NulloModo

Munster is supposed to be runny and smelly? My only munster experience is the kind availible at the grocery store: fairly firm, orange edge, not at all smelly, mild creamy flavor. Do I need to experience a new type?

Well, the chef still has to manage to prepare these ingredients in an appetizing way. Even using the simplest preparations it is possible to make Kobe beef dry and tough, or to take a free range chicken and roast it in such a manner that it comes out flavorless. Having great ingredients certainly makes it easier, but the chef still has to have some skill. Skillfull shopping should be a prerequisite for being a wonderful chef, if a chef can procur the finest ingredients, and recognize them as such, I will always prefer his or her food over another chef who may be technically more proficient but who has to try to hide the defects in his/her ingredients.

I have a Mikasa electric peppermill. I thought it was sort of gimicky, but at $5 due to a store closing sale it was cheaper than manual models, so I figured I would give it a shot. I have to say, that as long as you don't overload it, it works incredibly well. I don't like a super-fine grind, but it is far from coarse. I think regular price is near $40, but if you have a Mikasa outlet nearby perhaps they would have one.

The best Meatloaf I have ever had was from a recipe I saw on Food Network with Mario. Basically you take a veal/pork/beef meatloaf blend, and shape it out into a big flat rectangle on some parchment paper. You then toss some blanched spinach or escarole, some roasted red peppers, some prosciutto, and some good mozerella into the middle of the rectangle and fold it all over so that the meat seals up around the goodies inside. You then toss it into a skillet and fry it on all sides in EVOO, salt and pepper it (some other seasonings, basil and majoram possibly, go inside with the prosciutto), and let it rest a bit. When time to serve simply slice and enjoy all that gooey goodness seaping out onto each plate.

Interesting article. Some of those supposedly 'over the top heaps of food' from the beginning actually sound pretty good to me, but then again, I have little experience with very high-end fancy cuisine, so it could just be the factor of exoticism. At the same time Strawberries, brown sugar, and cream certainly qualifies as a dessert in my book. Anything can be a dessert, entre, appetizer, whatever, as long as that is what the chef calls it. It doesn't necessarily make it a good dessert, or one worth the price placed upon it by the menu, but it is still a dessert. I would personally never pay $37 for four scallops and lemon juice, if I want fresh scallops I go to a seaside stand or something of the sort where they get them right out of the ocean and I will pay a 10th of the price. However, if someone who is going to that restaurant wants scallops badly enough and is willing to pay that price for them, what is wrong with that? A Restaurant will succeed if what they offer is what the customers want, so, if the customers of a given area want to pay out of the rear end for strawberries and scallops, let them. Imagination and creativity in food are all well and good, but for my money, I just want something that tastes good for a good price.

Some friends of mine and I used to be regulars at this local place, and got to know some of the waitstaff fairly well. After a while they would occasionally sit down with us and just chat for a while if it was a slot night/towards the end of their shift (which was usually when we could come in anyway). Over time I think we somehow made an impression by generally just being understanding and cutting them some slack if they made minor booboos, as well as listening and counseling when some of them were going through rough times, and somehow it started to spread through the staff to watch out for us. It got to the point where our meals were often comped at least half off, drinks we ordered were only charged for if management saw them being made, and even in the busiest times it was quite rare for us to have to wait for a table, somehow one just the size of our party opened up. Unfortunately (well, unforunately for us, fortunately for them I suppose) this being a college town a lot of the waitstaff graduated and went off to bigger and better things, and the new waitstaff seemed to lack that pizazz and desire to come talk, so, it sort of faded back into a regular restaurant, and over time our patronage has just drifted off.

Isn't lard just pork fat? The lard I have is hydrogenated (which I would like to avoid) and apparently doesn't require refridgeration, which sort of scares me. Could I make this by rendering the fat from a bunch of bacon and using that fat as my lard source? Also, I have made something like carnitas in the past, but I included a can of chiles and diced tomatoes, as well as some chipotles in adobo, so the final texture was more of a very thick stew. I think somehow all of this thick liquid prevented the meat from carmelizing properly, do you then recommend to do it with just the meat, seasonings, and spices?

My mothers entire side of the family is from Alabama, and that is how they all pronounce it....

I picked up something called 'Yogurt Longhorn Cheese' from the Stoltzfus farm people at the market, I have to say, it is one of the most delicious cheeses I have ever consumed, has a creamy texture, a nice sharp, but subtle, kick, and melts beautifully. All for only $4.00 a pound as well. More Okra (as always, I seem to be inhaling the stuff lately) Some Tomatillos Various Dried Chiles Bleu: Have you ever made a Fennal Gratin? I picked up some Fennel from the grocery store a while ago, and found a great recipe that combined it with parmesan cheese, some chicken demi-glace, butter, and heavy cream for a wonderfully rich gratin. The sweetness of the fennel was beautiful against the bite of the parmesan, and the silky texture of cream, butter, and demi-glace rising up underneath was just

I prefer to make tomato sauce very very chunky. I will start by sauteeing some onion (rather large dices) with a ton of garlic in some EVOO (or meat droppings if I am using meat), and then add more raw big chunks of onion, okra, mushrooms, bell pepper, celery, and whatever other vegetables I am feeling like at the moment after the tomatoes have been added and it is all simmering.

