Smithy

Port and Snickers bars.

Aren't we collectively funny?! We haven't the first clue about what this guy is like - his preferences, fears, predilections - but we're all eager to lead him along a road he may not wish to walk! Do let us now what you find out; it should be clear that you have a captive audience...and no matter what happens in the culinary arena, here's hoping you enjoy the visit :-)

It occurs to me that the cleanup might be an issue too: making sandwiches doesn't involve dirtying up a skillet or pot. If that's the issue, then one-pot meals or microwaved food or grilled food might be a help.

They do make electrostatic air filters with an activated charcoal filter. dcarch For home use? This I didn't know. How big, how expensive, how easy to find and install? Please tell more!

Unless the recirculating fan is much, much better than mine is at capturing and filtering soot, I think you *will* have smoke getting everywhere, and you'll be wishing you'd brought the WSM. I think the smoke is more likely to be discouraging than the CO. Get a CO detector and set it up in the kitchen area to keep yourself safe - that is, for your peace of mind. If the stove operates properly and the condo isn't too tight, you'll probably never set it off. Oh, and make sure it alarms in a range you can hear. My husband can't hear any of those pitches, so *I'm* the resident smoke and CO alarm. Edited for clarity and hearing note.

Heart of Rural Texas, eh? There's probably a H-E-B right around the corner, and they're great. Depending on his interests and tastes - I'll be interested in hearing what you learn, also - some other possibilities for easy food to get him going are: - buying a roast / rotisserie chicken, eating some parts out of hand, and using the rest for pasta dishes. Soups too, if he's so inclined, but I remember thinking that broth was a very mysterious and difficult thing in my earliest cooking days, so I might avoid that idea at first; - Tex-Mex-style dishes: burritos or enchiladas made from canned ingredients (beans, salsa, etc) - tuna-noodle casserole (you can eat on that forever) or large pots of chili or spaghetti I agree with the posters upthread who say it would be an improvement if you could even get him to upgrade the selections of materials for his sandwiches. Keep us posted~

Ruhlman is the guy who...keeps stock on the stove top, unheated, for days. Not according to the above-cited Ruhlman article. I'm in the "we need to relax about this a bit" camp. We collectively, in this country, seem to be breeding superbugs with our quasi-ubiquitous use of antibacterial agents. OTOH I certainly agree that people with compromised immune systems - that probably includes most elderly people - need to be more careful than most. Back to the question at hand: if water is plentiful enough, I usually rinse meat to get rid of the stray stuff, then pat it dry and go on about my business. In all honesty, I probably do it as much because I was raised that way as for any more logical reasons, but thinking about it, I think I'll continue to do it. I do not use such a vigorous spray that it's splashing all over the counter: that's messy and wasteful. I would not take a friend to task who chose not to rinse meat.

Oh, thank you! I'll have to give that a try. It looks as though your Thanksgiving crowd doesn't mind messing with tradition a bit. Excellent!

I am deeply curious about the recipe you use because everything sweet potato I encounter seems to be, well, VERY sweet to the point of basically being a dessert. While sweet potato based desserts are fine, I don't really want to eat them while they're pretending to be a soup or a side dish to go with something else. I'm with you on that. Sweet potatoes are already so sweet, that by the time they've had brown sugar or marshmallows or whatever else gets thrown into them for many dishes, I'm quite put off. Roast sweet potatoes, by themselves, are great. What about a savory sweet potato soup? I'd try that!

tehmeena, please educate us (or perhaps me, in case I'm the only person who doesn't know what you're showing): 1. What is maamoul? How is it made, what does it taste like, what are the ingredients, when might you eat it? 2. What is that interesting hand-held gizmo in the photo? I expect it's involved in making or serving maamoul, but I don't know. As I write this, your maamoul post is only your second post to eGullet. Welcome to eGullet! Please stick around and keep contributing! You've certainly piqued my interest!

That's a heck of a good question, judiu. In some cases I can see the reason to add seasonings first - for instance, if you want to cook spices or aromatics in a dry pan for toasting purposes - but otherwise it would seem that adding the aromatics before draining the fat would mean losing some of the flavor. I'll have to start paying attention now, to see what I actually do!

