Devilkitty

I'm not much of a popcorn eater (a handful here and there is enough for me), but the Mrs likes Penzey's "Sandwich Sprinkle." It's a little coarse as it comes from the jar, but that's easily remedied.

Good mustard (none of that poison-yellow stuff!) on the side is my usual condiment of choice. HP Sauce is nice once in a while, too. However, the best thing I've ever had on frites is the truffled aioli they serve with the frites at Restaurant Villegas. Catsup is the Condiment of Evil. I don't even let it in the house. (Why else would it be the color of Satan? Oh, they try to camouflage it by making it in green and purple, but I know the truth!)

I know that whenever one of my periodic bouts of depression takes hold I tend to cook more elaborately - I fuss more with garnishes, prepare more complex sauces, knock out a rich soup on the weekend, and... The Mrs eats - and takes "my" half for lunch the next day. Even if I cook something I really like, by the time I'm done all I want is a sandwich. I can't say whether it makes me feel any better; it's more a distraction than anything else.

Ah, yes - good ol' Ainsley. A good part of that impression is due to his playing things for laughs. His books aren't bad, if a little thin. I was a religious watcher of "Can't Cook, Won't Cook" when BBC America was showing it, principally for the comedic value. Made one realize that there is a grain of truth (at least in certain cases) in those awful kitchen-tool ads where the kitchen becomes a disaster area when the pre-gadget-of-the-hour housewife tries to make pancakes/meatballs/whatever.

Are you by any chance a Father Ted fan? An example, particularly grating to me (I was an optical crystallographer in a former life): I quote from his tuna episode, "The Other Red Meat," as copied from the Good Eats Fan Page transcripts, which are very accurate. Wrong. Liquid water is isotropic. There's no way in heaven or hell that it can exhibit birefringence. Ice, on the other hand, can - because it's (1) crystalline, and (2) ice does not crystallize in the isometric system. In any event, birefringence cannot be observed in the absence of polarized light, and even with a polarized source could not be seen with the naked eye on the "microscopic beads of moisture" scale. He is correct in stating that the minusucle droplets of water act as prisms, but his explanation of why is completely off-beam. The actual cause is dispersion, the tendency of refractive index to vary with the wavelength of light passing through a solid or liquid - the same effect that gives us rainbows in the sky and the "fire" in a diamond. That's high school physics. I also noticed much more schtick in the show after he ran out of things to mine Shirley Corriher's Cookwise for.

I've always liked the leek and potato soup in volume one of Mastering. Turn it into vichyssoise if you feel so inclined, though it might be too much if you're going for pommes Anna. There's also the onion soup, also in Mastering v.1 - or you could try the garlic soup in The Way to Cook. Edited to mention that I like my soups "uncomplicated."

I was probably thinking it. Sharp wenches, straps... I'll stop now :)

Forget little rubber thingies. Wander down to the hardware store and buy a smallish strap wrench, usually found with the plumbing tools. Not much they can't do. Odd shapes are no problem, either.

As is true in the vast majority of things... Good, Fast, Cheap: pick any two.

I've never had a problem with any of my (admittedly few pieces of) All-Clad under the broiler. The stainless has picked up a bit of a temper color, but I can't see that it's affected the cooking. All-Clad's probably worried about people complaining that their $$$ pan has turned a light straw yellow...

This is actually astoundingly good if you use a good-quality vinegar. The look people have is priceless when you tell them that there's vinegar on their ice cream. :)

I'm not a huge toast fan, but I like, in no particular order: A good pesto, duxelles, or a light buttering followed by a thin layer of Gentleman's Relish.

I picked up a copy shortly after reading Petronius. I found myself dazzled, fascinated and not a little disturbed by the Cena Trimalchionis, and happened across Apicius in a rather unlikely place - a tiny farmers/flea market in southeast Ohio. Three bucks, but missing the dust jacket. Leafed through it and figured I could take a stab at some of the food. Still haven't gotten around to it.

You are the cookery-book known as Apicius! Roman recipes, probably put together in the late fourth to early fifth centuries. Yes, I know it predates the medieval era... Oddly enough, that's the only one of the options that I actually have on my shelf.

That is a really slick page. Finally, a truly useful application of javascript... I'd recommend picking up a copy of James Peterson's Sauces if you haven't got it already. As to new ideas for matching sauces to meat/fish/fowl/game, look through Dornenburg & Page, Culinary Artistry. Pick your main item, then treat everything else in the list as a potential sauce ingredient.

Ask and ye shall receive. Fifteen.

Crystallized ginger!

Better not. Might give someone the Vapors.

I think Bourdain said it best: "...vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans." (May not be quite exact, but I don't have a copy of KC here at the office.)

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. --Wm. Blake

A wife who can't cook and won't is better than one who can't cook and will.

That is the principal reason I loathe her show. I'd almost expunged that particularly nauseating affectation from my memory. Sorry, but I've got to shoot the messenger here. I know that my dislike of RR puts me in that evil (or is that e-v-o-o-l ) minority, and I accept the scarlet letters gladly. Now I'll probably have nightmares about RR tying me up and forcing me to say "e-v-o-o, extra virgin olive oil" over and over, at least until Nigella Lawson comes along to my rescue, wiping the floor with Miss Pert 'n' Perky in an Iron Chef-style grudge match... Oh my, is it time for my medication and nap already?

I like Jamie O's kitchen on Oliver's Twist. Small, but the layout is great. The Good Eats kitchen (the second one) is pretty, but it's waaay too big for me - kitchen junk invariably expands to fill the available space! The kitchen on Good Food Fast (do they even still run that?) hurts my eyes. However... Any of 'em would be better than the twelve square feet (in four uneven sections) of counter space, less-than-standard-depth wall cabinets (dinner plates don't fit), and one drawer (of three) big enough to store more than a turkey baster that I deal with now.

The thread title puts me in mind of a photo from Yakov Smirnov's America on 40 Rubles a Day: Smirnov is holding up a hot dog with his nose wrinkled. The caption? Wait for it... "In Russia we don't eat that part of the dog!"

Bacon, but only if it's good bacon. (Yes, there is such a thing as bad bacon.) I rather like pancetta these days. Gruyere. Aged provolone, in a pinch. On top of the bacon. Good, sharp Dijon mustard. Catsup is a tool of Satan.