lesfen

Damn. I wish I would have seen this thread earlier! My friends won't even come over unless I promise to make BLT Dip... or as they call it, "Crack Dip". "Hey Les, got any more Crack Dip? Please tell me that you made extra Crack Dip"." This recipe is very flexible as far as the amount of sour cream and mayo, but this is the ratio that I use... 1 lb. bacon, fried crisp and well crumbled 12 oz. sour cream 1 cup mayo (or to taste) 1 tomato, seeded and chopped Combine first three ingredients and chill for about an hour, then add the tomato before you set it out. Serve with (insert dippers here). I like to use pita chips, bagel chips, melba toasts, etc.... but it tastes awesome on everthing.

Wow! I like Northwoods Inn, but never mention it. The last time I did (on a certain snobbish board) I was berated! Those potatoes with butter cheese sauce are great. I love when the server throws the peanuts at your table. ← Here is my post about the North Woods Inn, the one along the 5 just north of the Orange County line near La Mirada. The cheese toast was definitely ... cheesy. Another place that serves great cheese toast is the Smoke House in Burbank. But that's a high-class retro place, so that doesn't count. ← I used to have a sales rep that would entertain clients there and I would often tag along. It was always... um... interesting. The bread ain't all that's cheesy in that place!!

*lol* really? actually nothing that passed my mom's stove missed the cayenne pepper/garlic powder/soemtimes turmeric treatment. i think it's how she got everything to taste vaguely "indian" for my Dad's benefit. So how did your mom make hers, then? just tuna? ← Seems to me it was tuna, cracker crumbs, s & p, egg, and chopped onion. They were actually really, really good. I kid because my mom is seasoning challenged. She's accused me of being "fancy" because I use a pepper mill.

Wow... that sounds so much better than what my mom made. Ask your mom if I can stay for supper!!!

Johnny Marzetti is/was just macaroni with meat sauce. I still make it. I've been tossing around the idea of making tuna patties again too. Mmmm... I've got some albacore somewhere...

We knew when it was getting ghetto at my house... Suppertime Signs That Mom & Dad Are Broke This Week: 1. Tuna Patties 2. Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup (crusts mysteriously missing or made with heels) 3. Pancakes or "Omlettes" for supper 4. Johnny Marzetti (sp?) (made in bulk so that we could eat it a few times)

Ugh. That's what's on the menu at Chateau d' Jividen tonight... but I do have albacore. Man, I gotta go grocery shopping soon. I'm scrapin' the bottom of the barrel.

I'll probably get stoned for this, but my absolute favorite place to eat in So. Cal. was a place in Newport called Jack Shrimp. (I think they have a few locations tho'.) Big ass bowl of peel 'n eat shrimp soaking in a mildly spicy rosemary broth, served with a basket of crusty bread and butter. Oh man. Stains on your shirt, indeed.

I REALLY want to come but I live too far away to actually drive in and make it back in time for work the next day... where is the closest airport and what time do the festivities usually die down?

I am one of those freaks that enjoys a dry salad, with a little bit of salt, but every once in a great while I do have to indulge in a little ranch dressing. I have to thin it out tho'. I'm have a texture thing and glops of ranch just don't do it for me. I keep an old Good Season's carafe on hand and thin out a little bottled ranch (Hidden Valley, baby) with milk so that I can drizzle it onto my salad.

To this day, the closest fast food joint is 25 miles from my home town. I begged my parents to let me go "into town" to get a job. They eventually relented and I worked at Arby's for about... 2 hours. I was ok with the concept of working fast food, but when they made me clean the mens room and then sent me out to the parking lot to pick up cigarette butts, I knew it wasn't meant to be. I ended up working at a local greasy spoon that made a little bit of everything... pizza, broasted chicken, sandwiches, and breakfast all day. I really enjoyed working there. It was hard work and most of the food was made fresh. I think the only things that weren't made from scratch were the appetizers. I started on dishes and prep work, moved up to the pizza ovens, and eventually into the kitchen. I really loved the hustle and bustle of that giant griddle. To this day I find it easier to fry an egg on a griddle than in a pan. The food was really good, all of the specials were made from scratch, but the pizza sucked. They did have this one sandwich there that was called the "Sizzle Steak". It was a VERY thin hamburger sandwiched between two VERY thin slices of steak (like, Steak-um thin, but not steakums), fried on the griddle, and topped with provolone, onions and mushrooms. Oh man. That was a thing of beauty. We used to get one meal per shift and it wasn't unusual for us to work more than one shift a day. They only time that I didn't love it was when I would come in for the early morning shift (5 am) after a night of drinking. If they even suspected that you were hung over, they would make you clean the chicken fryers. Oh dear lord. They should make that part of detox programs.

...the fish smoked with burning poo? Eww. That article made me want to visit Iceland and take in the natural beauty... and pass on the smoked fish.