Just for the record, in case I wasn't clear: I meant wiping the rind with vinegar, as in a towel soaked with vinegar, followed by blotting with a dry towel, to discourage mold; not to dunk the cheese in a vat of vinegar. Having said that, I'll also note that I still haven't tried it myself.

Getting back to the vinegar idea: this summer I was told by a sheep-cheese salesman that the best way to keep his cheese was to wipe the rind with vinegar, then re-wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in a cool place. His assertion was that the cheese would last for months that way. We were dealing at the time with outside air temperatures of around 40C and humidity in the 80+% range. I've since managed to move back to what I consider a more civilized climate, and the temperature and humidity have both dropped, so I haven't had to test it. Caveats: 1. This was a sheep cheese. I don't know whether one cheese reacts differently than another, but I can say that the cheese for which this advice was given is hard, dry and flavorful, along the lines of Manchego or Parmegiano-Reggiano. (I know that last isn't from sheep, but its consistency is similar.) 2. This was a WHOLE cheese, and he was talking about wiping the rind. However, I doubt that the flavor produced by wiping the cut surface of a cheese with a bland vinegar would taste any worse than cheese mold where it isn't intended. By the way - the vinegar in question was a standard white vinegar, without any particular flavor: not cider vinegar or wine vinegar, for instance. I'd guess that rice vinegar would be a good substitute.

Depends on your budget and the palate's preferences. Blackwoods Bar and Grill, on London Road and 28th Ave East, has great pasta as well as meat dishes, a good selection of beer or wine for you if you're so inclined, and I'd say they're mid-priced: good food, and a lot of it, in the mid-teens prices. I think the rack of ribs, or some of the steaks, might be up into the $20-25 range but you certainly don't have to spend that much. They do a lot of cookery in their wood-fired ovens, and may also offer pizza but I can't swear to that. Sir Benedict's Tavern on the Lake has an outstanding selection of sandwiches, soups and beers. I think they've branched into pizza. There's live music almost every night. If the weather's fine you can sit outside. Sandwiches are in the $8-10 range. Down on Canal Park Drive (go toward the lift bridge) there's a bunch of restaurants. I've come to think of Grandma's Restaurant and Little Angie's (the Tex-Mex offshoot of Grandma's) as not very sophisticated, but the food's good and plentiful. Grandma's is the sort of place that has American kitschy junk, old road signs, fun stuff to look at, and great pasta, sandwiches...I'm making it sound like Blackwoods but the atmosphere's very different. In the Dewitt-Seitz building (still near the lift bridge) there's a great Vietnamese place, Taste of Saigon, as well as the Lake Walk Cafe. Lake Walk is quiet, spendy, along the lines of a French bistro. Good food but I'm usually too cheap to eat there. Kittycorner from the Dewitt-Seitz building is Bellisio's Italian restaurant. This is true Italian food, not Italian-American, and there's nothing kitschy about it. Quiet, dark, sophisticated. They take reservations. They do wine tastings. I don't think you could get out of there for less than $25/person (not counting drinks and tips) unless you stuck to appetizers or split a meal, something contraindicated with a hungry teenager. Finally, I come to my personal favorite: go up the shore toward French River (maybe 10 miles past Duluth city limits), and at the corner of old Scenic Highway 61 and Ryan Road you'll find the New Scenic Cafe. They are also pricey: I just ate there and the meals were mostly in the mid-twenties region although I remember some in the teens. Their specialty is seasonal food, locally produced where possible; the chef/owner comes up with creative and wonderful food. I had the roasted duck breast, and it was done to perfection. A friend had seared scallops, also wonderful. Another friend had a herring sandwich (locally caught) and was very pleased. We indulged in desserts and appetizers and wine and had a wonderful time. I think this place is probably the most expensive of the ones I've named but it's a rare treat and fits the bill for the sophisticated palate. It won't give you the quantity of food that you'd get at Blackwoods or Grandma's but it'll expose your son to flavor combinations and foods that he couldn't get elsewhere, except possibly the Lake Walk Cafe. Have fun!

