purplewiz

The Las Vegas episode taught me something important: I can get a deep fried Twinkie in Las Vegas any time. This is important because deep fried Twinkies are on my top 10 list of foods I want to try before I die. Our state fair, which I thought was my only chance of trying one, is extraordinarily inconveniently timed for me - I missed it AGAIN this year. I have been wondering if I'll ever be able to knock this one off the list and fill that spot with something less embarrassing. Now I know there's hope. Who says that TV isn't educational? Marcia. who does not want to make a steady diet of such things, but dammit, she wants to TRY it.

It all depends. Are the bagels fresh? What kinds of cream cheese are there? Are there onion or garlic bagels? Or are they - gasp - those frozen Lender's bread donuts that have the effrontery to call themselves bagels? And the danish - are they cheese? Are they the good kind with the dry, crumbly cheese that's not too sweet but melts in your mouth, or is it that runny stuff that always tastes a bit off? Are they glazed shiny on top? Or are they those prepackaged things you can get in a vending machine? Worse - are they those prepackaged almond danish, which I won't eat on a bet? If we have fresh bagels and the good kind of cheese danish, one of each. If we have Lender's bagels and prepackaged danish, I'll just go out for something to eat. And yes, I'm with you, tryska - English muffins trump both. Especially toasted with all that butter dripping everywhere. Marcia. who likes edit because spelling errors happen in between proofreading and hitting "add reply"

Those bagels are beautiful and look delicious! Marcia.

I love lamb. My mother used to make a lamb curry once in awhile, or roast a leg of lamb. It was even good with that mint jelly . The best preparation I've ever had was a leg that was roasted on a rotisserie - I know they had garlic slices in it, what all else they did I don't know, but it was heavenly. I hardly ever cook it simply because of economics - it's hideously expensive here compared to pork, chicken, and beef. I think the last time I priced it it even blew bison out of the water. I wish I'd written down the numbers, because at the time of the last price check I asked an Australian friend to check what it was going for in his local market, and if I remember correctly, he was paying about half what we were per pound. (We had a lot of fun converting AUD and kilos to USD and pounds ). Marcia.

I'm going to cry. Really. Gads, they look SO good. This brings back memories of a Chinese place in Mountain View, CA whose name I've temporarily forgotten and will probably remember the minute I hit Add Reply, one of the few good places open late on Sundays. When we were getting back from weekend trips we'd drop in there on the way home for lotus leaf fried rice - it was a perfect supper. Another memory: we used to use these to torture people who were new to using chopsticks . They're among my favorites, probably partially because I learned the technique early. Thanks for sharing your dim sum with us, even though I'm insanely jealous. The nearest dim sum to here is not very near at all. I'm glad you all had such a fantastic meal! Marcia.

My first rule of eGullet: read the forums ONLY WHEN FULL. (Dinner ended about 20 minutes ago.) In my experience, many emotions masquerade as hunger. Part of my own adventure in getting myself straightened out about food was to learn to distinguish between them - to recognize when I was really hungry, or at least in need of energy, as opposed to feeling something else and eating in response to it. It's still very difficult for me to recognize when I need to eat due to a lot of issues, but I'm very glad I've gotten much better at it. This is why I also eat on a schedule - or at least have a schedule where I ask myself if I want to eat. Certain smells get the old gastric juices going. Bacon and coffee were mentioned - for me, also add chocolate. Roast beef. Ground beef and onions browning together (one of my 10 favorite smells ever). Then there are times when I just want a certain taste in my mouth. It has nothing to do with actual hunger, but the desire to experience flavor. Marcia.

This thread inspired me to go check the back of the canned goods shelf to verify that my guess was right - and it was. There are cans of Libby's Pumpkin and Jellied Cranberry sauce - one of which had leaked, so it is now in the garbage. I figure these date sometime from the late 90's. There's also a canister of tamarind paste that dates from around 2000. I hope it's still ok! Until earlier this summer, though, the oldest thing in my cabinets was a box of toothpicks I bought in 1986. It took me that long to use up the box of 750. Marcia.

