Lindacakes

I'm doing bird cookies, too, now. Moosed suet and seeds patties to be strung in trees to attract birds. Much more fun than shopping.

Oddly enough, the daily fearmongering has gotten me to eat more. I'm contemplating a trip to New Orleans for Thanksgiving (before the Saveur article). Part of it, I suppose, is that I apply food when I am unsure. Part of it, I suppose, is sort of dance band on the Titanic-ish. Part of it, I suppose, is that I do little else that thrills me like all things food does and based on what's going on for me at work (more, more, more!) I need a thrill. All that being said, Costco seems more interesting to me, as well as the making of soup from finds at the Farmer's Market.

Aprons are good. Reversible aprons even better. My cocktail-themed gifts are now expanding. There are brandied cherries, there is horseradish vodka, there will be spicy pecans and now cheese straws. I know nothing about cheese straws but I can't wait to learn.

Now I'm picturing a robotic arm that will accept a variety of implements that pushes back up into the hood of your stove when not in use. When you need it, you pull it down, shove and implement in the business end and set it. It stirs while you do other things. I once went to Halloween as the Jetson's maid.

This made me so hungry for olives that I went out on Saturday night in a very pleasant rainfall and got the makings for Sazeracs as well as potato chips, a couple of kinds of cheese (the Roncal especially good), sun dried tomatoes, and a container of green Italian olives stuffed with garlic. And ate a whole bowlful of them. All the other stuff was meant to set off the olives, and it did.

I freeze bread all the time, it freezes better than anything, I think. I would also slice it and wrap and bag it. I like heating it up in the oven, wrapped in foil. The pieces come out very slightly moistly warm, which very closely approximates the state it's in when fresh out of the oven.

What do you mean, really old cheddar?

This is kinda sorta off topic, but I store a timer with a magnet on it in a box with an instant read thermometer -- is that stupid? This reminds me of Errol Morris' movie about Steven Hawking -- there's a falling teacup in it, and the teacup figures into the "plot", at least the plot of Steven Hawking's mind . . . Kind of makes you think of the kitchen as a mystical place with a force field in it, which it is.

A La Mode, you might want to think about trying the Le Creuset cleaner product. It's a bit like Barkeeper's Friend, some sort of citrus liquid that shouldn't be left on too long. I use this on recommendation of someone at Broadway Panhandler -- and I love it. Gets any sort of discoloration or spots off of the pans.

I researched the crap out of stick blenders before buying a Bamix for my partner last year. She opened it up, thought it was one of those, you-bought-this-for-me-so-you-could-have-it things and didn't think much of it, I don't think. Except that now, you'd have to pry it out of her cold dead hands. Gets used daily for smoothies and at least weekly for soups and sauces. The blender went out the window. Works like a charm, is built to last forever, looks fabulous, and is easy, easy, easy to clean. What more could you want? The top end model comes with a little gizmo that chops. Chops herbs, chops onions, chops nuts. Chop chop chop. And then holds the little Bamix disk thingys. Lovely machine. Genius invented it.

Very very interesting. I'm curious about this book. I know a little bit of gossip about it. Apparently Shirley Corriher is not a baker, which is why it took so long to write the book . . .

Try eating an olive and a bite of fig at the same time to test it. I'm thinking it's gotta be a black olive. I've had this tapenade before (probably not this recipe) and I can't imagine it with green olives. I suppose it depends on the green olive, though. This is a funny thread. Almost everyone's contribution is: I love olives. Most of us, I think, love olives so much we love just thinking about the taste of olives. I do. I really like a grilled cheese sandwich with olives on it, any color. Cheese and olives period.

I'm making some horseradish vodka and adding my own labels. I've also got brandied cherries. Looking for more tricks with booze. The coffee toffee looks pretty durn good . . .

There's a thread where some sort of, I think, Thai goody called Food of the Gods was discussed. It's a date paste cake kind of thingy. Part of a date bar discussion? I'll look it up tonight. I made a date nut bread this weekend that I really loved -- the dates get melted in hot water so that they imbue the "bread" part rather than just be in it. From Heirloom Baking by the Brass Sisters. Dates are one of my favorite flavors -- I'd preserve a bunch of them. I'd also try some sort of liqueur . . .

Pasta Fresca, Evan Kleiman.

Plea: ignorance. Is it like a regular date?

I've always wanted to do a grape meringue pie . . . There are several recipes out there. Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts has one. You can also sugar-frost the frozen grapes.

