balmagowry

Mary may not hate you, but the rest of us might, because we've been so careful to avoid thinking that very thing, only to have it shoved under our noses. Gee, thanks a lot.

So that's bad, then? Probably the "ostentatious" more than the "thesaurus-mongering," I'd venture to suggest - it's all in how you use it. I remember working on an article about the bizarre parallel evolution of horchata/orgeat, and trying to come up with an elegant way of expressing that though Spanish-English dictionaries translate "horchata" as "orgeat" and vice versa, the two liquids - identical at birth - are no longer the same thing, not at all at all. Can't remember why it was so important to find a new way to say it; maybe we had already used up our quota of "sames" and "identicals" for the graf. Anyway, we set off on a thesaurus-ride and ended up at "equiponderant," triumphantly typed it in and flattered ourselves we'd done something rather clever. Seemed like a good note on which to end a fine day's work. Next day we looked at the draft and cringed: hoo boy, we must have been tired and punchy by the time we did that. To say that our brilliant thesaurus-trophy stuck out like a sore thumb would be to praise it with faint damn: it seemed to lend a lurid glow to the entire page. EDIT: Hey Mark, welcome aboard!

Funny you should say that. I'd be willing to bet just about anything that in its original incarnation the drink called for a sprig of borage, and that later versions changed to cucumber as being easier to obtain.

Mmmmmm.... Lemon wedge!

Thanks. I wanted to come up with something that might make readers interested enough to look inside at the request. Unfortunately, I don't think it beats this thread title. Thanks for the suggestions so far. I figured the berry sauce/filling would be the easy part to toss together. It was the accoutrements I wasn't so sure about. In that case, there's always a berry sauce on vanilla ice cream. And how bad could that be? Or berry glop with thick cream floated on top. Or with whipped cream shlooped on top. It's not as if you can possibly go wrong here....

Man, I just can't wait to say to someone, "Excuse me, you have a slightly poopy nose." Where's my dog? And imagine... Yak Cheese Tasting Notes. What's not to love? EDIT: Ha, busted! I see you there, Mark! Come on, post.

I especially like the "ginely shredded orange peel" in the first of those! Sorry, Toliver, I don't have an actual Recipe, as such. I always kind of fake it. I toss the berries in a pot with reasonable amounts of sugar, lemon, cinnamon, maybe nutmeg or some such. No water - generally I've just washed them, and that's enough to keep them from scorching until they start sending forth their juice. Cook until done - i.e., beautifully gloppy/syrupy. By this time I have frantically hunted up some sort of dough/batter recipe; sometimes I use a sweetened biscuit dough, sometimes a softer, more dumpling-y, batter. And then I just lump it over the berries, cover, steam till done. The frantic hunting generally takes place in my battered old Fannie Farmer, which is very good for basics like biscuits, dumplings and such. There's probably (sorry, it's downstairs and I'm not) a cobbler recipe there and I'm almost positive there's one for cottage pie - if memory serves either topping would work for this. Sorry to be so vague, but our season isn't as far advanced as yours, so I haven't gotten back into the swing yet or determined what my obsessive approach is going to be this summer. Who, me, vary these things according to whim? Damn right. But my favorite combination always will be blueberries and peaches. EDIT to correct name of interlocutor! Sorry!

To be fair, it isn't just his - not only does he share the language blog with other people, but it's on a university server, so you can imagine.... His e-mail address is there somewhere, though - I know because that's how I first contacted him about the marthambles question. Actually, I have to e-mail him today anyway, to see if he's still planning to come to my lecture thingy on Thursday - while I'm at it will be glad to bring up eG and this thread, and invite him to join both. EDIT to add: Hokay, have sent the invitation; nothing beside remains but to wait and see....

Mmmmmm.... that's ONE of the ways. The other requires too much patience.

None other. I don't know exactly what prompted me to use my married name on the book - I think I did it mostly for symmetry with my mother's name, and perhaps as an unconscious sop to ill omens. Now of course it dogs me, because that's the only thing I've ever written under that name, so I'm stuck with "Thomas" for the life of the book. Which I naturally have to hope will be long. My cousin Jo Heifetz did the same with one of her books, only she went me one worse: used her married name (Mrs. Byrne) in the title. Many years later the book went into a new edition and she got the chance to remedy this, publishing under her own name and completely changing the title of the book. So now the problem is that a lot of people don't realize it's the same book. Moral of the story... obvious, I imagine. So - can you come?