*sigh* This dinner is what happens when two different dinners you have planned crash head on with a project you're desperately trying to finish. Yes, that's a pork chop. I had been planning to bake chicken breasts, so I'd mixed up a pretty standard coating for them: dijon mustard, dash of ground chipotle, dash of honey, and mayonnaise. But for some reason I defrosted pork chops. Not wanting to waste the coating, I slathered it on the pork chops and stuck them in the oven. Bad idea. The coating crusted on top, then slid off the chop. The undercoating never really solidified because the pork is somewhat fattier than chicken. Thus we have a white pork chop. The green stuff is zucchini alfredo. It's something I've made many times before - zucchini, shaved thin with a mandoline or vegetable peeler, blanched, shocked, drained very well. Make an alfredo sauce in the pan, mix in the parmesan well, right before service toss together and serve. I love the texture of the zucchini "noodles" and they balance the rich sauce nicely. Except for some reason I didn't blanch the zucchini, I threw it in to the sauce raw. No, I don't know what I was thinking. The raw zucchini gave up all its liquid, the sauce split, the parmesan seized and stuck to the bottom of the pan, and you see the results. About the only good thing I can say about this dinner is that it was not so bad it had to be thrown out and dinner eaten elsewhere. (That's my standard for a bad meal - yes, I've reached those depths before!) Other than the pork chop being a little overdone, it actually tasted reasonably good. But what a train wreck on the plate! (At least my project is done!) Marcia. who posted the poached pears from dessert to the dinner thread because they looked and tasted spectacular. (and who can't spell, apparently.)

I love diners. I grew up in NJ, and I learned from an early age that if you order the club sandwich in a diner, you will almost never go wrong. Sadly, we really don't have any diners like that out here in CO. But your pictures brought back memories of eating with my grandparents - they loved diners, and must have known about every one of them in a 20 mile radius of their home. Marcia.

The first time I ate at a certain Italian restaurant, the special of the day was langoustines. I'd never had them, but since it was the first time I'd ever eaten there, I thought I should order off the regular menu. (I don't know why.) What I ordered was very good indeed, but a friend ordered the langoustines, and when I saw them, I immediately wished I'd ordered them too. So I figured the next time they had langoustines as the special, I'd order them then. To this date, they have never had them on the menu any time I've been there, some 15-odd years later. I still regret not ordering those langoustines. Marcia.

That looks wonderfully tasty and refreshing. What month is the recipe from? Marcia.

Dinner ended up in the Gallery Of Regrettable Food. Don't ask. Dessert, however, fared much better: Bosc pears poached in brandy, water, and Splenda, then the sauce reduced to a couple tbsp, and a dollop of vanilla yogurt and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. It was just wonderful. Marcia.

Don't Ask. Just....Don't Ask. Marcia.

I think I forgot to mention in my earlier posting that the dinner that night was a fixed menu - the only choices were if you wanted drinks or dessert. It was also years before we'd changed our eating habits, so the pasta (and I think there was a bread basket, but this was many years ago, before I was really a foodie! ) should have been just fine - but again, I don't remember it in detail. I just remember stopping for a burger. (And so as not to defocus this thread, I will be happy to address our current eating plan via PM.) Marcia.

I took in all of my green tomatoes just before it snowed (!), and I keep them in a paper bag in one of the cabinets and in the pantry. I find they ripen up just fine given time - last year we were eating our own tomatoes through the top of December, and this year, given the lateness of the freeze and the generosity of the plants, I expect to be eating them through Christmas. Even ripened in a paper bag, they beat the heck out of grocery store tomatoes. Marcia.

I have two problems with vegetarian restaurants. The first is purely personal - we eat a high protein, reduced carbohydrate eating plan. Sadly, this doesn't leave too many purely vegetarian options. The second is best told anecdotally. Some years ago, when we were still living in the Bay Area, my vegetarian sister was visiting the area over her birthday, and wanted to have her birthday dinner at Greens. It sounded fine to me (this was before we changed how we eat), so reservations were made and we all went. While I don't remember the dinner in detail, I do remember one course was vegetables served en papillote, and the vegetables were absolutely perfectly cooked. The main course was a vegetable pasta with a lemon sauce, nicely balanced, and well done. Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake. It was, in short, an exquisite meal. And halfway home, my husband and I stopped for a burger. Because we were still hungry. My best guess is that over time, you and your body learn to feel full on vegetables, but even though I know they served plenty of food, and it was good food, it just wasn't providing the signals I was used to. It made it sadly unsatisfying. Marcia.

For dinner, one of the infinite variants on carnitas, served on a garlic herb tortilla, shredded colby jack cheese, perfectly ripe avocado, salsa, sour cream, and homegrown green onions: Served with a tossed salad loaded with homegrown cherry tomatoes. There's something marvelously decadent about eating homegrown tomatoes when it's snowing outside. (It was 80 on Saturday.) Marcia.

I'm just going to go cry quietly now. That looks...somewhere beyond exquisite. Marcia.

