kiliki

This conversation reminds me of many conversations I've had with my ob/gyn about women's health in general...there are so many things doctors just don't know because so little research has gone into women's health concerns as opposed to men's.

Thanks, all.

Can anyone recommend a restaurant supply store that has table bases? I know of the cluster of these stores south of downtown, and the one on Aurora, I've just never noticed if any of them have pedestal table bases. The furniture maker we hired to make a pedestal table for our built in seating suggested that rather than ordering a custom base from a metal fabricator, we check around the restaurant supply stores to see if there is anything that will work.

Yup, I've got one of those paw-crossing dogs...I didn't know OTHER dogs did it until I saw Riley.

Yes, keep the pictures coming!! They are fabulous. And I love the ones of Riley-he looks like such a good boy.

It's really not a new business model-more prepared foods has been the trend in groceries for quite a while now (I remember all the talk about this almost 20 years ago when one of my first jobs was in a grocery store deli). The profit margin on your grocery items-dairy, meat, etc-is very slim. The way that groceries make their money is through prepared foods-the deil case, the sandwich bar, the wood fired pizzas, and the roast chickens, and the peeled cut-up fruit in produce, as well as the ready-to-prepare foods you might find in other departments, like chicken kabobs or stuffed pork chops. And as for the wood floors and other upscale features, Suzysushi is exactly right. I remember hearing an NPR story about this in which they interviewed the owner of Andronico's, a small chain of upscale stores in the SF Bay area-this was how they found their niche between the big chains and Whole Foods.

Cucina-you may be interested in this article from today's NY Times: Easiest turkey

I have always read NEVER to brine a kosher turkey.

The Argentinian Bakery at 78th and Greenwood that has had "coming soon" signs up since spring has taken them down (the sign on the door is gone too)...it looks like it is closing before it even opened.

These look so pretty filled with gazpacho in Martha Stewart's Appetizer book, but I always wondered if all of the filling gushes out onto your guests after the first bite (they are bigger than bite sized, it looks like). Are these others that people make really messy?

This is great! It inspires me to make the trek over the mountains and check out the Walla Walla Valley one of these weekends.

I've been thinking about cultural differences with this subject, too. We eat Szechuan and/or Vietnamese every weekend in Seattle's International District, and both restauarants we patronize usually have quite a few kids there. These little Asian/Asian-American kids are absolute angels. I mean, I've never seen such consistantly well mannered, sweet little kids, even the really young ones. But the few Anglo-American kids that come in the door, there's running around, broken glasses, knocked over chairs, crying, etc. The difference is extraordinary. I've been trying to think about my restaurant experiences in France, Italy, and other countries to further compare cultural differences but I can't recall seeing many kids in European restauarants.

dockhl: There is another thread going about a Safeway 2 hour turkey a bit further down...sounds like the same thing?

I've usually used the basic Cook's Illustrated formula: 1 cup table salt to 1 gallon water, OR, if I use kosher salt, either 2 cups Diamond brand or 1 1/2 cups Morton brand (the crystals are different sizes) to 1 gallon water. Usually you need 2 gallons, for big turkeys, sometimes 3. Soak for 4 hours. In their tests, tasters didn't find much difference if the turkey was soaked slightly longer or less, or if the salt levels were a bit more or less. But, brining for significantly less time (more than an hour) did not have the desired effect on the bird, so there's no point in doing that. I'd encourage you to try it at least this time; though I have read here the occasional anti-brining comment, I've read ten times more in favor. Be sure to rinse the turkey after brining-you're not trying to make it taste salty, you are trying to fill the cells with water so that the meat is juicy. I've also made the SF Chronicle turkey (well, more or less-I didn't baste, for instance), and it too was a hit with guests, but I don't know that all the various spices and flavors in the brine actually found their way into the meat. They use a lesser amount of salt and a longer brine time, which worked fine for me. I'll link their recipe-you can always throw in various spices, lemon, sugar, etc, into your brine just to try it out: SF Chronicle Classic turkey

I just learned they are visiting Point Reyes Station and its farmers market-how neat! That's got to be some big news for that pretty little town.

Lots of good ideas here already but I'll add Oaxaca (I haven't been but it's high on my list).

Holy cow! The Tribune poll shows that 88% of participants support the cafe owner's position.

There are so many fish recipes that take almost no time. For example, making a soy based sauce (with ginger, green onions, etc) for either poaching, or for glazing broiled fish. One of my favorite fast meals is halibut in green curry (this is from West Coast Seafood). Saute green onions, a tablespoon or two of green curry paste and some cut up green beans in the cream that rises to the top of the canned coconut milk for 5 minutes or so. Add the rest of the canned coconut milk and a little fish sauce if you like and reduce the mixture by half. Add a pound of cubed halibut and a couple diced romas and cook until done. Garnish with mint/cilantro/basil, whatever you like. Great over rice.

Safeway is claiming to have invented high heat turkey roasting? I've seen countless recipes for this. I have for years roasted my turkeys at 450 (brined first). They take less than two hours and turn out fabulous-crispy skin and juicy meat. I roast chickens at 475-500 (I started doing this after reading the Cook's Illustrated butterflied roast chicken recipe) and have no problem. Those of you who get nothing but smoke-how dirty is your oven? If I go a while without cleaning mine, all of the accumulated chicken grease and such will cause quite a bit of smoke at high temperatures. I do a lot of the high heat roast chickens and so do clean the over regularly. And good weather, I'd say...I can't imagine doing this in the dark, windy, and rainy Seattle November. Also, what do you do with gallons of leftover oil?

Lol, it's an Appaloosa to me, too.

I don't like clutter and planned around this when we remodeled. We had a shelf built for the microwave, another open shelf was perfect for the Cuisinart and all the small appliances fit into a particular easy-tor-each cabinet. Only the Kitchenaid is on the counter, and it could go away but gets to stay out because it's pretty.

I love it when restaurants have websites, if for nothing else besides the basic info. HUGE bonus points if they keep an updated menu online-its a great tool when groups need to pick a place (e.g. me and friends deciding where to go for dinner, I suggest restaurant A, they say, "what's it like?" I email the menu, they see dishes they like and there we go).

As one of the childless that likes my coffee shop, I think saying it's a culture clash is a little too easy...I don't care if the place is packed with moms and kids, unless the kids are running around while I'm carrying my hot coffee (happens a lot) or worse, getting into my stuff (this has actually happened as well-kids have either run off with or rummaged through my shoulder bag).

I know that the subject of children in restaurants has been discussed to death, but I thought this article, about the efforts of coffeeshop and restaurant owners to deal with out of control kids, was pretty interesting. I found the "who cares" attitudes of most of the parents pretty shocking, and I wonder what's changed since I was a kid. 30 years ago I don't think most parents would have thought to take their kids to coffee shops while they read the paper-to what is this change due? The proliferation of coffeehouses, which now serve as social centers? Different ideas about parenting? I'm not one of those people that hates to see kids in restaurants-actually, I'm usually very impressed by how well behaved most of the little kids I see are-but I have seen some horrendous behavior in coffeeshops in particular while the parents turn a blind eye, just as described in the article. NY Times on kids

Roasting at 450 works great for me-crispy skin, juicy meat (I do brine first). I can't remember exactly how long my 12-15 lb. birds take-I just keep the thermometer in-but I don't think it's ever taken more than two hours. This is the only way I've ever cooked a turkey and I get confused when I hear people (e.g. coworkers the other day) talk about having a turkey in the oven all day. Why would you do that? Anyone else read Gourmet's turkey article this month? After much turkey testing the one they liked best was not adorned in any way-not even butter on the skin!-only high heat roasted with salt and pepper.