I've been eyeing my mother's Salad Shooter (not used in years) with the idea of putting it to my own use. I may be able to report back on it next week when I'm out visiting again. In the abstract, I'll note that its advantage over a food processor with a shredder attachment is that you can, er, shoot anything into its own prep bowl or the final receiving bowl, without having to disassemble and empty the bowl as you would with a food processor. I'm not sure how big the hopper is, though. Come to think of it, a few years ago I saw some gadget made by Hamilton Beach and sold on the cheap at our grocery store. As I recall, it had a shredder and slicer and had multiple receiving bowls - a food processor idea, but the motor was designed to fit onto the storage bowls. Our store was blowing them out at half price, and even at $15 I decided I didn't need it, so I can't comment on its quality except to note that Hamilton Beach is no longer the company it once was...so it might have been junk. Still, if it weren't junk it might fill your bill nicely. Maybe someone else remembers it and can recall the name.

Asterix2k10, since this is your first post (welcome to eGullet!) I'll elaborate on Joe Blowe's response: they're fine. I think your major problem is likely to be continued discoloration (which clearly doesn't bother you) and the tendency of food to stick. Granted, stainless steel isn't advertised as a nonstick surface, but with a smooth interior, and the right technique and ingredients - say, deglazing the pan after sauteing something, to make a great sauce - you shouldn't have much scrubbing to do. The more scratched the surface, the more things are likely to stick. As for exposing the aluminum core: first off, it would take a really deep, really obvious gouge or pockmark or depression to go all the way through the stainlesslayer. You'd be able to see it. Secondly, remember that aluminum pans are fairly common for cooking. You won't poison yourself by getting the food in contact with aluminum. I haven't heard about nickel contamination from stainless steel. Unless this is a brand-new, well-researched issue, I'd say that food-grade stainless steel is a safe alloy to continue cooking. I'd add my name to the distribution list (behind Joe Blowe) but have plenty of favorite cookware already. Welcome to eGullet!

Huh? Did I miss something here? Yah...who does food prep in their engine compartment? Except possibly the road-rally cooks who wrote "Manifold Destiny"? :-)

Thanks for that info. Yes, I was unclear. I hadn't understood that you were using hands to plop the naan dough directly onto the griddle. As for the "stove": you're absolutely right that I meant the "oven". That's what I get for posting too late at night. Despite your avowed confusion, you've helped convince me that, next time I'm feeling flush, a thinner pizza / bread peel will be a justified expenditure. :-)

So let's talk about baker's peels for a moment. I have a wooden peel I picked up at Bed Bath & Beyond for about $10 and a composite peel from...Epicurean?...heck, they're even almost local and I don't remember...but it's a composite made from recycled materials. The second peel is about 1/4' thick, and the wooden peel is closer to 1/2" thick, with tapered (beveled) edge. I generally find the thinner peel easier to work with for sliding under objects in the stove without shifting them. I've thought about going to a thin (1/8", stiff) metal peel, but been too skinflinty to do so given that most pizza parlors and bakeries seem to favor the wooden peels. What do y'all favor? To what extent does the thinness of the peel, or its composition, matter?

I think my first choice would be to heat the juice to, say, 80C (to be safe) or even bring it to the boil (to eliminate the need for a thermometer) unless there's too much other material in the mix that can't be cooked. Was that what you meant by not being able to deactivate the enzyme?

Thanks for posting that naan procedure, Ttogull. I love baking and have been working on flatbreads, but hadn't tried naan yet. Yours is going on my list!

Interesting that you found the nonfat half-and-half to have the same mouthfeel as, er, full half-and-half. I didn't have the same experience, and had decided it must be an industrial hoax. I continue to use the real thing, but I'm glad to know that the nonfat stuff actually works for some people and isn't some cheap marketing ploy after all.

btw dcarch, your photos and presentations of the hosta dishes are beautiful.

"Pastured" as applied to chickens is a new term for me. What is the difference?

I pay $3 /dozen from my local organic chicken farmer. While I applaud the goals of using more sustainable (for the earth's and our health) and humane (for the chickens) methods, I wonder whether $6/dozen isn't a bit, er, overinflated. Unsustainable, even. Aren't the colors beautiful? I love getting variously-colored eggs. I must admit that so far I haven't been able to tell a difference - they all taste great - but Lynne Rosetto Kasper, whose palate is doubtless more finely tuned than mine, noted a creamier and richer flavor with one breed's eggs (don't ask me which one) than with another.