Yes, tossed salad was a staple on my parents' dinner table. It was iceberg lettuce most of the year, with that "weird" (at least to us kids' eyes) leaf lettuce in the summer from the garden. Almost always tomatoes, cucumbers when they weren't too expensive, green onion, and bell pepper rings. Dressing was Wishbone Italian, Seven Seas Green Goddess (still a favorite), or some gloppy, overly sweet red stuff that was either French or Russian or something. I don't know, I never ate it, even then I didn't like sweet dressings. This was in the days before Ranch dressing. A related treat in the summer was Mom's Wilted Lettuce Salad, made when the leaf lettuce really got going and she had to use it somehow. It is basically leaf lettuce, crumbled bacon, and a hot dressing of bacon grease, white or cider vinegar, and sugar. I still make it once in awhile, and I still love it. I serve a tossed salad on the side more nights than not. No iceberg lettuce, though - I like the various prewashed bagged mixes a lot better. Still have tomatoes most nights (homegrown when they're available, and by the time all my green ones ripen it'll be Christmas), green onions, cucumbers - but sometimes celery, feta cheese, sunflower seeds, peanuts, bacon bits, radishes, red onion, pea pods, or whatever else looked good in the store. Dressings also vary more - yes, we always have Ranch around, but there's also Marie's Super Blue Cheese, Annie's Goddess, Drew's Sundried Tomato....and once in awhile, I'll mix up a vinaigrette. Honestly, though, I don't like my own vinaigrettes any better than most of the bottled dressings, so I only make it when I'm looking for that exact flavor profile. If I don't serve a salad, I'll almost always serve some other kind of green - either a slaw of some sort, or a cooked kale or chard dish. Sometimes I just do a mixed chopped vegetable salad with an experimental dressing - sometimes these come out well, sometimes they don't! Marcia.

If you have a choice, whole milk is probably your best bet, but if you only have 1% or 2%, they'll work fine. I use 1% because that's what we have, and since I rarely eat a bechamel just plain - usually it's a base for a cheese sauce or for layering in a casserole - how rich the sauce tastes alone is a minor factor. If it's a major factor, I'll throw in a tablespoon or so of heavy cream and be done with it. I've made very nice souffles with 1% milk bechamels. I should mention the caveat that unless I'm doing a head to head taste test and paying attention, I can't taste the difference between 1%, 2%, and whole milk. (Skim milk is the exception, which always tastes like water you've rinsed a paintbrush out in.) Marcia.

I haven't been there yet - it's on the list to try sometime. I agree with other posters that there are far more options in the south end of town - but sadly, I live in the north end of town, and by the time I get down there and find parking I could be most of the way to Denver....which is what we often do :-). Marcia.

Tonight's predicted to be our first freeze of the fall (only about three weeks late!), so to celebrate, as it were, I made up a chicken vegetable barley soup: Onions, mushrooms, carrots from the garden, celery, garlic, lots of thyme (also from the garden) and some chicken stock and black pepper to season. I apparently had gotten some other kind of barley other than the usual quick cooking, as it took forever to cook and sank to the bottom (tasted good, though). No salt needed as the leftovers from the rotisserie chicken were plenty salty/flavorful. Best of all, it made enough for another dinner. I love convenience foods :-). Marcia.

You are not the only person who does this. I forget items that are written on the list sitting Right In Front Of Me in the cart, and that I've read over three times right before I get in the checkout line to make sure I've bought everything on the list. I actually have several lists running at any given time - the "general grocery" list, and then separate specific lists for specific stores where I like to get certain things. So lists never end, they only....mutate. The tomatoes look wonderful! Marcia.

I always enjoy reading this thread, especially when I'm looking for new ideas for dinner. The other night I wanted to use some of our tomatoes and basil in an insalata caprese, but found out I didn't have any mozarella....except the string cheese sticks. So I sliced up a couple of those, scattered them over, and decided they made really cute polka dots. A little olive oil, some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper finished it off. I also wanted to post a picture of last night's dinner, a tandoori/yogurt marinated chicken breast over creamed eggplant (from Smithy's foodblog) with a beautiful saute of pattypan squash, tomatoes, and green onions, but the pictures didn't turn out at all. Thankfully, dinner did. Marcia.

You might want to check out this thread. Sadly, other than the Broadmoor, there really isn't much high end dining in town - and ever since their remodel I have been less than impressed with them. (Although there is a new "American Bistro" opening at the resort sometime Real Soon Now, with Jacques Pepin's son in law as the head chef.) The Air Force Academy is indeed here, but during Parents' Weekend (or whatever the official name is), they seem to crowd into Red Robin, Buca di Beppo, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and the like. Marcia.