Katherine

Cakewalk, I agree with you completely. A major problem is that so often recipes are written unnecessarily imprecisely, when in fact the writer knows exactly what they intend for you to do. Gimme a break, if you know what type of chocolate works, tell me! Compounding this is the fact that a publisher would never dream of limiting the market of a book by letting naive potential buyers know that the recipes are only intended as inspiration, and shouldn't be followed precisely, but with lots of judgment. I think that books should indicate somewhere the level of expertise required, so that a beginner won't buy an expert or intermediate level book expecting to open it and make dinner. There are plenty of basic technique books out there, from the Sunset books, to Fannie Farmer and Joy of Cooking. Nobody wants to read such unglamorous books, but glitzy picture books have no room for basic technique, with one recipe facing a full-page photo.

Peanuts, beer, and kettle-style pork rinds.

People I know in this situation have made the judgment that they "don't have time to cook" based on the complexity of recipes in the glossy coffee-table cookbooks they tend to buy. I think the large number of cookbooks of this type available tends to intimidate less-experienced home cooks, who feel the bar is so high that they rarely make the attempt. Even more discouraging to them is that when they do make the attempt, they often fail, as these books were meant to be visual inspiration, ie, food porn, not working cookbooks. I gave a cooking lesson once to a woman who had put off trying bread-baking because the "ultimate recipe" she had gotten somewhere required a bunch of ingredients she had to shop for, and 5 rises. I tried to show her that making bread dough is something you can "just do". In an hour and a half we made pizza, and I showed her how she would go about using a simple dough for other things. Last I heard, she was putting off making bread again until she had acquired the perfect sourdough starter. And yes, these are people who watch 4 hours of TV a night.

I never marinate meat, dry rub at the last minute only. Marinating seems to mask the flavor of meat, which I enjoy too much to lose.

Manifold destiny

I dunno. There ARE a lot of recipes out there that are defective, or where the writer has not told you something that only he or she could have known, something that you needed to know to produce the desired result. I run into this all the time, in books and on the web. I'm an excellent cook, and often I can tell there's something missing, but there's no way to guess what it might be. There are lots of people who have such a talent for selecting recipes like these that their successes are too infrequent and unpredictable for them to learn from. It's also true that there are a lot of people who are hell-bent on not following clear instructions in a recipe. and then blame the recipe for their failures. As in, "I didn't want to have to wash out the blender, so I smashed it up with a fork, and I didn't feel like buying butter and sour cream, so I substituted margarine and cool whip. Your recipe doesn't work." I think the reliance on recipes in this country is just a reflection of the fact that Recipes in this country are generally written in such detail that you really could make them without previously having tried the food, unlike in many foreign countries, where you're supposed to know what the final product ought to be like. People nowadays are not trained to cook by someone who has a feel for cooking, but need to train themselves, and end up having to do it from a book of recipes.

I know a woman whose mother, a native of Japan, came to visit her on the coast of Maine. They went for a walk on the beach, and the older woman gathered up an armful of the seaweed (the stringy kind with the bubbles in it), took it back to the house, prepared and served it.

Yeah..... Boy, do I miss Liederkranz. Liederkranz and liverwurst on pumpernickel... sob.

Well, of course not. No kimchi.

San-J makes a tasty shoyu that's cheap enough for everyday use. I find that larger natural food stores have several brands that are equivalent, as well as smaller bottles of small-batch (like George Ohsawa) that are too expensive except for table use.

Yes, not only can you roll them out with your pasta machine, but you should, as it makes for a more uniform product.

I just had a burger (6 oz of hamburger) with 2 oz of finely chopped kimchi mixed into it before shaping. Didn't smell so good, but tasted great.

Pan-grilled rare tuna steak crusted with cracked peppercorns, mustardseed and coarse salt, and fresh corn, simmered until dry, with butter.

Not only has the Commissary been closed for a while, but since closing he opened another place on Wharf Street, ran it into the ground and closed that, too.

I think this illustrates perfectly the role of personal taste in the perception of sophistication, and thus the impossibility of codifying it as such. Some people must think "pineapple and sweetcorn" to be homely. Sweetcorn on pizza may be very popular in the UK, but to most people in the US it would seem only bizarre, and not in a good way. Edit: I'll get those quotes figured out yet.

We used to pour that leftover warm gravy over buttered toast. mmmm...

I make a rose tea that's heavenly by adding dried rosebuds that I have crushed in my fingers to jasmine tea before brewing. I can't abide sourish teas like rose hip.

I like Woodpecker cider. I find now that most American ciders (even those that didn't previously) have a strong sulfite taste from the preservatives they use. In Spain I tried Asturian cider, but found it too salty.

Spaniards would tell you that many vegetables are improved by the addition of pork, too. I agree.

What I don't understand is that I like tofu, including soft tofu, but I can't stand the taste of soy milk. Does anyone else find this to be true? I'm not a milk drinker, so it's not like I'm comparing the two. Or maybe that's it, I don't like milk, I don't like soy milk... I was familiar with the info in the story before, and I am ambivalent. I think that soy is a food to be used in moderation, not a miracle substance we should design our diet to consume as much as we can of it, nor a poison to be avoided. Americans have the unfortunate tendency to say, "A little X good, more X better, best of all to consume mass quantities." An acquaintance of mine on a trip to Spain snacked on cases of American breakfast cereal, when the local food was so good and cheap. Vegetable oil in general (aside from evoo) is a brand new component in the human diet. Nobody ate quantities of it before we had factories. We didn't evolve on it. Why would we be adapted to utilize it?

You can find that in a well-stocked pharmacy. Or you can get it from these people: http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/fixedoils.html FWIW, I tried to make a cake from cocoa butter once, but I didn't like the texture. I think it was drier and more crumbly than the buitter-based recipe it was adapted from. My mother was a health food fanatic, way back when it was totally uncool. We liked having all our meals homecooked, but it was my father who had to take us out for chocolate and hot dogs, to get us away from the proto-food bars and other pseudo foods. She still thinks white flour and rice are evil and will suck the nutrition out of other foods in the cupboards. I am much happier fixating on the pleasurable aspects of food than any medicinal/moral ones.

Get yourself a propane torch to roast those babies. The hotter you roast them, the quicker the skins blacken, and the less overcooked they will be.

The English for shiso is perilla.

To make plain bagels more flavorful, I'd use sourdough starter or retard them longer, but what I usually do is (if I'm just recycling bread dough I already have) use a topping. If making them from scratch, I use whole grain flour for flavor. I make a mean pumpernickel bagel using rye flour, dark buckwheat flour, and gluten flour (lots of seeds, sourdough if I have it). It's as dark as my cat, and a lot easier to get along with.

I nursed my daughter until she was ready to eat people food, I pumped, and so I had plenty of opportunity to taste the milk. It is maybe a little bit sweeter than cow's milk, but not noticeably so. In no way does it resemble condensed milk/corn syrup/water. Back then they used to think that children need lots of sugar to give them the calories they need to grow. You're lucky you're not diabetic.