When it came time to do the baking I realized I didn't have cream -- I made a recipe in Heirloom Baking (Brass Sisters) that called for two cups of pecans. Ooooweee. That was good. Has a butterscotch brownie base, a layer of toasted pecans, and then a brown sugar meringue topping. Just delicious and a big hit at poker night. Nice contrast in textures, nutty and chewy.

My parents are divorced. I like to cook for my father; it's good for both of us. He has absolutely nothing in his kitchen to work with. The freezer is empty except for ice and some Klondike bars. He doesn't keep milk or eggs. He uses a plastic spread instead of butter. His salt and pepper (his only spices) come in paper tubes. When I cook for him, I have to buy everything I'm going to use and I have to keep it simple because there is no equipment beyond a few pans. His knives are in one of those block things, plastic handles, all of them with micro serrations. I try to buy him things for the kitchen (a toaster, dish towels, manly cocktail glasses) whenever I can. One year, I was in the kitchen cooking and I needed a bowl. I went in the living room, grabbed one of his Christmas presents, and asked him to open it. It was a set of graduated Pyrex bowls. We both laughed. I have brought a trunkful of equipment (mixer, cookie sheets, cooling racks, vanilla, etc.) so that I could make cookies for him and fill the house with the smell of hot cookies. My mother, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Kitchen a dumping ground for stuff she doesn't know where to put, overloaded fridge I can't even put anything away in. I let her cook for me because it's good for her psychologically. Parenting my parents is an experience I know I will look back on with fondness when they are gone. But I'm with the person who mentioned the dichotomy between the depression and the boom. Once, during an argument, my mother summed it up by saying, "I'm a child of the thirties and you're a child of the sixties." In the here and now, it's exhausting.

Mmmmmm . . . there seems to be a preponderance of brittle people out there. Brittle sounds like a good idea. I'm going to try Ruth's recipe this weekend. Brittle also sounds like a good idea for Christmas presents. Also pralines. What's the holding time for these goodies, i.e., how far can I make them ahead? There's a recipe for pecan meringues in Recipe Gullet that I also want to try. Thank you for your suggestions, all good, and I'll work on 'em till the pecans are gone!

I bought a couple of packages of pecans, thinking I needed them for a recipe. I didn't use them. I'm stuck with a lot of pecans. Suggestions? What would you do with a large amount of pecans?

I looked it up -- Andiesenji had it right -- Market Hall Foods. Their orange, lemon and citron is excellent.

I'd just like to know if it is possible to cast a spell on it to close it down . . .

It's taken me a while to find the photos, scan them, and upload to Image Gullet, but here they are. What you'll see below is completely authentic to the Mexican experience (or at least as much as I could get as a tourist). The alters that I saw were one level, although many of the photos in the links above show multi-level alters. Mine is limited by my resources, I had nothing to add, everything was purchased at the Market of the Dead in Ocotlan. I took a group taxi (you squeeze into a car with eight other people) from Oaxaca to Ocotlan. I was told, perhaps by someone at my hotel, that the Market of the Dead in Ocotlan was the most authentic. I did all my transactions without benefit of Spanish, quite successfully, although the going did get tough here and there. At one point, I could tell that the women in the market were discussing me, when a young man on a ladder looked down at me and asked in perfect English, "What are you looking for?" I didn't know -- I was hunting and gathering -- everything, down to the cloth on the table, was purchased at that market. Only the photograph was added. At another point, a woman I was buying flowers from was angry, I figured out that she had misunderstood my offered price. I was offering her four times what she was asking as the price was for the stem, not the bunch. It was a mission of love and one I felt compelled to do, amidst the live turkeys tucked under arms and the piles of grasshoppers and black mole. This is the flower section of the market. Marigolds and coxcomb. This is traditional. This is the papoose-like bread -- arms crossed over the chest. In my alter you will see that I chose an alternate style, a round bread, but also with the gum paste faces. These are on little sticks like the Halloween cupcake figurines are here . . . Sugar skulls. I chose a blue one and a pink one. The altar -- the pressed tin is the mirror in the hotel room. The names Mark and Sharon are spelled out in peanuts (!) because there were piles of peanuts at the market, as well as all of the fruits that you see -- bananas, prickly pear, cherimoya . . .

That left-handed, right-handed fork question was a bit off -- it is considered extremely rude indeed to eat with the left hand in the middle east. That's your bathroom hand . . .