ms. victoria

I am still pretty new to Nashville and am having a hard time finding a good grocery store. I got spoiled in Knoxville living near the Fresh Market, a very well-stocked Kroger and several Asian and Middle Eastern groceries. Where do Middle Tennesseans shop?

I just wanted to chime in. This is a lovely, lovely foodblog. The strawberries and cheeses make me want to weep.

I agree that Indian food has taken off in England if this new(ish) chain, Tiffin Bites, is any indication.

The chef: I agree, no chefs in hell. All meals are prepared by former line cooks from Shoney's. And no waiters. Everything is served off a huge buffet with no sneeze guards and no utensils. The meal? Store-bought pimento cheese "salad" on foamy, white bread for the entree. Cold french cut green beans straight out of the can on the side. BBQ flavored generic brand potato chips for crunch. To drink, iced tea so sweet it makes your teeth ache on contact. And for dessert, blue jell-o jigglers cut out in the shape of a dinosaur with freezer burnt artificially flavored ice cream. The soundtrack would be the hits of Tom Jones and Pat Boone as interpreted by drunken karaoke singers the world over.

I should also add that my budget for dining adventures has been small too as my husband ans I are still both looking for full-time jobs.

I'm in Nashville, too. Though I just moved here in November and am still finding good places to eat. So far I've had more bad than good out.

One of my favorites is: The Grub Report And I will second on the Saute Wednesday.

It might not separate if you add more of the liquid, beer in this case.

My husband is from Trinidad and visits there are pretty much a food paradise for me. (His mother, who is Jamaican, made ackee and salt cod for me. I am apparently allergic and had a nasty reaction.) My favorite Trinidadian foods are roti skins with pumpkin, channa and potatoes, and mango chutney (especially from Dopson's), sada roti with tomato choka, accras with salt cod, doubles, bake and shark, phoulorie (sp?) and Fruta Guava Pineapple. And black cake. I love black cake.

Peeps. They scare me. I don't like marshmallow anything and marshmallows shaped like baby chickens and rabbits seems entirely wrong to me. I think refrigerator magnets is the best use I have ever heard.

About uses for dried cranberries: As my son detests raisins, I substitute dried cranberries for them in scones. The resultant breakfasty goodness is wonderful with bitter marmalade.

Tuesday Lentil soup that was kind of boring on Monday ratcheted up a bit with kielbasa, lots of cracked black pepper, a can of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes and a can of garbanzo beans. Tonight we are making shepherd's pie for St. Patty's.

I currently (no pun intended) live and cook for a raisin hater, but she loves currant scones. Me, I like raisins, currants and sultanas and add them where others fear to tread.

Count another in the banana camp. I actually like them but they don't like me back. Raw bananas make me very ill, even the smallest bite. I can eat them cooked or dried but not raw. My son is the same way but won't even eat them cooked and the smell makes him turn visible green.

The Pop Tart post made me remember the chocolate graham Pop Tarts. Not the nasty S'mores ones. These were more like choclate filled graham crackers. There was one grocery store in Chattanooga that carried them when I was in college. The store closed and I haven't seen them anywhere in ten years.

I agree. I love all the lemony desserts in the April issue and yes the pictures are the best in a long while.

I've had Consuming Passions in my to-be-read pile for awile. I'll have to get on with it now, my curiosity is piqued.

I like the idea of making something extravagant. Doesn't one of Ina Garten's books have an Oscar party menu with caviar and homemade potato crisps?

On many themes: for intellectual stimulus: Mark Twain, Michele Foucault, Gertrude Stein and Jesus. For sexy and smart: Gabriel Byrne, Billy Bragg, Alton Brown and Alan Rickman. For an interesting girls' night out: Emma Thompson, Hilary Clinton, Nigella Lawson, and Dolly Parton.

