Katherine

Barbarians.

vego-fruito-fungo-porketarian

On the contrary, I find this statement to be entirely objective. Subjective is when you balance a combination of factors when determining how good something tastes to you, only one of which is how it would taste if you didn't know where it was from, who raised it and how, what the ingredients were, which factory it came from, etc. In other words, something that came out dead last in a blind tasting might be judged by some to taste good because it's raised according to certain standards, or it's supposedly really good for you. More specifically, my mother, who was capable of being a really good cook, would feed us stuff that would have tasted like crap to any objective person, full of brewer's yeast, raw soy, liver powder. She thought it tasted good because it was "good for you". Taste is taste. When you weigh other considerations, you may be making educated judgements, but they are no longer based on taste.

[getting philosophical]There are many ways to make a hash. This is what I'm into now. I tend to think, though, that for me, it would be a matter of a different way to assemble the same ingredients, whereas other ingredients lists might be too bland or not balanced to my taste. (Hold the garlic, puhlease!)[/getting philosophical] Actually, this recipe derives from my oven-roasting of brisket. With Walmart brisket, there's always plenty of fat. Beef fat goes well in a beef risotto (between that and the jus I added, my daughter couldn't stop talking about how the beef flavor exploded in her mouth), Chinese stirfry with beef, possibilities are endless. Maybe Marlene can post it. The software wouldn't accept units when I tried to import my ingredients list. It won't let me edit them in, either.

I never have leftover potatoes, so I fry the potatoes up like homefries first, and add the rest of the stuff at the last minute, which leaves the potatoes still crispy. HASH 1/4 cup beef fat trimmed from cooked beef, diced, or solid fat removed from the top of the chilled stock (you saved it, didn't you?) or butter or oil 2 cups diced potatoes 1 large onion 1/2 diced red pepper (optional) 1-2 cups of meat, diced seasonings 4 eggs, for poaching If using trimmed beef fat, fry until cubes are rendered and set them aside. Divide fat up between 2 frying pans. In the first, on high, put the diced potatoes, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are attractively brown. Season with salt, plenty of crushed Korean red pepper, some hot pepper or paprika, and freshly ground black pepper. Lower the heat to medium and cover. Meanwhile, in the second frying pan, saute the onion over medium heat until it starts to become translucent, add the diced red pepper (if you are using it), heat for a few minutes, stirring a few times. Then add the meat, season, and cover the pan, heating until all is soft and moist. To serve, mix the two together, and taste to adjust the seasonings. Serve topped with the poached eggs, with buttered toast on the side. To eat, smash the poached eggs into the hash, and mix well. Douse with enough ketchup to qualify as a vegetable in the USDA school lunch program. Yum.

I don't get out of state much, on my budget, but last time I was at the 88 in Boston I saw vegetarian "intestines"... I'm thinking now that for the fakin' I made 2 layers separately, which probably took about 15 minutes each, so maybe 45 minutes of work, max. Plus cooking time. I could probably put together a unit, but I don't have recipes, so the need to develop them would prevent me from giving you a time frame.

Katherine, I am glad you mentioned seitan. Seitan is a wheat-gluten protein alternative, and it has a delightfully chewy texture...not spongy-ish like frozen or fried tofu. It's used at many Asian vegetarian restaurants as a meat substitute. I have very little experience working with it, which is mostly why I didn't cover it in my lesson. What do you like to do with it? And what's your technique for making it? My experience with seitan is entirely through experimentation, and I've never had it in a restaurant (we don't get authentic Chinese food around here). I wouldn't dream of spending $4 on a little packet of pre-seasoned seitan that will serve two if they're not hungry, when gluten flour is going for $1.95 a pound in the natural foods store. Although she was never a vegan, my daughter used to belong to Food not Bombs, a group that would distribute vegan food in a city square on Sunday afternoons. We spent most Sunday mornings cooking exotic stuff to wow'em. As teenaged vegans who lived mostly on kale and oats, they were easily impressed. I've always made seitan from gluten flour. I mix it up with water (and salt) in the Kitchenaid. You can cut it into bite-sized pieces and stew them in a savory broth, poach it whole, and then cut it, or deep fry pieces until puffy, then freshen and cook in a sauce. I've made it in Chinese or Italian sauteed eggplant; green or red chili; kung pao seitan; cutlets wrapped around a tofu filling that resembles ricotta cheese, baked with a red sauce; stewed with mushrooms in soy sauce and sesame oil. Our all-time favorite was the time I colored half of it with cocoa, paprika, and beet juice. I made it up with enough liquid so it was shapeable, and made two layers and sandwiched them together so they were striped like pork belly. Then I steamed it until it held its shape, and stewed it in a broth that contained (among other things) sugar, vinegar, spices, and mesquite flavored oil. Mmmm, fakin'! It tasted waaay too much like pork. I know vegans who don't eat seitan either because it too closely resembles meat, or because it's "too processed". Each to his own.