Great. ← I disagree. I use Air Bake pans for most cookies and have lovely results. I don't use them for shortbread, scones or biscuits where I want a well browned bottom. ← I'm going to give them another shot when the weather breaks and it's actually cool enough to bake. I had a set a few years ago and they worked great.

Man... I feel like a rebel after reading all of these! Breakin' the law... breakin' the law!! Duh duh! I suppose that the one that I feel the most guilty about is my wooden cutting board. I put everything on it... raw chicken included. I do give it a good lemon-salt rubdown every week (or so), but I usually just rinse it off and keep choppin'. I never cook my pork to any degree of doneness above medium.

Toss the Air Bake sheets in the garbage. My mom had a couple and came to the same conclusion. They don't heat from the bottom at all, so by the time the bottom is remotely done, the rest is dry. ← Great.

PREACH! I totally agree. If you want to watch a real tourist, tune into PBS on a Saturday afternoon and watch Rick Steves... if you dare. He's not hitting the Absinthe den, but he might sample a bit of sherry. Naughty, Rick... NAUGHTY!! Did anyone catch him on Letterman last night? I didn't make it. It's on past my bed time.

Indeed... the GIGGLING is ANNOYING. But the FOOD looks DELICIOUS and she makes me feel CONFIDENT that I TOO can make this HEALTHY meal in 30 MINUTES. Even tho' I'm a working mother and team mom, I DON'T have to bow down to the ALMIGHTY HAMBURGER HELPER to put a meal on the table. I have purchased her BOOKS and I find them extremely HELPFUL. $40 a day? Not practical for me. I'm not SINGLE and never have the opportunity to GO anywhere ALONE for half an hour, much less a day (I can dream tho'). $40 would BARELY get me out of a diner in the morning. ANYWAY... Is she a little GRATING? Absolutely. Does SHE know HOW to BRING home THE bacon AND fry IT up IN the PAN? YUP.

Lately, I haven't been able to turn out a decent cookie to save my life. Seriously. Toll House, for crying out loud!! I've been blaming my new cookie sheets (Air Bake). I've lost my touch. I'll give it another shot when this god awful hot summer is over.

I have to admit to flipping during this episode. I was amused, don't get me wrong, but Iceland looks flippin' boring and so does their food. On to NJ!!

I have friends with kids like that but they will usually bring food with them for the kids. Never understood until I had kids of my own . ← Me too. I have a 20 month old and the majority of the space in her diaper bag is occupied with tupperware containers of stuff I KNOW she'll eat... but like most kids, eventually she wants to try what's on my plate.

Sounds like a project to me!! You can CHANGE her!!

Being Bobby Brown - perhaps the greatest new show of the summer (sorry Bourdain) . You are indeed the queen. And, when I can drink again in a few weeks, perhaps I too will buy a bottle of Carlo Rossi Burgundy and toast you and Bobby and Whitney. ← Maaaan... I feel BAD today. I don't know which is worse... the hangover or the shame.

Oh the trump... how sweet it is. I just have two words for you... CARLO ROSSI. Oh yes. Hubby thought he'd be nice and bring me some wine. See, he coaches youth football and it's that time of year. Football Widow Season. So yeah, he bought some wine on his way home from practice. Carlo Rossi Burgundy. Dear lord, I love it. Should I hand over my "Foodie Card" right now? To top it off, I'm drinking a glass and watching "Being Bobby Brown". What part of "Guilty Pleasure" is not covered here?!?!?!!!??? I am the queen of guilty pleasures. Bow down.

Ohhh burnt popcorn. Remind me to never have movie night with any of you. As it is now, I can burn as much as I want and no one else will it it. It's mine, all mine! I really like burnt sausages and hot dogs. If it has a casing on it... burn it. Bacon too. Burnt bacon is pure bliss.

Embarrassed to admit that I had no clue who this guy was until I came to eG... and even then I probably couldn't have picked him out of a line-up (probably not a bad thing!). Some of the hype must have rubbed off and I remembered to tune in at 10 (much to the dismay of the ESPN lover in my house). I have to say that I was floored. I love the fact that this guy wasn't spit shined into submission to make some lame travel show. I can watch some tool show me "his Paris" on 5 channels at any given time but none of them made me WANT to go to there. This guy made me WANT to go there... hell, he made me want to MOVE there! (Albeit he made me want to move there with him. ) I say F*** Cheerios, and F*** Rick Steeves. In certain circles, this is going to be as quoteable as, say, South Park is in other circles... you can replace "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home" with "I need a hot chocolate and some fat chicks." Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this show is my new favorite and I'll be back next week. The ESPN lover actually took the remote from me because I was flipping during the commercials and he was afraid that I wasn't going to flip back in time. Tony Bourdain... bringing couples together.