Not exactly. Not in any way you'd want to put up with. That's OK - that's why we have cars.

Cool! I love Mark Liberman's stuff - yes, even when he isn't quoting Me. The White Dog business reminds me of Terry Jones describing his chocolates: "only the finest BABY frogs, lightly killed, delicately garnished with lark's vomit..." which strictly speaking is not TMI, I guess, so much as a warning not to eat the thing.

They sure can vary wildly. At one end of the spectrum you have the complete crap; at the other, the lunches my mother packed for me when I was a kid, which were works of art and the wonder of the lunchroom. Usually leftovers from the previous evening's dinner - which was usually spectacular. She had found a couple of wide-mouth thermos devices: one for the main course and a smaller one for dessert, and on cold days the big one might contain veal stew or beef stroganoff, spaghetti (she made a killer meat sauce, and of course spaghetti is always better the second day), sukiyaki, or the latest Chinese experiment/obsession. I don't clearly remember much about what accompanied these star performers, but I think there was usually fresh fruit (sometimes fruit salad in the small thermos thingy), and things like carrots and raisins to nibble on. And a few cookies of a small bag of chips or pretzels. Back then we didn't worry too much about applying a precise nutritional analysis to every item, but overall I think I came out ahead of the game. I always got a kick out of the sensation created by opening the big thermos, and I looked forward to those lunches all morning.

Oh yes, that too - fifi's chocolate version reminded me of that. But... is that incredibly weird? Don't know. But now I'm starting to crave it too. Oh, hell.

Not by the spoonful! By the finger method, exactly as you describe it from your childhood. Surprisingly efficient, if one is determined enough.

Perhaps you didn't quite understand me. I said cinnamon sugar. I didn't say anything else. NOTHING else. OK, it's borderline, I'll admit, because I've never disliked cinnamon sugar in the past. But in the past I've always eaten it ON things, or IN things. This... this is different.

Neither have I, now that you mention it. But I was only sort of half-joking, actually. Of course one shouldn't bring up such things lightly; but when you consider how many cults there are that require their members to do really dangerous or harmful or actually lethal things, it always amazes me that anyone can suggest there's anything wrong with taking pictures of one's dinner.

I'm sure you're right. Funny, though, because this is the one jensen swears by - same culture, presumably same pectin. And given the small amount of yogurt used as a starter, the result will at any rate have a much lower pectin concentration than the original. Very puzzling! Well, I'm still going to try making a quart of yogurt using a little of the present batch as starter, just to see what happens. At that point there shouldn't be all that much of the original culture left, I'm guessing, though I admit I have no idea how accurately it replicates itself. My guess is instinctive, based on the dissimilarities in flavor and texture between the starter yogurt and the product. Kind of wish I'd gotten a little farther in all this experimentation before milk prices rose so dramatically - still, in the scheme of things this is not a terrible expense, and only once have I had a really inedible result, so not much gets wasted. Shall continue to report my unscientific results in unscientific fashion.

I believe 1999, from a restaurant supply in Sacramento. It was one year old at the time, from a failed venture. I believe you are correct as far as residential models are concerned; no pilot lights. Duh! I guess I wasn't paying attention - hadn't noticed you said yours was commercial. Well, that wouldn't really be an option for me either. Was sorely tempted, some years back, to buy an old Viking, cheep-cheep, at a garage sale - it needed a lot of cleaning up, but at the price it would have been well worth it. The deciding factor was the realization that it wouldn't have fit through my doorway. About 20 years ago my mother was seriously considering whatever was then state-of-the-art from West Bend or one of that ilk, onlly to give up the idea because the house at the beach (the house which will eventually become my permanent home) isn't built solidly enough to support the weight! So she bought two 30-inch gas stoves (WITH pilot lights, of course) and placed them side by side. No fancy-schmancy bells and whistles, but there's something to be said for having eight burners and two ovens.... I can certainly live with it.

Thanks, Marlene. That was my best guess, but I wasn't sure it translated on the "real" side, so I thought meybe I was missing something.

OMG, yes, it's Saturday night, isn't it? Oh, well done, Hathor! If you've enjoyed doing the blog as much as we have reading it, then you've had a hell of a good week.