I found 5th Annual Practical Short Course on Texturized Vegetable Protein & Other Soyfoods organized by the Food Protein Research & Development Center, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, The Texas A&M University System, In cooperation with American Soybean Association / WISHH. College Station, Texas September 14-19, 2003. More than you ever wanted to know about TVP. Wow.

I don't like fake meat products - most frozen veggie burgers taste like dog food to me. Tofu is an inadequate substitute for meat, but good in its own right. I think that is how it should be taken. I like seitan, I've made it myself many ways, yummy and economical. In teeny packets, preseasoned from your grocery processed food case, it's a ripoff.

Actually, people who consistently serve good food get bored with the routine nature of that task and decide to get "creative". The people who you're talking about have no access to the sorts of resources that might drive them to emulate Ferran Adria. So for them creativity can mean a variety of things, from fat-free cooking, to processed ingredients, to untested newspaper and manufacturer's recipes. None of these things are an improvement over home cooking.

If you search the web for "pork cake", you'll end up with a bunch of recipes for a spice cake made with salt pork for shortening, a real WWII artifact. You could probably modify one to add chocolate...

There seems to be so much flexibility nowadays. When I first went to college (the only time I was a resident student) you had to buy the meal plan, which was the only one offered, meals were served at a set time, and the dorm was the only place food was served. We were not allowed food preparation or storage appliances in our rooms. My first dorm was a house, with a kitchen, which meant you could store things in the fridge, but other people would steal your food. My daughter has a meal plan that gives her 10 meals a week, plus points that can be used at local fast food places that deliver to her dorm. Plus, she pretty much knows in advance which meals are worth eating and which should be skipped. So she can steal food in advance for the times when she knows there'll be nothing to eat.

It's such a pity that some people who are in a position to do so will take the whole pie for themselves, when with a little teamwork, not only will there be some for everyone, but the pie can be much bigger.

I used to sneak in bags of real buttered freshly-popped popcorn. I had a boyfriend who could spend $20 on junk food (stale bulk candy, stale popcorn lubed with imitation butter-flavored recycled motor oil, and vats of watered down soda) at the movies just for himself, most of which ended up uneaten and thrown away. I had trouble identifying with that concept, especially because we really couldn't afford to throw away that much money. I did used to patronize a theater/restaurant (since closed) where the food was really bad, and it was impossible to complain unless you were willing to miss parts of the movie while you were looking for someone to bitch at. We gave up on the food, but I miss having glasses of real beer to drink while watching a flick out.

I spent 3 weeks last summer in Santiago de Compostela, which is an old city, a big tourist town, but mostly European touists, not Americans. I ate all my meals alone, and never got a single look because of it. There are lots of single travelers in that city, as it's a big pilgrimage site, but I don't know if my experience would apply anywhere else in Spain. I would definitely recommend you make a trip through Galicia and stay in the old city if you're in northern Spain. Very friendly and charming.

When I'm at home I drink water out of a cobalt blue beer glass. When I'm out and need to bring a bottle, I put it in a toggle-top glass bottle. It impresses the heck out of everyone, tastes good that way, and is easy to clean and sterilize.

That's the law, yes. Non-profit agencies are able to be classified as non-profits because they provide services that benefit the public in some way. That's why they are able to utilize vounteer labor. Free labor at for-profit businesses provides no benefit to the public at large, and questionable benefits to the individuals who have been convinced to work for free. Actually, I think it's hypocritical for profit-making enterprises to pocket money from the free labor of unpaid workers by claiming that they were somehow providing intangible benefits equivalent to earning wages and getting benefits. If you don't believe in labor laws, you don't. I do.

Thanks a lot!

I found a restaurant named Babbo's in Pennsylvania that has better service than food. It must be a karma thing.

It's conditions like these that are leading grad students to unionize.

Anybody know if you can get mooncake molds online?

They get so many love/hate posts on Babbo and Lupa there that Jim Leff posted a thread about just that.

I'm not familiar with the movie industry, but I am with academia. What unpaid jobs are you referring to? Here instructors are paid per class taught, assistants per hour worked, and graduate students are given a stipend (and forgiven tuition) . None of these are ever hired by the university where they are studying or teaching. It would be exploitative for the University that had no intention of hiring someone to work them unpaid for an extended period of time. Besides being against the law.

Major in oenology, minor in pork products.