jodicalhoun

Good ones. I like "shrimp scampi". isn't scampi well...shrimp?

Shellfish of any type. May be from growing up in the "stinking desert" and the seafood was always frozen but, even with moving to the land of Dungeness Crab I really don't like the feel of shrimp. scallops, lobster...Bwa! makes me all crawly. I mean.

Unless you are african, middle eastern, persian, afghani, indian... ← How true. And what a good way to be reminded of food's cultural diversity.

Very rare the non-Southerner who would willingly tuck into a plate of fried okra. Okra has really gotten a nasty rep for being slimey but crisply fried okra is pure heaven. How about corn bread crumbled into a glass of milk? Or green beans with fat back that have cooked all day til they are moosh. O god! now I've done it, but where will I get these things here in the North?

I always hear in my head the Mason Williams song: O them hor doovers, Ain't they neat? Little piece a cheese And a little piece a meat

The Gourmegg- have you ever seen one? It's a looooong icky tube that when you slice it, presents perfect hard boiled egg slices the equivalent of a flat of eggs per one tube. Or... The hand held blender Or..oh,oh,oh no, that was from the 1800s How about... bread machines?

A HALF FULL JAR OF DULCE DE LECHE THAT I SPREAD BETWEEN PECAN SHORTBREAD COOKIES. I FIGURE IN A WEEK OR SO, I'LL SPREAD IT ON A PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH

Jack Paar, Bea Lillie, Lucius Beebe and Mark Twain.

Okay, I don't admit this to a lot of people but...peanut butter and frosting sandwiches. Nutter Butters are left standing in the shade after this. Try it, but don't tell anyone who told you.

dear og- I live in much the same neighborhood, San Juan Islands, Washington. I picked some miner's lettuce for my lunch salad the other day, the rhubarb is ready, the chard and spinach are crisp and sweet. That seems to be it so far. The fruit trees and berry bushes are full of promising blossoms

I'd like something like a microwave only it would chill a containerl of food instantly from the inside-out. My husband just said, "How about one of those micro-chips from a 12 volt cooler/heater chest? The guts are a piezio-quartz thingie, so spread several out for a flat surface—a 'cold-plate' or even one big quartz thingie and this would take about 15000 volts to start, so you'd need to gang a bunch of small capicitors like for a tv, but the up side is you could power this thing with 9 volt battery trickle charging the capacitors for a smooth discharge—Wait! that's the guts of the Interdimension Distress Shrieker and if you turned it on, you'd be delivered directly to the King of the Potato People! Never mind."

TASTE, pure and simple. My mom gave it to me for Christmas. I love the idea and the look of it, I wish I could want to cook something from it, but it just isn't "there" for me.

Really good discussion question. I think I would qualify as a "junkie". My son has recommended a 12 step program. But, if I have the drags when I first step in the kitchen, I put on a pan of sauteing onions while I set up for production and then when "creative" time comes around, the aroma of sauteed onions has set the juices flowing. But somehow, anticipating my eater's pleasure gives me the boost to keep going. I like to visualize a crowd of happy faces before me while I cook. I'm a private chef so I have a very rare opportunity to have direct and repeated contact with my "audience".

Way long time ago (15 years maybe) my family and I were god-help-us gawkers in Victoria on vacation from Colorado. I have always enjoyed "discovering" obscure eating places that will define my memory of a place. We had wandered (much like this post) around Victoria, some museums, charming shops and decided to roam until we found "the restaurant". I think it was near the waterfront? It was called "The Flying Rhino". Eccentrically decorated with a lovely array of vegetarian food options. The Earth Mother sandwich lingers in the memory cells on my tongue and I will always aspire to living with a bathroom to compare to theirs.. The bathroom walls went up two stories painted a dreamy blue with fluffy clouds and a pink pig was suspended from above. I could have cheerfully moved into that bathroom and called it home. The next time we were on Vancouver Island it was gone. I hope it really existed.

Icebox Cake...you remember, Famous chocolate wafers alternating with slightly oversweet whipped cream in a log sort of shape, refrigerated overnight til the cookies were a bit soggy. I'm a private chef for a family with children who like to "help" in the kitchen. They adore this, they can make it themselves and it is delightfully disgusting. Anything named "icebox" would be terribly retro, don't you think? Though for "out of style" favorites, this is just the beginning for me. For instance, a wedge of iceberg lettuce, a wedge of tomato and a dollop of blue cheese...heaven.

Yes

Well, I don't think I've ever met a Haagen-Dazs I didn't like. I've always thought of myself as a bit of a maverick, trying new things, chafing at imposed restraints and yet, upon reflection,my favorite flavor is...vanilla frozen yogurt. Oh God! I'm turning into my mother!

Salt only, please. It's how the salmon is cooked that is important to me. The Pacific-Northwest has two legendary methods, one is the cedar plank grilled method. A thin plank of UNTREATED cedar that has been soaked in water a couple of hours. Then I put the cedar plank on top of the grill grate and the salmon on top of the cedar, close the grill and let the salmon cook and the cedar smolder for about 10 or 15 minutes depending on the thickness of the salmon. Don't worry about flare ups, just squirt flames out with spray bottle. More smoke, more flavor. Now for the most eccentric method of cooking salmon I've encountered. This was to feed a large film crew who really wanted a full on Pacific-Northwest salmon feed. We built a fire directly on the concrete slab behind the restaurant with Alder wood, stacked some bricks at each end and balanced a metal bed springs over the fire, when the wood was half cooked down, the whole salmon (about 20 of them, as I recall) went on the bed springs with slices of lemon inside the salmon cavity. After about 20 minutes we each took a deep breath, waded in and flipped the whole salmon over to cook the other side. Clean up consisted of asking the maintenace guy to haul the bed springs off to the dump, take the bricks back to where ever we swiped them from and hose off the ashes. Credit for this method goes out to Peggy Hovander of Glacier, Washington at the foot of Mt. Baker Ski Area.