They also go wonderfully with that piece of produce for which GA is reknown, the peach. Stew some sweet GA peaches (no extra sugar really needed unless you have a strong sweet tooth), and then pour into a serving bowl, toss in some super finely diced vidalia onions (so that the ambient heat from the peaches will just barely soften the onions), stir up, and serve over biscuits.

I didn't really eat paste or mud that I can remember.... But one that confused my parents was that one of the first solid foods I would ever eat was collard greens, and I loved then thoroughly throughout my childhood. If dinner included collard greens, they would always end up taking at least 80% of my plate. I would also sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and decimate every jar of pickles we had.

This is a website affiliated with a website which I help moderate: http://www.lowcarbrecipes.org/ It has a ton of low-carb recipes, some are desserts. Most were developed by amateur low-carbers, so could use some tweaking to be restaurant quality, but they will give you a good base from which you can expand. This link: http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.com/viewforum.php?f=51 Has a bunch of articles written by our in-house cooking guru/foodie, and some deal with desserts and baking, again a great way to get some info for LC diets. Fruit _is_ allowed on Atkins, but only certain fruits, and only in the later stages. South Beach I believe allows more fruits sooner, but severly limits your fat intake, so cream cheese and butter might be out... Some sugar alcohols tend to have a strong laxative effect (malitol is the biggest offender), but there are others (Ethrytol) can be used more safely. Be warned however that low-carb dieters trying to do it right frown upon the use of excessive amounts of sugar alcohols (they can cause more of a glycemic impact that some companies want to let on) as well as the excessive use of sugar. Also let it be known that once someone has been on a plan such as Atkins for a while where sugar intake is virtually nothing, their tastebuds become super-sensitive towards sweet, so you may not want to sweeten your LC desserts as strongly as your regular.

I cook some nights, don't cook some nights, eat out some nights, left-overs other nights. Sometimes 'cooking' is heating up some pre-made sausages with a can of sauerkraut (am I the only one who thinks the stuff in the can tastes way better than the 'fresh' stuff in bags in the deli section?), sometimes it is real cooking from scratch. I do not live with my family, but I do have two roomates. We usually do our own thing for food, but sometimes they will eat what I cook, and vice versa. E-gullet has been deciding 'what's for dinner' for me lately, I just see so many great ideas that I have to try out. I am constantly trying out new stuff. In fact, I like to cook it more than I like to eat it, and thus always have leftovers building up quickly.... If something really strikes me as tasty I will bring it back and play with it again and again until I get really good at it, but others just get filed away as 'been there, done that, it's edible if I need to do it again'. I grocery shop whenever I run out of groceries. Go to the farmers market every saturday to get as much produce as I can, but I will pick up other stuff at the grocery store if and when I need it. My roomates can be fairly picky at times, and they dislike things that any normal person should enjoy (mushrooms, chile peppers, shellfish, etc). So, basically I don't even try to please them, I cook what I feel like, and if they want to eat some of it, they can, if not, they have a stash of ramen noodles. I don't have to clip coupons, every grocery store around here has an automatic discount card policy, I thought they were all like that.... I tend to buy on impulse, I go, see what looks tasty, buy it, get home, and try to figure out what I can cook with what I came home with. 90% of my meals are solo or eaten just hanging out with friends, in which case anything in fair game for conversation. Dinner is whenever i am hungry and have time to cook. I am directing a musical production at the moment, so my day goes from 6am to 10pm, so I am not cooking this week, more eating on the fly. Normally when I can get home at a reasonable hour I will start cooking then, or at least starting trying to decide what to cook, and then start cooking an hour or two later ;). I have no children, but I love to have people over. Usually the focus is on the liquid refreshment as opposed to the solid however (I take pride in my fully stocked bar). Again, currently no kids, and no immediate plans for any (perhaps in another ten or so years), but when/if I do, they will eat whatever I cook for dinner. If no one introduces a food as something to be afraid of, they will have no reason to be wary of it, and no reason to be squeamish. If they want to eat, they will eat what is served, which will cover a variety of tastes. My family, when I used to live with them, would always order pizza every friday night, and my father was/is an excellent cook when it comes to down home southern soul-food. As we all got older it became more and more fast-food, less and less real home cooked food, to the point where all I knew how to eat by the time I moved out on my own was what I purchased already made. Needless to say this diet was not at all healthy, and I have since mended my ways and been very interested in learning how to cook not only for the intrinsic value of the activity, but so that I can lead a healthy life as well. I plan on instilling these values into my own family when I get around to starting one.