Well, you have to violate a few building codes, but I have a commercial Wolf 6 burner with 3 pilots for the burners and one big one for the oven. I have never checked the temperature, but use it to dry herbs from the garden pretty much all summer long. Yes, but when did you buy it? I don't have to worry about building codes here - but it's my understanding they're not making them with pilot lights any more because other people do (have to worry about building codes, I mean). If memory serves, they year I bought my stove (1993) was either the last or the penultimate in which pilot lights were available.

Understood. I was more generically curious as to whether that particular danger already existed back then. And how right you were! Today, of course, you can't even buy a stove with a pilot light, more's the pity - I don't know what I'd do without mine. But it sure isn't any 165 degrees! I use it for drying fruits, for starting seedlings and for incubating yogurt, because it maintains a perfect consistent 110*. Definitely not safe for cooking meat, even by my somewhat over-relaxed standards.

Oh, Brooks, you lucky devil. Yes, please do post pictures - though I'm not sure I can bear to look at them. My tomato seedlings are showing true leaves and are just about ready to be potted up, but it'll be a good three weeks before they even go into the ground. August-September is tomato time here, and it seems a long way away. The more so, as last year was a lousy tomato year in most respects (problems with both weather and verticillium wilt - ugh, the despair and the disgust). The fortunate exception was plum tomatoes, of which I grew three varieties. I'm painfully reminded how far behind I am on posting pictures myself - my 2003 tomatoes played a small supporting role in the Pizza Night at JosephB's, and a few of the pictures in that spread (I haven't forgotten! I'm going to post 'em soon, I swear!) illustrate my own favorite tomato sauce trick. This will only work with plum tomatoes, the eating kind being too watery to be worth cooking up (except for desperate end-of-season dregs). When I pick them, if I don't have any immediate sauce plans, I just put them straight into the freezer - do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dollars, do not do nothin' fancy - adding the day's pickings to the cumulative harvest of the season, which lives in a large ziploc bag (or two... or three...) labeled with the year. 'Vantage Number one! I call this the Convenience Food for the Ages - convenient not only to use but to put up. I know me. I don't have the patience for canning, season after season. I'd do a great job of it the first year, then get frustrated or bored and start skimping; still in love with the idea, but short of time for the process. Then whenever I want to make tomato sauce, I haul out a mess of tomatoes from the freezer. 'Vantage number two: they are much easier to peel when frozen! Dip each tomato in cold water for a few seconds; when you take it out the skin will practically pop right off in your hand. Once they're peeled - 'Vantage number three: they're still pretty frozen, so it's very easy to cut them evenly. I often like a slightly chunky sauce, and dicing a frozen tomato is child's play compared to a fresh or canned one. Defrosted tomatoes will of course give off more liquid than fresh ones. But hell, liquid reduces. My usual quickie light tomato sauce goes something like this: I dice up a small onion or two - sometimes shallots instead, sometimes also a few mushrooms if I happen to have any handy and to feel like using them, maybe also a little celery and/or green pepper, maybe not - cook in EVOO until soft. Sometimes at this stage I throw in some wine - usually white - simmer until considerably reduced. Throw in the tomatoes, bring to a boil, simmer, stirring often, until... well, until it looks and smells and feels and tastes like sauce. If the tomatoes have been cut into medium dice they will hold some of their shape and texture; if cut smaller or sliced they will pretty much disintegrate, making for a smoother sauce. Then it's dealer's choice - or Cream of Refrigerator - what else gets thrown in. I like to add capers and black olives, and whatever herb I happen to be in love with at the moment (also from the garden, often by way of the freezer). Lots of tellicherry pepper. Heartier variation on this theme (The Boy always likes to have "something dead" in his food): before doing the onions/shallots/mushrooms/etc I'll quick-brown some chopped meat; remove it from the pan and use its fat, along with the OO, for softening the vegs. Then proceed as above (though if using meat I usually put in red wine instead of white), adding the meat back in after the tomatoes have kind of settled in. YMMV, of course - the beauty of it is that you can do whatever you damn well please, on as large or as small a scale as you like. And the flavor... the FLAVOR! There's nothing like having a bit of the garden available year-round. This year we'll just be scrambling to finish off the 2003 harvest as the 2004 tomatoes start to ripen. When I post the Pizza Night pictures (Yes! Soon! I promise!) you'll see how they come out and how they cook down. EDIT for emphasis

Hope you did - but also hope you didn't think that bloggers get the night off when cooks do! You may not have had to produce it yourself, but enquiring minds still need to know the details of last night's dinner.