← Finally, a real scientist! I remember a friend giving me several lbs (read: elbows) of particulary yucky herb. I first performed the acetone extraction, and then proceeded to perform a secondary process on the extract which involved using NaHCO3 to produce "honey oil" which was a beautiful red oil. While I started with several lbs. of the yucky herb, I ended up with only several drops of the red oil. It was wonderful, but disappointing due to the fact there was so little of it. Yet, in retrospect, those few drops turned something that was completely unusable into a small, yet wonderful, few drops of heaven. Ah....the old days. Yes! doc ← And greet the new days! Adding stems and "water leaf" to a glass pint of any good cold pressed peanut oil and left for several days, even weeks will provide an excellent rub for aches, bruises and the like. It will not, unfortunately get you high unless you follow the above mentioned extraction processes, but the muscle rub value has been documented since the 19th century in Asia and is in use in the northwest currently to replace OTC liniments. A warning...besides setting off the dogs at ANY security check point, your clothing will become saturated with an oily substance that will make them stand alone in the corner. Burning them is preferable to washing unless you follow the oil-field practice of a bottle of Coke per wash (Really!) to desolve this soiled clothing sludge. Also , it takes several days to feel the effects, but keep at it. Reccomended by a high country EMT-trainer for cross-country racers and Triatheloners. Michael Calhoun

My personal peeve from a server is taking my cash on the tray and asking me if I want change! What is that? Is there an amusing anecdote thread?

I adore restaurant names. I've been to "Dirty's" in Austin and they do serve the best burgers and malts anywhere. A very small town in Western Colorado has a restaurant called "The Broken Drum, (you can't beat it)". That's the full name, by the way. This little island town has a restaurant named "The Place Next to the San Juan Ferry". Pretty much comes with directions in the name. Then my home town had a restaurant with no name and no set serving times. To dine there, you had to call Effie early enough in the day, tell her how many people would be coming; you had to arrive planning to eat at 8:00 pm and everyone got a medium sirloin steak, baked potatoes, salad and apple pie with ice cream.

I tried mycryo, intrigued by the ad and the lure of a sample. I work as a private chef and my chief client is severly diabetic with an insatiable sweet tooth and an amazing ability to work off fats and cholestrol. Well, I've been working on ice creams sweetened with the not so vile artificial sweetener but the texture has never been right. I've jiggled milk-to-cream ratios, less egg yolks, more egg yolks and was seriously considering laying blame at the sweetener or the machine. So I did a batch of ice cream with a half cup of mycryo stirred into the custard and came out with a much smoother (though still open for improvement) texture and that it also lasted longer in the freezer repack than before. Now I can't find it to purchase though I suppose I may end up calling the original contact number.

I'm really enjoying this. Okay, best Chocolate Cake Recipe in my opinion can be found in jewel of a cookbook by the name of Cafe Beaujolais by Margaret Fox. You would be astounded by the abuses you can deliver on this recipe and still end up with a superlative cake. She named it Amazon Chocolate Cake for some reason, it was the first recipe I tried in the book and I've never looked for another chocolate cake recipe. Ready for a confession? I even adapted it to be made with whole wheat pastry flour, maple syrup and frosted with grain sweetened chocolate chip-ganache and won first prize at the county fair! I made this adaptation for my Vegan son, as it doesn't rely on eggs or milk. It looks like the illustration from a cake mix box, it tastes better the second or even third day and, you probably have the ingredients in your pantry right now. Should anyone interested not be able to find a copy, I will be happy to transcribe the recipe here.

I have an oar to stick in the Anasazi Bean stream. My favorite beans for many years when I lived in Western Colorado, I was afraid when I moved to Washington State I would never eat another Anasazi Bean. But, thank heaven for mothers! My mom sends me a five pound bag of Anasazi Beans directly from the source. Here is what I know. "The Source" is "Adobe Mills Beans" in a small town near Cortez, Colorado. Check directory assistance for number. They sell black and pinto beans as well as Anasazi. They are a fairly small producer and I have never had a freshness issue. What a mom! Other moms send their daughters sweaters, mine sends beans!! Gotta love her.

In regard to Tasting History; many x2 years ago, a friend gave me an old cookbook that he found in an abandoned log cabin located in the Colorado high country. It's uniqueness to me was that in addition to a cooking section, it also contained a section for treating human illness as well as a section for treating farm animals. The date in the book was 1921 and the treatments for illness in both man and beast (including birth) were decidedly old fashioned, generally recommending the use of herbs with lovingly detailed drawings for the identification of those herbs. The recipes would be considered basic simple farm or ranch type food. Baking directions are given in handful increments, hot, or very hot oven temperatures, in some cases giving a "count" on how long the cook should be able to hold her hand to determine the temperature for the baking of bread. The recipe section includes recipes for creating emollients for softening hands, for the whitening of dull laundry and keeping weevils out of the flour. A few years later, my husband and small son and I were living in a cabin in the Colorado high country; blessed with a classic wood cook stove. Out came "The Book" to guide me through simple dinner preparations with no thermostats or dials. So confident was I that I actually made a batch of croissants and baked them in the wood stove just so I could say I had. They were fabulous. Legendary Thanksgiving dinners still live in my family's minds. I am ever grateful for that old book. It holds a place of honor on my bookshelf. In the event of retrograde technology...I'm ready.