jgm

My recipe organization efforts are still a work in progress, but here are the highlights: I have a folder in my computer called "Recipes." In it are subfolders, with names like "Cookies" and "Poultry". I think it's important to create categories that make sense to you, whether anyone else would like or be able to follow your system, themselves. Here's the important part: If you go to the Epicurious website, most of the recipes in Bon Appetit and Gourmet can be found after the issue is no longer current. Any of those recipes can be called up, highlighted (click and drag, in other words), and copied and pasted into a word processing file. I find it helpful to paste them "unformatted." In either Word or WordPerfect, go to Edit, then Paste Special, then choose Unformatted Text. That will paste plain text into your document, without a lot of formatting codes that can make it difficult to work with. Then save to the appropriate folder. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot save magazines that are more than 2 years old. I just don't have room. Although I may start scanning the recipes from them, I usually just cut them out and glue them into a notebook. This is the part of my system that is very much a work in progress. When I receive each magazine, I am trying to discipline myself to writing down in a "cooking notebook" all of the recipes I'd like to make from that issue. That could be one way to find them in the future. I've also considered photocopying the indexes of each magazine and compiling them into a notebook, complete with Post-It notes to remind me of special ingredients or elements in some of the recipes. (I'm going to be very highly organized in my next life!)

Yet another reason to find myself in Kansas City soon. I will be working on that!

From the "Sniveling and Whining" section, I am posting my Christmas dinner (eaten at my elderly father-in-law's): Turkey - not fabulous, but not dried out at all, fine to eat Dressing - hmmm. Let's not discuss it. Potato salad - the WORST I have ever tasted. Iceberg lettuce with bottled salad dressing (from a brand new bottle, not an outdated one for once!) No gravy. No potatoes left to make mashed potatoes, even. When we got in the car to leave, I turned to my husband and said, "Next year: we take control of the dinner."

Okay! You've given me courage! I'm going to freeze them for now, but I'll bring them out in a couple of weeks and try the salt-on-top thing. Thanks!

There's probably no rescuing this situation. Last night, I made 3 batches of Korova cookies, individually. [Korova cookies are a dense chocolate cookie rolled into a long cylinder and cut --think slice 'n' bake.] After I finished all 3 batches, and had them all in one bag in the refrigerator, I realized I'd left the 1/2 teaspoon of fleur de sel, as well as 1 teaspoon of vanilla, out of 2 of the batches. I have 6 logs of cookie dough, and I don't know which batch is which. There's always the possibility that I could taste the dough and tell which had salt and which didn't. If so, is there any way I can get the salt and vanilla in the other two batches, minimally "waking up" the gluten in the flour? This recipe calls for minimal mixing once the flour is added, to minimize gluten production. Or should I just bake them all off and see what happens? They're not going to be gifts now, so if they don't turn out, I can just toss them. Fix them? Bake as is? Ideas? Help!

I had to look up Octoroon. I'd never heard that term before. According to the American Heritage Dictionary: "The terms mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon originated with the racial policies of European colonizers in the Americas, especially the Spanish. Because civil rights and responsibilities were based directly on the degree of European blood that a person had, such classifications were highly elaborated, and minor distinctions in ancestry were carefully recorded. While these terms have highly precise definitions, in actual practice they were often used based on impressions of skin color rather than definite knowledge of ancestry. " I'd heard of that kind of differentiation, of course, but I didn't know there were actual terms associated with it. We need a word for so-called white trash who don't make their green bean casseroles correctly --adding things like water chestnuts, and using golden mushroom soup instead of regular. (What is "golden mushroom", anyway?)

They say that confession is good for the soul. So here goes. Sunday night, at a gathering of lily-white Kansans who are passionate about Ford Mustangs, I ate green bean casserole. And I liked it. For dessert, I had red Jello with miniature marshmallows on top. I've certainly had better desserts, but the interplay of the slick, cold Jello and the chewy marshmallows was kinda fun. Also, my mother made mac 'n' cheese with Velveeta. I absolutely loved it. I used to make it for my college roommates, and they thought it was the best ever. (But we will argued about which kind of cream soup was "supposed" to go in the tuna casserole.) There. Now I can start the new year with a clean slate.

