ms. victoria

An exciting start for a foodblog. I am looking forward to the Wine Festival posts, Mary. Thanks for taking the mantle this week and letting us peek in on such a busy time for you.

Now, I am quite put out with Tennessee's lack of proximity to New York. (I just noticed there really isn't an appropriate pouty face smilie...)

Thanks for the link. I have lavendar oil either in the cupboard or in the medicine chest for many of those reasons. Oh, and sickly aloe on the window sill. I think it's not getting enough sun.

hathor, it's good to see the lavendar oil comment. I feel validated after having more than one person look at me like I am insane when I suggest that. It may be an urban legend, but I was told by an herbalist friend that a scientist discovered the properties working in a lab. He had burned himself and the nearest container of liquid was the lavendar oil. After a liberal application, no more pain and very minimal scarring.

Oh, the dumplings! I have been craving them and there they are... What a lovely dinner.

Great, fun read. Makes me want to brave duck.

I went to a 1920s garden party wedding. It was perfect: carousel, lovely hats, everything. Though it was held at Chattanooga's waterfront park rather than in New York. I like the Mary Poppins idea... what a great party theme.

Two more from Nashville: The Puffy Muffin and the Fudgey Nut. No comment

hathor, your son and his significant other sound like lovely people.

In Lenoir City, Tennessee (or at least used to be) the Chat and Chew, affectionately known to locals as the Chat and Choke. I went to college in Chattanooga, TN which has several eateries with interesting and/or odd names. Choo-Choo Hot Fish and Yum Yum's are my favorite. But there are others: Durty Nelly's (Irish Pub), The Pickle Barrel (college bar in a Flatiron type building), The Back Inn Cafe (which is, you guessed it, behind an inn. I worked there briefly), Clumpie's Ice Cream, and The Mudpie (coffee house).

I haven't been able to shake the pond scum imagery. When we were kids my mother made us drink a shot of orange juice with cranberry pulp and aloe vera in it every morning. It was thick and slimy and sour, but we were pretty healthy kids. I think the cult of pond scum has been growing in numbers since at least the 1970s. I am looking forward to your pictures. I'll ask Keifel about resizing in iPhoto, he is a Mac demigod. Maybe he can PM you instructions this afternoon.

Amen, to that. Having been abused by customers as a waitperson and having witnessed awful abuse heaped on past coworkers I couldn't agree more. And balmagowry, I am in agreement on the more flies with honey philosophy, too. Having waited tables for large parts of my working life, I know what a difficult (and often thankless) job it can be. It makes me want to make servers lives a little easier and I generally overtip for service especially when well done. On sending food back: Keifel, the boychick and I went to a local Mexican restaurant of some regard last night to ward off the gnawing hungry befoer making the big grocery run. The last time Keifel and I ate there it was fair and I figured they were having an off night because before that I had always been served good, honest fare. Last night proves that they are in decline. We were served burnt food. Burnt to the point of actually being carbonized. Keifel caught the waitresses eye and told her the situation. One of the cooks brought our replacement dinners himself and apologized. They also offered us a free dessert which we let the boychick have. Sadly it too was far under par, but it was the gesture that made a good impression. We will not be eating there again as our dining out budget is too small to throw at poorly executed food, but we did leave our server a generous tip and thanked her for being so swift in dealing with the situation. Keifel still had to talk me into sending it back though. That is only the third time I have sent food back. The first time was a sandwich that was dripping with mayo (I detest mayo on sandwiches) after I had been very clear in asking for no mayo. The second was at a very nice restaurant in Atlanta on Valentine's night when my tuna steak had a very long hair curled up on it like a piece of Christmas candy. I quietly told our server, who almost instantly brought me a new plate with a different piece of tuna (could tell by the shape) and offered my companion and I both a free dessert for not making a fuss when they were so busy. Kindness generally prevails. Also, last night was a teaching moment of sorts for the boychick as he saw first hand that being calm and polite about a situation paid off in an unexpected way.

hathor, this is a lovely blog. I am envious of your wild turkey and eagerly awaiting your description of its awaiting culinary adventure. Pond Scum. It reminds of that drink Rene Russo's character chugs for breakfast in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. How often are you a "there" cook in Italy?