I am a teacher, I work with kids (aged 10 - 13) all day. I have seen a huge decline in how children behave vs. how they used to. Some are still perfectly fine, but many have no signs of discipline at home, have no attention span to speak of, and have no clue about proper standards of decorum and decency. Parents try to push it upon the schools to instill the discipline into their children, but we can't do it without their help. A detention or suspension carries no weight when it isn't backed up with a grounding, a stern lecture, or a belt across the buttocks at home. Not to mention that if our detention records show that more males than females have been disciplined, or more minority than caucasion students, we get special interest groups like the NAACP breathing down our backs and protesting the schools. The situation is horrendous, and as much as I think the Minister was somewhat callous and extreme in his ideas, I would tend to lean towards them myself, but only in the case of children who do not know how to behave. What bugs me is that in my home state (of Delaware) all restaurants have gone no-smoking. It used to be so nice, you could just request a table in the smoking section (I don't smoke) and have to deal with far less of a crowd, and virtually no, if any at all, children. Alas, that time is now gone....

Interesting. I used to work in consumer electronics/computer retail (overall another fairly low profit margin business), and I know we always had shoplifting problems with big-ticket but small in stature items... I just never figured someone would be petty enough to try to steal food (at least in the USA where dying of starvation isn't really something anyone rightly has to deal with....)

I'm sure someone is going to say Larb. Fresh Jicama slices tossed with a little EVOO, lemon or lime juice, cracked black pepper, and maybe a bit of Cilantro would be good too.

Oooh, I had almost forgotten about this one: Near where I work there is the 'EXTREME! Chinese Buffet' I've never been there.... not sure if I would be able to handle it....

My Mikasa electric salt/pepper/spice grinder. Went to the mall with the intention of buying a pepper grinder at Williams Sonoma, willing to spend the (outrageous in my opinion) $20 they wanted for a small wooden one. On the way I saw Mikasa was going out of business, walked in, found an electric doohicky on super clearance down from $40 to $5. Picked it up. Works really well, has two independant grinding chambers, so it can hold salt and pepper, or pepper and a spice of your choice, and runs on batteries. Worth every penny so far.

I recall seeing either in London, or on engrish.com, can't remember where, a Chinese place known as 'Pumpkin Poo'

Speaking of German Nanny's... I remember when I was quite young (had to be 7 or less) there was a German girl who would come occasionally take care of my sisters and I (I believe she was a grad-student studying under my father, trying to pick up extra money babysitting), and the only thing she could ever cook, was cheese toast. Recipe as follows: Cheese Toast 2 Slices Toast (rendered from Wonderbread usually) 1 Slice Processed American Cheese Toast the toast. Put it on a sauce. Cut slice of American cheesefood product into half, placing one have on each piece of toast. Microwave for at least 1:00 or until the cheese has done that cheesefood imitation of melting, and the bread has lost its crispness in exchange for an odd tough rubberyness induced from the microwave. Serve.

I didn't realize grocery stores even had shoplifting problems... Never have I thought about someone actually trying to shoplift food (well, other than kids trying to sneak out candy bars from convenience stores). Learn something new every day. And shrimp..... how bizarre.

Any open-late (or all-night) greasy spoon style joint (good, fattening, sledgehammer strong flavored food, kebabs, basic mexican, burgers, pizzas, etc) will succeed next to bustling bars/nightclubs.

There is a pretty nice little place near here called the 'Back Burner Cafe'. There was a period of time however that for the life of me I could never remember the same of the place, and always referred to it as the 'Backend Cafe' or the 'Backdoor Cafe'. Both, IMO, are far more colorful names, and tend to be what everyone refers to it as now ;). There is a small, very good , Italian joint around as well, but has the unfortunate name of 'Cafe Gelato'. They do, in fact, serve a tremendous variety of Gelato (Gelati?), but I had no idea they even served real food there because the ice cream display is up front,and looking through the window and seeing only the name you just write it off as a little ice cream place and never know there is actually a nice restaurant inside. Two regional mini-chains that I love the name (and food) of are: Cluck-U (best buffalo wings I have had anywhere, bar none, and I have had a lot) Peace-a-Pizza (gourmet pizza shop, with actually very tasty traditional pizza crust).

I tend to see Diners having a lot of success in college towns or in areas with a large retired community. Your typical sub-shop/wing joint always does well in a college town. Sports bars and brewpubs tend to do very well near major sporting arenas. Small ethnic restaurants, health food restaurants, pizza joints, and bizarre new concepts tend to flourish on large univsersity campuses.