I read Near a Thousand Tables over Christmas. So good. I just bought Baking Across American from the used bookstore and got Hardtack to Home Fries and Eat My Words through interlibrary loan. I'll be busy reading for a bit. I keep drifting into the kitchen to try out recipes from the baking book. I want to make Boston brown bread. Being a southerner, I've never encountered it. Can you really steam it in a can?

The two most abominable things I can think of that I have actually consumed or witnessed consumption of said: In college (a theme in this thread), a friend of mine drank Dr. Pepper and vodka, henceforth named the Dr. Zhivago. Also, while in college, during my year abroad in Slovenia, I partied with some guys from a local garage band who were partial to Vodka Slammers: cheap vodka mixed with lemon or orange soda, cover the glass with your hand and slam it on the table to make it fizz. Bad, bad, nasty headache inducer.

I think I'd like two kitchens. One that had wide-board pine floors, ample granite counter tops, a deep prep sink, a lovely collection of pots and pans, at least two ovens, a gas range with a griddle, a beautiful kitchen garden out the back door with fruit trees and bramble, and a view of mountains. But, on days when I come home from work exhausted, I want a tile floor with a center drain, watertight cabinets and appliances, and stainless steel counter tops so I could just hose it all down and go to bed.

Great thread. And something close to my heart. My father died three years ago and I feel closest to him in the kitchen. What was your family food culture when you were growing up? Lower middle class. My dad was the child of a first generation German father and a second generation Swedish mother. My mother is from the South. They were self employed so we often ate dinner at 9 or 10 at night. Both of them cooked regularly and had their own signature dishes. We often ate weird combos like gulash and baking powder biscuits. I have 8 brothers and sisters but am the second to youngest by 10 years. When everyone was still at home when I was very young we ate a lot of spaghetti because it was cheap and fish out of the lake in front of the house. Was meal time important? Somewhat. We sat down to eat together fairly often, but as often we all got something on the fly. Was cooking important? Yes. My parents were both excellent cooks and my younger brother and I were taught to cook at a young age so we could fend for ourselves. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? Nothing stiff. Mostly gentle reminding. Chewing with your mouth open and talking with a mouthful were the big no-nos. Who cooked in the family? Everyone. Both parents and my younger brother and I, after the older siblings had all moved out. My sister always made the salad when she was home and cloverleaf rolls. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Only for special occasions because it was too expensive. My younger brother and I were usually taken out for Chinese for our birthdays. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? We had several tables. I don't think we have all ever sat down to one table together. My immediate family currently numbers 45. When did you get that first sip of wine? I don't have a clear memory of that. My dad made homemade wine and it was always around. I'm sure I tasted it very young and there is a family joke that I teethed on beer bottles. Not true, but Dad would always let us have a tiny sip of beer and he never drank out of the bottle, that was crass. Beer was always poured into a glass. Ladies, according to my father, never drank anything out of the bottle. Was there a pre-meal prayer? Only for major holidays: Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Not as defined as that. We had spaghetti often, see above. We had Dad's beef stroganoff once a month. Sundays, we always had pancakes or waffles with homemade pancake syrup. In the summer we ate BELT sandwiches (bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato) almost every day for lunch with homemade bread and tomatoes from the garden. Mom picked blackberries to sell but we always got lots of blackberry cobbler out of the deal. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? I make many of the things my parents cooked, but I travelled in the US fairly widely in high school and to Europe in college and picked up a more adventurous palate. I make the traditional family recipes for holidays and my grandmother's preserves and chili sauce. Sitting down to dinner is really important to me as we didn't get to do it very often growing up. I find as I get older, I have started to crave foods that my dad described but we never had money to make. Old country German recipes and Swedish dishes his mother made.

Internal organs for the most part intimidate me into nausea. I did grow up eating fried chicken livers and I do still eat them on occasion, somehow that's different. My mom's fried okra is the best but bolied okra is nasty, nasty, nasty. And I would chew off my own arm before I would eat over cooked broccoli or cauliflower or cabbage. Just the smell makes me turn that same gray/green color.