I forgot how crazy things get when we come in for the weekend. And I forgot how slow dialup is compared even to our DSl lite at home. Before the lovely and talented hathor whisks us all to her abode, I thought I would give a quick run down of our day yesterday. We arrived in time for breakfast. Mom made wonderful belgian waffles with syrup and bacon. After being awake for four hours and reading new issues of BBC Good Food and Olive in the car, I think I was ready to chew off my own arm. We ate lunch late, after Keifel and the boychick helped Mom burn a brush pile. Homemade egg salad sandwiches (turkey for Keifel and the dreaded bacon and jelly for the boychick). My mom's boiled eggs are always perfectly done with creamy yolks which make the best egg salad. Oh, and she found the very last jar of homemade pickle relish to add to the salad. So, so good. Sadly the brush pile was what was what was left of the garden. Since my father died and her surgery, my mom hasn't had the energy to maintain a garden. It breaks my heart but we are just too far away to help her with it and she is travelling more to not be at the house so much by herself. Keifel and I went to see a dear friend of mine in Oak Ridge, about 20 miles from Kingston where my mom lives. We had tea and cookies and caught up with her. She hadn't met Keifel before because of the craziness of the last four years and him being out of the country. It was nice to prove that I'm not married to a Snuffalupogus (sp?). For dinner we had a taco night of sorts. One of my many siblings (I have eight) arrived with four of his six children in tow. We added hotdogs to the menu (that were supposed to be grilled today) and let the kids have what they wanted while we had soft tex-mex style tacos. This morning my brother made pancakes (very good) and we are about to start cooking for lunch. Mostly hamburgers and hotdogs with the picnicky things that go with. I'm making cucumber sandwiches which have become kind of tradition with my sister, one of my SILs. Mom and me. It's our girly food while the guys dig in to the hamburgers and such, though the guys always decide the cucumber sandwiches are pretty good, too. I especially like watching my former college football player brother sneaking delicate, crustless cucumber sandwiches. This week has been so much fun and I am looking forward to hathor's week in the spotlight. (Oh, Keifel promises not to be stranger noe that he is hooked on eGullet, too.)

I have to say a nice thing in defense of our produce guy at Kroger. I couldn't find any cilantro. He went to look for it and found two very scraggly bunches and told me he would look in the back. Apparently the stuff in the back was even further gone and he wouldn't sell it to me and he took the two wilted bunches off the display.

Pan, cooking them seems to breakdown whatever sugar it is that makes me ill. I have a friend who is a dietician and was told by her that some people lack an enzyme to break down certain compounds in bananas. Coffee also kills off whatever little of that enzyme is being produced. I kept getting sick after my breakfast of Grape Nuts with bananas and milk with a cup of coffee. I thought it was the milk and switched to soy and was still getting sick. Gave up coffee, still. It never occured to me that it could be the bananas and that drinking coffee with them would make it worse. My son on the other hand, can't even stand the smell of them or anything with banana in it. The first time he ate them, my mother was treated to cleaning up after a very ill toddler.

Truer words were never writ. Lunchables are of the devil. I was so proud when my son pointed to them in the grocery and asked how anyone could feed that to someone they loved. (Salt, fat and sugar should not be food groups in a kid's diet.)

I have been trying to avoid this thread all day... but reading it through, I am now seriously hungry for something deep fried. Onion rings. Must. Have. Onion rings.

Banana nut bread wash could be a dangerous thing... I'm not so sure Keifel or I either one would get out of the house much. (Sorry if that was too much info.) I can't eat raw bananas, some weird reaction I've had to them since I was pregnant with the boychick. I can eat them cooked, so banana bread and fried plantains are my only indulgence in what used to be my favorite fruit. The boychick is allergic or at least seriously intolerant. Keifel loves them, but only when they are slightly green or perfectly yellow. Once they develop spots they go into the freezer for bread (which never seems to last very long).

I am beginning to wonder if this blog is about what we are cooking and eating or when the check arrives. No check, but lunch was good. More of the baked beans (they turned out fairly well considering they were my maiden voyage) and banana bread. Banana bread isn't exactly Boston brown, but it goes surprisingly well with baked beans. I am happily full and back at my desk. Well, maybe not happily back at my desk. It is Friday and it is lovely outside. Tomorrow we are going to my mom's for the weekend. Sadly we won't have the camera but I will post our East Tennessee meals from her computer. We will also be raiding the pantry for homemade strawberry jam, applesauce and chili sauce, any of which I could just take a spoon to straight out of the jar.

Still no check But, it should arrive today. Breakfast was as slapdash as dinner, though not because we were running late per the usual. We just don't have much quick breakfast type stuff on hand. The boychick had a big bowl of my mom's homemade applesauce and a glass of milk. I made tea bread last night with some bananas we had in the freezer. We are out of butter (for shame), but I have a duplicate copy of my mom's 1940s era Good Housekeeping cookbook which has lots of rationing era recipes including a banana bread made with oil. It's good, not as good as the full test stuff with butter, but good enough toasted for breakfast with a glass of milk (out of coffee, too). In fact, it was so good, I'll probably have it for lunch as well.

That is slowly becoming true here as well. The only places that (usually) take checks are bakeries and pizzerias.

The gas prices, jeesh. I'm temping at Vandy and we live close by. No Publix nearby, yet. We've hit both of the nearest Krogers and Harris Teeter (pricey though they have a varied if smaller selection than Kroger and nice roasted chickens on special on Tuesdays). We'll have to hit the Global Market soon. My husband is from Trinidad and lots of Trini food has a heavy East Indian influence. The Krogers here don't have as much selection in that department as the one we lived near in Knoxville. I guess there just isn't as much demand.

Your wish: Leftovers with Flair Leftovers are a fact of life at our house. That's usually what's for lunch. Which reminds me that I have a great deal of leftover baked beans from an experiment last week that need to be addressed. (Insert "Dear Baked Beans" corny joke here.)

Quiche, done well, is a lovely thing and great for those yummy left over bits of cheese and veg when you're burnt out on cream of Frigidaire soup. (Though balmagowry's Kitchen Sink fried rice looks like it could give Mustgo Quiche a serious run for its money in the Leftovers with Flair department.)