I'll weigh in on the side of I'm-white-but-my-family-doesn't-eat-this-stuff. That doesn't mean we're eating excellent food. My family just has other stuff that shows up on holiday tables. But all of this makes me go "Uh-ohhhh" in the back of my mind. Tell me about tuna casserole. The kind with noodles, cream of something* soup, a drained can of tuna, crumbled crackers on the top, and shredded cheddar on top of the top. Is that a white thing, too? And if so, how white is it? I mean, is it more ubiquitous than the green bean casserole? *My family's official canned soup for tuna casserole was cream of mushroom. My college roommate's family's official canned soup for tuna casserole was cream of celery. After much argument, we decided to alternate. Unless we were broke, when we used whatever we had or could borrow. Edited to say: The "company" (i.e. fancy) version of tuna casserole also had canned peas in it.

I'd love to have a recipe for banger sausages. It's been a long time since a local restaurant took bangers and mash off their menu, and absence is definitely making the heart grow fonder.

I've been somewhat obsessed with this stuff since I had my first glass in the late 1980's. I asked the owner of a local Thai restaurant, what kind of tea he used, and he said, "Just Thai tea." After finding some in an Asian grocery, and understanding that it was not like anything I'd ever seen before, some friends and I seriously considered finding a lab and having the stuff analyzed. I guess I should have done that 20 years ago!

I am still a very recipe-bound cook, so I don't even begin to have the problem you're having. Do you have enough room in your kitchen to have a tray or bowl into which you can put a reminder of what you used? At the end you might have an onion peel, or part of one, 3 jars of herbs, a few pieces of chopped pepper--just enough to identify it, etc. Then after the meal, as you go through the bowl or tray, you could write down what you used; you'll surely have a pretty good idea of how much you used at that point, and then you could put away what needs to be put away, and throw out what needs to be thrown out. If dictating and writing as you go won't work for you, that's about all I can think of, outside of setting up a video camera or asking someone else to watch you and take notes as you work.

I think it's a wait-and-see situation. I was diagnosed with ADD last spring, myself, but my ADD meds did nothing for my appetite, unfortunately. (I'm a middle-aged adult.) However, I found that I had been doing a lot of grazing in the afternoon, in need of mental stimulation, and that symptom has eased quite a bit. If your son has the same kind of experience, it may slow down his consumption of extra and unnecessary calories without affecting his overall eating habits much. At least, that's one possibility. I would urge you to hold off on being concerned until you have significant reason to be. Your son's environment is about to change, and it's possible that the improvement in his focus, with the benefits that brings, will improve his self-image, and some of his eating habits may change for the better along with all that.

I had something like that happen one time. So I just kept using the pan and ignoring the black stuff. I figured if I couldn't scour it off, it wouldn't flake off into other food. Then I scorched some spaghetti sauce in that pan, so I took it off the heat and moved it to a cool burner, and immediately afterward a crisis hit. Long story short, three days later when I finally got back to the pan (I know, I know, eeeeeeeeewwwww) the black stuff came off when I scraped out the spaghetti sauce. So I guess my recommendation is to warm up some tomato sauce in it, put it onto the back of the stove without heat until it gets fuzzy and smelly, and see if that works! Beats throwing the pan out... but maybe not by much. edited for clarity...

Welllllllllllll, I can't vouch for any specific substitute, because I don't eat them. I have sampled several, hoping I'd find something acceptable so that I could have a healthier alternative from time to time, but I didn't find anything. One other possibility is to try to find dishes, such as stir frys, that could be divided towards the end of cooking, and meat added to one, with tofu or whatever for the lady. Another possibility is to try to come up with menus that have, for instance, risotto; you could eat a small portion along with meat, and your significant other could simply have an entree-sized portion of the risotto. Some types of salads would work well that way, also.

I have been crazy for one of these since I first saw one in a catalog a few weeks ago. If you get one, please let me know if it really works, and what you think of it!

I want to get a new ice cream maker. This machine won't receive a heavy workout, so I don't need a really expensive one; I'd like to spend in the $150 neighborhood. Which features should I seek, and which should I avoid?

Great idea for a thread! Okay, here goes -- In 2006, I will eat at three or more new restaurants in town. I will make at least one recipe from every cookbook I have, and every magazine I buy. (That ought to keep me busy.) I will find my canning recipe book. It has to be somewhere. Doesn’t it? I will learn to decorate cookies like a pro, so I can make the very very coolest monster truck cookies for my nephew, with that new monster truck cookie cutter I have. I will teach my dog nothing, no matter how hard I try. I will read the cookbooks I got for Christmas last year. This is the year I will try at least six vegetables I’ve never tried before. I will taste several kinds of salt to see if I can tell the difference between them. I will use that specialty cake pan I nearly womped that lady to get, in Williams-Sonoma on the day after Thanksgiving, when it was 30% off. I will give more thought and planning to my daily menus. I will stop being afraid I will die before I get to try all the foods I want to try, and just cook as much as I can. We don’t appreciate the abundance we have, so I will eat more slowly and more thoughtfully, and pay closer attention to what I’m eating. My kids don’t exist, so I can spend all my restaurant money on myself and my husband!

