so important to your employers, you could do a blog - with pictures - that would be fantastic! I'd love to see you go through menu preparations, shopping, meal prep, and presentation. If the pictures were only about the food, perhaps the family wouldn't object. Please consider it!

A friend just told me about one of her favorite dishes, which I suspect is an even whiter thang than GBC. Bologna boats. Take one piece of bologna, put it in a heated frying pan to which butter has been added. Plunk one good-sized scoop of leftover mashed potatoes on it, and add a piece of American cheese, preferably the individually wrapped slice kind, that has been doubled over, diagonally. Put it in the potatoes on edge, so that it sticks up like the sail on a boat. Continue to fry over low heat until all elements are heated. As frying continues, the bologna will curl up around the mashed potatoes, hence, "Bologna Boats." I don't know what, exactly, becomes of the cheese. While I will unashamedly admit to a fondness for fried bologna sandwiches, as long as they have a nice, delicate crust on the bologna, and lots of mayo, I rather doubt I'll be trying these, anytime soon. But I just had to share.

The city in which I live has several chain restaurants --Abuelos, Carrabba's, PF Chang's, Olive Garden, etc. And we wait for food at these restaurants for two reasons: 1. Every restaurant in town is crowded at dinnertime on weekends (my husband and I work different shifts during the week), and wherever you go, you're going to wait. A half-hour wait at 7 pm on a Saturday is a stroke of luck. 2. There are only a handful of locally-owned restaurants that have excellent food, and at most of them, their prices make them "special occasion" places for us. And to be perfectly honest about it, you're going to get the same quality of food at the chains that you get at most of the locally-owned places. I can think of about four locally-owned places with really good food, but we don't want to eat there every time we go out, and there are dishes at the chain restaurants that we like just as much as those we are served at local restaurants. Maybe I have a bourgeois palate, but I've had some pretty good meals at our chain restaurants. Every time I see a discussion like this, I wonder what I'm missing. Maybe it's better I don't know?

Andy, I think you've hit the nail on the head in this post. I think we have two issues working in tandem here: issues of rudeness and hospitality, and legal issues. Several posts back, someone spoke of Chef Grant's extremely gracious response to this situation -- to have the pictures taken away from the dining area. But he still risks having pictures posted over which he has no control, and may be out of focus, taken in bad lighting, etc., and could lead to negative publicity about his restaurant. Not all of us have the photography skills of Lucy Vanel! The (DC) chef's response sounds as if it's typical behavior for her. We had a thread not too long ago about eating at a restaurant in which the help is not treated well. If she doesn't treat the public well, I would assume she also doesn't treat her employees well, although that's not necessarily the case. I wouldn't want to eat at any restaurant where the employees may find excuses to take revenge out on their boss. And in a place like DC, as I understand it, there are many worthy alternatives.

I can attest that the "rules" don't always work the way they're "supposed" to. A few years ago, I had a boss who was an incredibly horrible person. It was her habit to order fast food, and "not have time to eat it" (feeling sorry for herself about how overworked she was --actually, she wasn't, she just screwed around a lot), and then retrieve it, the next day, from the trunk of her car and eat it. You don't know how fervently I prayed for her to get sick -- really, really, really sick. Or even sicker than that. She never did. I eventually abandoned ship, found a better job, and she was fired, two years later, for being absolutely horrible to her employees.

I, too, am guilty of condiment theft, but it was for a noble cause. About a year ago, my mother was hospitalized in the cardiac area of a local hospital. One day when I called her from work to see how she was feeling, I asked her if I could bring her anything when I came to see her that evening. She was desperate for a good meal. And she was desperate for salt. I do understand that cardiac patients must watch what they eat. My mother does. She is a tiny woman, ever in danger of becoming tinier. (Unfortunately, her body type genes must be recessive... my sister got them, but I certainly didn't.) After her major heart attack in 1987, she quit smoking and monitored her diet to the point where almost 20 years later, she's never had any clogged-artery problems again. And her blood pressure, if anything, tends to be on the low side, so salt really isn't an issue for her. But being a cardiac patient in that hospital means everything you are served is as bland and tasteless as possible. So I stopped by a certain upscale cafe in town, known for its excellent food, and placed an order for her. And on the way out, I stopped by the condiment station that they keep for take-out orders, and grabbed a handful of salt packets. They were purloined out of the restaurant, and stuffed into my pocket when I got in the car. At the hospital, they were stashed in her tissue box. Later that night, I was summoned back to the hospital after my mother coded. She'd been overdosed on lidocaine, and it shut down her respiratory system. As they moved her into the cardiac intensive care wing, various staff members trailed out of her room, carrying her belongings. One had a plastic bag with her books in it; she also carried the tissue box in one hand and the fistfull of salt packets in the other. She was smiling as she showed it to another nurse. "Well, do you blame her?" the other nurse said. Epilogue: Mom, as of yesterday, is alive and well and making great soup, appropriately seasoned.

Could you expand on this? I had always thought that once bacteria are heated above a certain level, they would be killed. If you have more information, I'd be grateful. My own habits in this regard are a bit, uh, lax... and it looks like there are more things I need to know.

Do not leave expensive chocolate out on the counter if you haven't caught that mouse yet.

You're absolutely right. Late Christmas Eve, I started to get PO'd about the potatoes, and then I realized that one holiday meal out of all the holiday meals in my life, isn't significant at all. And it's definitely nothing to get riled over. In a couple of weeks, my husband and I are going to do our own turkey dinner, done our own way, with plenty of leftovers to freeze. Holidays at my father-in-law's house can be a little bleak. He tends to be --okay, I'll say it out loud-- an extreme tightwad, and eating turkey sandwiches for days after the holiday can get a little old, especially since he keeps very little food on hand, and refuses to spring for stuff like mayonnaise, that others eat but he doesn't. Over the years, I've learned to bring my own. But he's a dear man, and we have no way of knowing how many more holidays we'll have with him. One day the disgust over several days of turkey sandwiches with no mayo will turn into funny stories we'll be able to tell, along with all of the other tightwad stories we have about him, that paint a portrait of a man who's stingy with cash, but generous of heart.