Katherine

What I think is that you need to get that word "hip" defined for you. There are lots of hip urban places where the hipness is provided by a trendy crowd which doesn't care that the food sucks.

In my reality, food which is clearly not going to be eaten is fair game for the other hunter-gatherers around the hearth. The correct phrasing is, "Aren't you going to eat your pickles? Can I have them?" Foie gras stuffed prunes. How you can put together two perfectly good foods and come up with something so foul is a mystery to me. The smell of fruit flavored chocolates can ruin the interior of a candy shop for me. I think it must have something to do with the blend of artificial flavors used, and the way they permeate each other, because I have no problem with pastries with chocolate and fruit. That's interesting. I think this is a result of the health-conscious eating here. Skinless breast meat has a whole lot less fat that dark meat with the skin. Funny thing is that in Asian societies, the dark meat is preferred because it has more fat.Yes, hold the hard, dry chicken breasts, please. I temporarily lost my sense of smell a few years back at the tail end of a bout with bronchitis. It took a while before I realized that there wasn't anything wrong with the mint or sage, but with me. I hear the food tasted different then. I don't think I ate more desserts, but my daughter says everything had lots more black and red pepper. And grease. Oh, yes, and the smell of airline coffee, enough to make me nauseated. Not remotely tempting.

Emeril added finely diced onions and celery to his, and thickened it with roux. Good ol' New Englander.

Sweetened Bean Paste [Koshi An] 12 oz. dried beans (I've used red beans or black beans. The original recipe does call for azuki beans) water 1/4 cup mirin 1½ cups sugar 1/8 cup light corn syrup or millet jelly ¼ teaspoon salt Soak the beans overnight. Bring to a boil and drain. Cover with fresh water and cook until soft. Puree until smooth, put into a nonstick pan, and heat gently while stirring, until it simmers (you want the sugar to melt and thin it down here). Put through a sieve to remove skins. Discard skins, then put the bean puree back in the pan and add millet jelly or corn syrup. Over low heat and stirring constantly, cook until enough water has cooked off to make it very thick. Freezes well.

Before reaching enlightenment, I used to make redeye gravy by simmering heavy cream in the ham drippings, and adding coffee after thickening had occurred. Turns out I didn't like the real thing after all.

Meatloaf doesn't provide decent drippings to make a good gravy. Cheat and make a brown sauce.

I fry my own. The trick is, fresh tofu has too much water to fry as is, you need to press some out of it. Buy regular or extra firm tofu, slice or cut into cubes, depending on what your dish is. Lay out several sheets of paper towels on a plastic cutting board, put the tofu, cover it with more paper towels, then another cutting board. Put a weight on top of it for about half an hour, removing the soggy paper towels to wring them out once or twice. Then fry in peanut or other oil at 350º until brown. Rinse in hot water before putting in the dish, as Jinmyo says.

You are assuming that ordering wine while dining out is like going to the doctor, having insurance. People go as often, whether there is a specific need or not. So for people with insurance, the price does not affect the demand for medical services. I propose that much of the time, it is more like going to the doctor not having insurance. You go if you can afford to, and sometimes not even then right away. In the same way, the price can have a significant impact on purchases for dining, and wine specifically. If the wine is reasonably priced, you buy more wine, you buy better wine, and you eat out more often. If the wine is outrageous, you buy a beer, or drink wine when you get home, or maybe not eat out at all.

We hit Castle in the Clouds at gate opening time, then head up through the lakes on 25, take 93 to Plymouth, where we used to go through the Polar Caves when my daugher was small. Then head over to Shanware Pottery in Wentworth, where I buy pottery, stopping only at little antique shops along the way. From there, it's across the White Mountain National Forest, the Kankamagus Highway, down 16, and BBQ for supper. We're home by dark.

Ever notice that if you soak grains overnight, the liquid forms bubbles? I tried the following not long ago as a wild experiment, based on the idea that soluble carbohydrates rapidly ferment in the presence of airborne yeast, while the rest of the flour serves to retard fermentation. I've made naturally leavened bread before, but it took 3-4 days to rise, which doesn't work in the summer, as by that time the exterior is furry and blue. Proper sourdough doesn't work for me, as I rarely bake bread. I was prepared to chuck it as a failure. I was surprised to see that it worked great. Starterless sourdough rye bread Soak 1 cup of whole rye berries in water to cover for 24 hours, longer in the winter. Put water and rye in the blender until smooth. Scrape into a bowl, add 1¼ teaspoons salt, caraway seeds if desired, and enough whole wheat flour to make a bread dough. Knead by hand or in a stand mixer. Put in a greased pan or bowl, cover, and allow to rise 12 hours, or until doubled. Bake. It rose well, and had a nice sourdough tang.

