purplewiz

Oh, this one should be fun! Would I be thrown out, though, if I made the spam souffle again? Marcia.

Assuming the white bits are the fish, what are the longish, greyish striped bits? Marcia.

I didn't choose the book - it was a Christmas gift from my parents. Turned out to be one of the most useful gifts they ever gave me. Marcia.

The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. It was my first cookbook, it's been taped together in spots, it has grease stains and notes taped to it, and whenever I want to make something it's where I go to first. The recipes may not be exciting but they work. Marcia.

A bag of "frozen garbage": carrot ends, celery tops, leek tops, etc. waiting for the next batch of stock, and three frozen chicken carcasses from which said stock will eventually be made when I get around to it. Not weird by egullet standards at all. Marcia.

I prefer to sit upright when I eat, and there's just no way to do that in bed - no matter how many pillows I use or how I wedge them in, I always end up tilting backwards at an awkward angle. It makes eating rather difficult. I also don't like eating in my bathrobe - the sleeves always end up being dragged through the food. And that unwashed feeling first thing in the morning does not enhance the experience. I'd rather get up, shower, get dressed, and then have a nice breakfast all prepared for me, or go out to a nice breakfast. Marcia.

First, the steak sandwiches and the ramen both look SO good. I'm in the mood for comfort food, and they're both way up on my list! Second, here's another "rah rah go team" from up in the nosebleed section - you guys are doing something terribly difficult, and doing it in front of an audience to boot! Don't worry that you stumble once in awhile - remember, this is a process, and it's more important that you get up and keep going than that you fell a couple of times. Marcia.

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's memories, and all the wonderful richness of the food and relationships with their grandparents! I wish I could say the same, because while all my grandparents lived to ripe old ages, they were uninspired cooks at best. I didn't know my father's parents well because they lived 8 hours away, but I have two vivid food memories from them. First was the jar of weird white stuff in the basement - when I finally asked about it, I found out it was homemade sauerkraut. I never got to taste any of it, probably because I called it weird. The other was the inexplicably pink hardboiled eggs - my first encounter with pickled eggs. Which I hated on first taste - I loved hard boiled eggs, and this seemed like such a waste. My mother's parents, on the other hand, were a much bigger factor in my life. Sadly, Grandma was a stereotypical midwestern cook most of the time, as she'd grown up on a farm near Omaha. Food was uninspired but always available. She was also the perpetrator of the red jello salad with the canned fruit cocktail in it and a dollop of Hellman's mayonnaise on top, and the lime jello salad with the pineapple and cottage cheese. Which we always had to "try" to be nice to Grandma. But Grandma did some pretty good baking. When we were younger, Gram would make us "doll cakes" for our birthday - where the cake is baked in a bowl, then turned upside down, a cylinder hollowed out in the middle for an 11.5" fashion doll (whose legs were carefully wrapped in plastic wrap), then the whole thing would be decorated with piped frosting designs to make a dress, doll torso included. I know I've posted this here before in some other thread, but I also learned from Gram the difference between difficult and time consuming. She was making some miniature eclairs for some church function or another, and grumbled the whole time about how difficult they were. I watched the whole process, and it struck me that nothing was taking a lot of concentration or deftness, it was just taking time. It was a valuable lesson - and the eclairs were pretty good, too. Marcia.

So far, so good. It turned out a couple of our friends had more or less the same resolution, so we're planning to try the new places together as much as possible. We went to a relatively new place that's always busy last month. We can't figure out why they're always busy. It was lousy. We give them 6 months unless something drastically changes. Ahead of schedule. Three new recipes last month. Sadly, not out of the cookbooks, but hey, new recipes are new recipes. Still unemployed . I have done a lot of updating on my resume, and it just needs a little more editing. I'm working on it. Not yet, but I'm starting to realize that this one hinges on whether I can FIND any new vegetables that are unfamiliar to me. The Whole Foods here doesn't even carry any Asian/Italian eggplants anymore, and our Asian markets are pretty much bereft of produce. But if I can find 'em, I'll buy 'em and figure out what to do with 'em. Sure have been! And so they have . Marcia.

Add me in with the prefer the written list. It gives me time to imagine how the flavors go together and decide which combination would be most delightful that night. If I have to rely on memory, I'm much less likely to order a special unless something really jumps out at me. If prices aren't mentioned, and a special sounds good to me, I'll always ask "....and how much is that?" I am not ordering something without knowing how much it is. To be honest, if the specials are on a blackboard, again, unless something really jumps out at me, I'm probably going to forget all about them by the time I get to my table. Marcia.

Good luck to all of you! It's a hard habit to change, but I have no doubt that if you guys have decided you're going to change it, then change it is exactly what you're going to do. Marcia.

Chocolate cake and a shot of really good bourbon. Marcia.

At the local boozeateria they ask for proof from everyone. There's a sign at the start of the checkouts that says "Please Have ID Ready". And they do check everyone - from folks who have obviously been receiving the senior citizens' discount for years to kids who don't look old enough to be out on their own, let alone buy beer. I'm sure it's a lot of CYA on their part, but it's also extremely even handed. Marcia.

Sadly, yes. I've overheard some not particularly polite remarks about other diners who were eating Continental style. A friend of mine who lives outside the US has commented before that he's heard others sniggering about someone eating American style. I guess rude people are all over. And I completely agree - there are so many more real problems to worry about. Like how the steak is cooked, if it's seasoned properly, and what sides it comes with . Marcia.