I am so, so, so jealous! Breathtakingly jealous! For me at that age, and in that era, a "big deal" grownup, special dinner consisted of chicken chow mein at the restaurant inside the Best Western motel. And I'm so glad you weren't just along for the ride (as a lot of kids would have been, maybe even I!) --that you were able to appreciate what was going on. How cool!

P.S. Please accept my congratulations on having raised what apparently are two excellent children! To have kids who are interested in this type of food is great; and that they can sit through a multi-course meal in a well-behaved manner, well, that's just about unheard of. I will carry this image of your family in my mind and cherish it the next time I'm in a place where children are behaving like holy terrors. It will be something to hold onto (along with my anger, hopefully), so that I can remind myself that somewhere, someone is doing it right. You may want to consider saving this very special experience for a rite-of-passage birthday or event, such as a graduation. What a reward!

Even if the children are well-behaved, their presence can pose a problem. I've never been in this restaurant, so I have no idea of how close the tables are to each other, etc. In a clearly adult establishment, I resent having to be careful of what I say, so that chidren won't hear inappropriate things. It's not that my mind or my mouth are in the gutter, but some conversations aren't meant to be overheard by children. If I'm in a grocery store or in line at a movie theater, then I am obligated to be careful of what I say. If the physical situation is such that this isn't a problem, then never mind! But if you take the children, and they start to misbehave, please be gracious and leave immediately. Even the most wonderful child can have a bad day.

This is incredible! THANK YOU for all of these ideas (and more are welcome)! I knew I'd get some good ideas in response, but I'm thrilled to have so many! And there isn't one that I read and think, "um... nah..." They all sound great. Yes, Daniel, I will have to learn to make Chicken Milanese -- in ample proportions so that I can use the leftovers.

Okay, I ate at a restaurant last night, and brought home a lovely chicken breast. It was left over from a wonderful dish called "Chicken Milanese", described as chicken "sauteed in olive oil, roasted garlic, mushrooms and artichokes; finished in white wine and lemon sauce." (I brought home only the chicken.) It was served with smashed red potatoes, asparagus and broccoli; the sauce was so good I was willing to eat all of the broccoli after dipping it in the sauce. I normally am way beyond bored with steamed broccoli and rarely touch it. Normal behavior for me would be to heat it up and eat it as is, with various vegetables and potatoes. This time, I'd like to do something different, but I have no clue. Please give me some ideas on what I can do with it that will allow me to stretch my thinking a bit. If I use it with pasta, what else to put with it? Or in a sandwich? Ideas, anybody?

Stop! Stop already! Do you know how DIFFICULT it is to sit in an office all day and read incredible threads like this? It's 8 1/2 more hours until I can go home! (Not reading the thread is not an option.) (Don't tell my boss.) Has anybody mentioned grapefruit and honey? Also, I received "Chocolate Obsession" by Michael Recchiuti as a gift; it's at home and I can't check right now, but last night I noticed some really tempting combinations.

Yes, looking at the menu, that's exactly what it is! I would also like to start exploring other food items. But there are 88 of them listed! Here's how they have them divided: Appetizers - Khai Vi Vegetarian - Mon Chay Rice Noodle Soup - Pho Tso (I have always ordered from this section) Clear Noodle Soup - Hu Tieu Egg Noodle Soup - Mi Crispy Fried Noodle or Soft Noodle - Mi Xao Broken Steamed Rice - Com Tam Fried Rice - Com Chien Any recommendations on specific dishes? Each one they offer, has the Vietnamese name. Any stories about the background of the dishes, or whether they're an "everyday" dish or a special dish, would be helpful. Also, if there are ingredients that someone living a lifetime in Kansas wouldn't be familiar with, I'd like to know. That doesn't mean I won't order that dish, or won't like it (I have a fairly adventurous palate), but I'd like to know ahead of time, so that I could identify it and appreciate that I'm eating something new. Any and all recommendations and information would be most welcome. Thanks for what you've given me so far!

That's helpful information! Do you know anything about the salted plum drink? It sounds interesting.