eunny jang

I mentioned in the "Dinner" thread my favorite way of making green beans: parboiled briefly in heavily salted water and then sauteed with a little olive oil and a little whole-grain mustard, just till the seeds start to pop and the beans are heated through. Pepper if it needs it. It's a great side dish that takes about five minutes to make, pleases a lot of people, and offends almost no one. It goes well with a lot of things. I also love green beans cooked very quickly in a scalding hot pan with a little peanut oil and crushed red pepper until they get charred spots. I usually drizzle these with a little sesame oil.

I'm pretty sure this is available -- even to folks other than Dear Leader -- in Japan as well. Sashimi cut off "living" fish is available in some mainstream sashimi restaurants in the U.S. as well. I know of at least two in Northern Virginia.

Smells like death, I agree. But it's amazing how it rounds things out, adding some depth to even simple, contrasting flavors - sesame oil and rice vinegar is oil and vinegar. Add a little fish sauce and it's suddenly a flavor that just feels "fuller" in your mouth. Use just a little and apply heat - think of it like anchovies - there are lots of things that suddenly taste indefinably different with anchovies added, even if there's no whiff of fish about them. Oh, and quality brands really makes a difference. But yeah, it smells awful. My boyfriend and I always crack ourselves up thinking of horrendous things you could do with straigh fish sauce every time I cook with it. Spraying it into the air vents in someone's car is about the worst we've come up with so far (barring a few possibilities too disgusting to mention to innocent bystanders). All that said, I don't think the fish sauce would have been the magic fix for your Bittman recipe.

Boy, Bella Roma really WAS bad, wasn't it? I ate brunch there a couple Sundays when I lived on Monroe a couple years ago. Terrible, terrible terrible.

Maple syrup was put on earth to be the companion of the lonely sage-spiced breakfast sausage. And corned beef hash, too. With Tabasco added. Vinegary and oniony and salty and sweet. And pancakes. And yogurt. And ice cream. And bananas. And butter. Yeah, butter.

UGH. There's nothing wrong with having jarred salad dressing on-hand - sure, it's expensive, it's sweetened, it's not hand-whisked by virgins during a full moon, blah blah blah. But it takes up almost no room in the fridge, it's good to give guests options, and sometimes it's just what you want. Who cares? I fail to see why it's regarded as a skeleton in the foodie closet. I make the same side salad over and over - cress with lemon, olive oil, parmesan and anchovy, or sometimes greens with sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar and Korean chile powder. That said, sometimes nothing will do but Wishbone Italian (served on iceberg lettuce and carrot shreds by my mom at any "American-style" meal we had )

You know, I actually really like Guapo's for what it is (does that make me a bad person?). My biggest problem with them is that I always leave smelling like a fajita.

This looked so delicious I toddled over to the bookstore, bought the cookbook, and had it for dinner last night. I'd planned to get home at six so we could eat by 8:30, but the rain here turned my six-mile over-the-bridge-into-the-city-against-rush-hour-traffic-normally-fifteen-minute reverse commute into an 1.5 hour debacle . We didn't eat till ten, but man, was it good . Haricots verts, parboiled and finished with grainy mustard (the best possible way I know of to prepare green beans, better than with almonds or mushrooms or even bacon, sorry sorry) and orzo pilaf with tangy-sweet oven-dried grape tomatoes on the side. Excellent rainy-night dinner.

I love chimichurri - yours looks wonderful! Try putting a tiny bit of cumin in some time - it really rounds out the flavor without being domineering or harsh. I am really enjoying this blog, by the way.

Oh. I thought maybe it was a chicken-jerky kind of thing. I'm a big fan of the original Cow Tails myself. What is it with naming candy after meat?

As long as we're talking about bad cooking... I love burnt and almost-burnt anything - toast, crusts on meat, cheese, potatoes, pizza...mmmm, carcinogens.

?? people actually eat this?

What is a Chick-o-stick?

When I was really sick with fever, my mom would bring up juk (Korean congee, I guess) on a tray with a tiny dish of soy and a little dish of slivered scallions. I'd take a scallion thread on a spoon, dip the very tip in soy, and then a scoop of congee. There is nothing as delicious as this, sick or not sick. As I got better, things would start getting added to the bowl - bits of meat or fish; more vegetables, a cracked raw egg.

Whichever beef jerky is marked as "peppered" flavor. Tabasco Slim Jims if no one's looking. Cracklings if no one's around, particularly anything marked as "hot barbeque", but never pork rinds. Salt and vinegar or salt and pepper chips. Skor bars. Coffee. Yuck. I don't think I ever realized how gross I was until this exact moment.

Korea - barbeque or bibimbap and soju. Ireland - corned beef and cabbage? I think I remember reading somewhere that this is a myth and that no one in Ireland actually eats it. Guiness, of course, or a more general "the pint". Spain - paella and sangria? Aquavit to accompany smoked salmon, smorgasbord, black bread, etc. from the north.

My boyfriend made salty, peppery steaks and a little green salad. He garnished the plate with fresh blackberries. He's wonderful.

Pickles, pickles, pickles! An excellent stand-in for a salad during the summer. Judy Rogers has an excellent one in the Zuni Cafe cookbook.

If the finished product will be saucy and messy to stick fingers into, peel and behead. If not, leave everything on. I love amaebi. And I love sucking the heads of any shrimp, deep-fried to a crunch or boiled or sauteed or grilled or...or....

Is it a Uiguhr restaurant?

I re-read Angela's Ashes while on vacation, and Frank McCourt's forever down-and-out family eats pig's head, year after year, for Christmas dinner. I think they boiled it with onions, cabbage and potatoes and ate it with mustard. Seeing as how that doesn't sound too exciting, I think bleud'auvergne went on a quest for authentic tete de veau and did a beautiful little photoessay and step-by-step. I'll try to find it and link to it. Would such a thing be possible with a pig's head? Could you get the butcher to take it off and skin it for you? Also, I think the Joy of Cooking still has a recipe for a complicated stuffed boar's head. Both of these might be fun (if super-ambitious) side projects.

pistachios and almonds, eaten out of hand, for me. I love almonds plain, and flavored any way - candied, honey-roasted, salted, toasted with olive oil, salt and rosemary, tossed with curry spices, anything. They're such an excellent flavor vehicle. I always loved the opening line in Love in the Time of Cholera - but I've never really thought of what bitter almonds were. Are they the almonds I love, but green and cyanotic? Are they something different altogether?

Yes!! ARRRGGGH. Oh, and: Hahahah.

I always tip about 10% for takeout. Likely a bartender or waiter had to take the time to take the order, assemble the salad and put together the bag. Depending on the restaurant, he packed it up, too. Not to mention that he has to tip out and pay taxes on it (which, I know, we've gone over in exhaustive detail, but it's worth mentioning).

Beautiful! Last night, I made a pie with the previous night's leftover roast chicken, peas, pearl onions, and some stock I had knocking around in the back of the freezer. Silly thing to make in the middle of summer, I know, but it was what we were both in the mood for. It had a bottom crust of plain pie dough, and a top crust rolled out from my first attempt at puff pastry - it turned out really well, buttery and flaky and crisp. Roasted cauliflower and garlicky spinach and tomatoes on the side. We turned the air way, way down and pretended it was winter