Not that it's remotely authentic, but I make rice balls from Japanese-style rice. It's structurally sound, even if you wrap it around a hard-boiled egg. Plus, it's easy to work with. But I'm not Italian, so everything I make is by definition inauthentic. Fusion. Yum.

Ahh, but the discussion afterwards is the best part.

"A bit" off? I would scrub it up and roast it right away. That'll kill anything clinging to the exterior. I think they're going to look at you funny if you bring it back three days after you bought it. But maybe not.

Airborne alcohol vapors are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, which is why it is considered such an industrial hazard. It sounds like something a sensible person ought to avoid, but clearly sensible persons are not the ones the marketers are going to be making their money from.

Every year we eat at the Yankee Smokehouse (which is actually located in Tamworth, NH). It's a fun place, especially after a tiring day in the mountains. If you look closely at the ceramic pigs and such that decorate the place, you will see one that I gave them, a gift from a former relative that didn't go with my house - neither the relative nor the pig. They comped us dessert, but I was just glad to get rid of the ugly thing. Worst complaint: they'll put your beer in a thick glass mug which is so cold it'll freeze up solid.

Speaking of the diner being kept informed of circumstances in the kitchen... I used to have breakfast at a nice place, if a little pretentious. As I dined alone, I would arrive early to get one of the few two-tops, and clear out before a line formed out the entrance. Service was always pretty good that time of the morning on a Saturday. But one day, I waited for what must have been 45 minutes til the waitress finally told me that the chef/owner was in the middle of a telephone interview and my food would be cooked after it was done. So finally, after about an hour's wait, my food arrived with the check. I took a few bites, reached for my wallet, and before I even opened it she swooped over and asked if I needed changed. I'm a quick eater, and as I was a regular, she should have known that. Note that I said I was a regular. Haven't been back.

Not only is Gorske in the movie, but his cholesterol is 140. And he doesn't supersize, or even eat fries. I did finally see the movie. The flick was entertaining and well-made, and I enjoyed it. But I thought it was very deceptive in subtle ways. Of course they quoted obesity rates for today and years ago, and of course the comparison didn't indicate that much of the increase is related to a change in standards. Many of those people became obese overnight, the day the standards changed. Someone noted that he supersized only 9 times, which I might not have read on the screen at the end had I not stayed when my companions were trying to get me to leave. That's once every 3 days. I'm sure they showed us the video of every supersizing incident, and few if any of the non-supersizing purchases, even though they only asked him to supersize 10% of the time. But remember, the dietician told him to eat 2,500 calories a day, and he consumed 5,000, even though he was only supersizing 10% of the time. So where did all those calories come from? Think to the ordering segments. Every time he stepped up to the counter, he ordered two jumbo sandwiches, large drink (including shakes) and large fry. Every time. That's not normal, and it wasn't part of the listed protocol. He ordered 4800 calories of food a day, twice what he needed, he ate it all, and then some. Now everybody's saying that's just what the kind of people who eat at McDonald's do, because they can't help themselves, because they're victims of a BIG BAD CORPORATION. Well, no, maybe not you or me, but those people, the ignorant masses...bunch of classist dreck. I don't eat fast food, so I'm not writing as any sort of McDonald's supporter. I just think the film has been given a lot more credit than it deserves, as far as providing meaningful insight.

I understand that if you carry tapeworms, you are allowed to speak of yourself as "we", Jason.

You know, one of those things that's around the house every so often that you get to pick up after and do laundry for!! Sounds like my ex-husband. Are you his new young wife?