I won't slam you because I rarely use the cups, either. I don't want to just "get rid" of my change - we take it to the bank and it pays for some nice dinners out! If they're unhappy, well, too bad. I've probably mentioned this before, but like most of you, I've also worked customer service jobs, and it's made me both easier and tougher on other service people. Easier, because I know that a lot of things are out of their control, and yelling at them won't do any good. We're all in this together. Harder, because my customers didn't care if I didn't like my job, if my boss was going crazy (he was, quite literally), if I had a cold. My job was to do my job, and if I was unhappy, it wasn't their problem - it was mine. I don't have a lot of sympathy for their unhappiness. The worst service we had in recent memory was at a very highly rated ethnic restaurant, ethnicity omitted because the problem wasn't the ethnicity, it was the specific restaurant. When we arrived, the place was about half empty, we were shown to a table, given only a small drink menu, and then left alone. No menus, no water....and so we waited. And waited. And waited. We never saw a server, and someone who was almost certainly the owner was standing over across the room chatting with his friend. I looked pointedly at him several times, making eye contact - he just turned away. After at least 15 minutes with no menus, water, or server, we walked out, making sure to catch the owner's eye. We went down the road to a place which was one of our favorites and ended up having one of the best meals ever there. We have never been back to the first place, and never will. There are too many other restaurants which serve food as good or better and actually seem to want to serve their customers. Marcia. edited because I typo

Knife in right, fork in left, cut a piece (or two, depending on shape of steak - sometimes it doesn't make sense to just cut one), switch fork and knife between hands, eat piece(s), repeat. I know, Continental style is more efficient, but this is how I was brought up, it's neat, non-offensive, feels natural for me, and had the side benefit of slowing me down in my younger years when I had the bad habit of hoovering up my food before I could taste it. Marcia.

I've been wanting to make the Asian Salmon Laksa from Ainsley Harriott's Gourmet Express II ever since I was given the book, and this cook off was the perfect excuse to finally get it all together. I don't know about authenticity, but the soup was pretty good. It's salmon strips and bok choy in a coconut curry broth with lemon grass, shallots, ginger, and garlic, poured over rice noodles. The salmon is marinated in lime juice before cooking. I admit to monkeying with the proportions, reducing the amount of noodles and increasing the amount of bok choy, to make the dish fit into our eating plan better. I also took the liberty of garnishing with chopped cilantro and some red pepper flakes, since the red Asian chili peppers that the recipe called for are scarcer than hen's teeth in this town. I liked the basic flavors, but it lacked oomph, so I ended up squeezing lime juice over each serving - which was perfect, it was exactly that it needed. Marcia.

You didn't mention what kind of chicken you have - whole, parts, etc. My favorite spinach/chicken dish is to take chicken breasts and pound them flat (1/4"). Saute the spinach in a little olive oil and garlic, just until flavored/wilted. Then put some of the spinach with some flavorful cheese (goat cheese, feta) in the flattened chicken breasts and roll them up. Season with salt and pepper and bake until chicken is cooked through (what, about 25 minutes at 375F?) Top with diced tomatoes. Sometimes I also add a piece of bacon or pancetta or prosciutto or any thinly sliced flavorful meat to the stuffing in the roll. Marcia.

Cream cheese, bacon, sprouts, and a little thinly sliced red onion on pumpernickel. This used to be one of my favorites at a sandwich place near a company where I worked. Egg salad with bacon is good, too. Marcia.

That's funny, because before I read your text under the picture, I pointed at it and said "that's my pot!" I have that exact one, and it gets a lot of use. They're still being made, since we got it at a Farberware outlet in somewhat recent memory. I shouldn't be surprised that they show up in thrift stores. (And yeah, I drink that Safeway Select stuff, too. The Apple Cider flavor (no real apples were harmed in production) was pretty darned good!) Enjoying the blog - my, you do eat well! Marcia.

Kale with garlic, sundried tomatoes, chicken stock, and feta cheese. This is what convinced my husband that greens could indeed be good. Swiss Chard gratin. Stems cooked a little longer than leaves, drained, a little cream, some parmesan. Eat it just that way, or stick it all in a dish, top with a little more parmesan, and broil if you want to gild the lily. Marcia.

It had been a fine first date, nothing exciting, but certainly not the kind of date that makes for horror stories that you trot out over the second bottle of wine. Until the end. We were driving back, and he asked if I was hungry and would like to have dinner. I was, and I did. He suggested a Mexican place nearby that he knew and liked. I'd never heard of it, but I like Mexican, and said that it sounded good to me. He suddenly looked visibly relieved, as if a giant worry had been lifted from his shoulders. "Oh, good," he said. "I was SO afraid you wouldn't want to eat there. I always throw up when I eat at new restaurants." That's when I knew this wasn't going anywhere. Ever. The Mexican restaurant turned out to be quite good, a real family place, but I could not imagine eating there and only there for the rest of my life. Marcia.

I am going to have to try this. They look absolutely superb. Marcia.

My mother used to make that, although it was called "American Chop Suey" and did contain some chopped celery (and maybe water chestnuts?) when she made it. Otherwise, that's it. And it's pretty good. Especially leftovers. Marcia. lowbrow to the last

I never thought we needed a chest freezer, since there are only the two of us, but after sort of inheriting one (long story), I don't know how I'd do without. It has allowed me to take excellent advantage of sales on things like meat and bread, and freeze stocks and pesto. I can buy the big bag of meatballs at Sam's Club and not worry that it'll take up room for months while we work our way through it. We get snowed in here on and off, and it's just nice to know we don't have to worry about food if that happens unexpectedly. The downside is that yes, you do have to go through it and rotate things out. (As I found out recently when I found a beef roast from 1998.) We keep ours in the garage, and it came in handy this summer when my husband accidentally locked me out of the house (he's still apologizing). Since I was doing yard work the garage door was open, so I rummaged around in the chest freezer and found an ice pop to sustain me while I thought of all the things I was going to say when he got home . Marcia.