Man? What's a man?

yeah - that paper was 1999 right? and by all means keep up the good work with your research. that is an interesting question re: why the increase in celiac disease lately - i think still we eat a lot more wheat/corn now than we did in say 1900 because of the advent of processing food on a large scale, and Mr. Kellog et al. interesting thing, on a purely empirical basis - my roommate when i first met her was lactose intolerant. but as we've been living together for the last year or so, she has starting getting very bloated nad uncomfortable it seemed no matter what she ate. i advised on cutting out gluten, and sure enough, that's bene the culprit. she has no health insurance, so there's no definitive diagnosis of what's going on, but it was interesting to see theory in practice. for me autoimmune disorders are of particular interest because i've got autoimmune thyroiditis. It worked for me, too. There's way too much theorizing and not nearly enough real testing of basic principles. The standard American diet has never been tested, it's just considered ok by default. Yet if you give up something that bothers you, you're challenging the status quo, and threatening our way of life. If not eating wheat makes my symptoms go away, it does. If the theoreticians figure out a mechanism for this, so they do. If they don't, it's not up to me to sacrifice my lifestyle to align to the current paradigm.

I gave up wheat after finding that it inflames my arthritis. I went on an artisan bread bender, and my feet were hurting really badly. It got so I would call my boss in the next room to have her straighten out the network when it locked up. I happened to decide to low carb it for a few days, and next thing I knew I no longer was taking Advil. I haven't challenged my diet to find out whether corn or rice have the same effect, but eventually I intend to. Evolutionarily speaking, grains are a brand-new food to humans. We've only been eating them in any quantity for about 10,000 out of the million-and-a-half years we've been around. Before agriculture, it would have been impossible to harvest sufficient quantities in one place. The varieties available before selective hybridization would have been smaller and harder to clean, and raw unprocessed grains are pretty much indigestible without the technology that brought storage and cooking capabilities to neolithic humans. Many people are able to tolerate these foods, but many are not. If you compare paleolithic foods with newer neolithic foods, you would find that more people are allergic to or have intolerances to neolithic foods: wheat, dairy, soy, peanuts.

Of course it's exploitation. Breeding an animal to produce milk and meat is as close to a definition of exploitation as you can get. Suppose I had a farm on which I raised human slaves to produce milk and meat: this would obviously be a horrible form of exploitation. Ethical vegetarianism is therefore based on a judgment about the personhood of animals. But even if (as I do) you (?)choose to eat animal products, and believe that it's ethically okay, it's silly to hide from that choice by calling it a "fact of nature", rather than a conscious decision. None of these animals would exist did we not breed them into existence. Vegans would have us believe that if we didn't enslave animals, they would be happily frolicking in green pastures, living lives of fulfillment and dying of old age, surrounded by their friends and relatives. None of the plants you or I eat would exist if we had not bred them in exactly the same way we have bred animals. They are just as unnatural. "Ethical" vegetarianism is based on the premise that it is ok to eat non-sentient vegetables, but not ok to consume animals, which have brains. We are mentally capable of choosing not to eat meat, therefore it is immoral not to make that choice. Well, you are capable of choosing not to eat any living thing, and surely that would be even more moral. Humans have consumed meat for as long as humans have been humans, and on the savannah of Africa, there was darned little beans, wheat, fresh fruit, and succulent vegetables. Tim Sample, a Maine comedien, did a character who was a carnivore. He had made the conscious decision to stop eating vegetables when he looked in the eyes of a cow and saw that it was ready to die. Vegetables, he realized, were innocent and unsuspecting. I was born a carnivore. My digestive system was designed to digest meat, not leaves, twigs, and grasses. My father was a carnivore. Lucy was a carnivore. I'm ok with that. If you can't come to grips with the fact that you were born a carnivore, too, that's, well, whatever.

Here's my take on this. We are all omnivores. It is the design of our species. It is our destiny. People can choose to eliminate all animal products from their diet, but they're still omnivores. You can change yourself into a vegan, but you can't change yourself into an herbivore, nohow, noway.

Here, a landlord can evict a tenant with 30 days' notice for no reason at all, which makes it much easier to do renovations and conversions, as well as getting rid of tenants who are annoying the heck out of you, though they pay their rent. Most renters I know have been kicked out several times over the years on this basis. It makes the landlord a weirdo to only rent to vegans, and possibly a bad businessman, if it increases vacancies, but hardly "murderous". And unless your laws are very different than ours, there's nothing to sue about. As was mentioned earlier, meat eaters are not a legally protected class.