Smithy

I wish I could answer the "safe" question. I hope someone else does. Mold, eh? My guess is that it's the standard citrus mold that ultimately wrecks the flavor and rots any (fresh) citrus - harmless based on my experience - but I don't know that my guess is correct. I like to chop up bits of preserved lemon peel and add it to my 3-bean salad (which is generally more of a 5- or 6-bean salad), and use some of the pulp in the dressing. Bits of preserved lemon chopped up and added to pilaf, or to the pan sauce built around sauteed chicken, are other favorite uses. I love the idea posted just above about adding to onions for caramelizing!

I won't be around when you wake up, Megan, so I'll say it now. Thank you for the tours, the great writing, the great fun! It's been a wonderful blog!

Yes, I've admired your smokery. (Is that a noun?) Marinading and kebabing (a gerund?) will not produce the same results, and will be much quicker. I'd like to try the venison smoking, for my own comparison, but I think you'll find the results are different. Do let me know for sure. Put the kebabs over pilaf. Use the spare marinade as part of the pilaf cooking juice. Mm.

Megan, I finally thought of something that puts your blog into perspective for me. I've been marveling - at your beeeyootiful photos, your eloquent blog, your energy, your high spirits, and your fine cookery! Yet you're so young! Can I be that much older than you? (Well yes, I could be your mother, and I grew up about 50 miles south of where your mother lives now, but aside from that... ) Here's what brings it home: when I was about 23 - so not that much younger than you are now - I threw a dinner party for some friends. It was a fondue party. There were dipping sauces. I've forgotten most of them: they were good, so not worthy of a story. One sauce, however, called for 3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely. I started on the first clove. I peeled, and chopped, and peeled, and chopped, and peeled and chopped some more. Then the second clove. Finally, partway through the second "clove" of garlic, I decided enough was enough, and I stopped, and made the dipping sauce with that half-amount of garlic. Everybody, including me, took one taste of that sauce and politely left it alone after that. I've never had anything with so much garlic heat, before or since. You've figured out by now, I hope, that what I thought was a clove of garlic was actually a head of garlic? Whew. That was a LOT of garlic. I look at how you cook and eat, and your age, and how I cooked and ate at that age, and I think: you're at least 10 years ahead of me on your knowledge, your savoir-faire. How wonderful! Way to go, girl! And great blog! Thanks!

Lori, implore them to hold back some hunks for braising and for chili. The combo of the small dice and the ground makes for a fabulous chili. I've got more venison steaks than I know what to do with (from the pro butchered one), and I'm thinkint stir fry. ← Gaah! Not that I'm against stir fry. Go for it. But please, I implore you, try barbecuing some of those steaks - either as steaks, or as kebabs. Use my mother's marinade recipe, here on RecipeGullet. Grill them. Hardy Upper Midwesterner that you are, you won't have a problem with the cold. But if you think you will, broil them instead. You won't regret it.

Add me to the serrano-manchego-mebrillo fan club! It's a great combination! If you can't find manchego, another choice is istara. Our cheese shop (Northern Waters Smokehaus, Duluth, Minnesota) often carries istara even when the manchego has run out. They're similarly made, and quite similar in taste. I think the istara is made the same way but in a different location.

Those sound like great ways to use the sauce. We just used it for a dip, which is why I wanted the consistency of mayonnaise. We kept dipping crackers in it and eating away. Pita chips would work well for it. If you wanted to take a slightly more healthful approach, celery sticks would work too. I haven't decided what I'll do with the leftovers. We're having fish tonight. Garlic sauce dipped on it at the last minute might be just the ticket...if we can keep the crackers out of it!

There's a blueberry-lemon quick bread in the New Basics Cookbook that's out of this world. More recently, I've seen a lemon tart (it may have had blueberries in it, now that I think of it) that had a lively lemon taste. That recipe was in one of the Best Recipes cookbooks - Best Recipes of 2003, maybe? (give or take a year) Lemon meringue pie is a terrific way to appreciate lemons. If all else fails, make sure you juice the lemons and then freeze the juice. I use ice cube trays because the cubes are just about 1.5 T - close to right for a slight seasoning of a sauce. I've also saved larger quantities, say in a yogurt cup.

Daniel, did either of these recipes work for you? Have you found your garlic sauce yet? I made thomeya (the Middle Eastern garlic sauce) yesterday, running from memory and not much of a recipe. I worked out that the runniness depends at least in part on how much oil is used, and how much egg. I'm going to wander over to the eGullet Culinary Institute in a while and re-read what the instructors have to say about consistency in their course on Introduction to Basic Condiments. The thomeya I'm used to is similar to mayonnaise in both ingredients and consistency, but my batch yesterday was more runny. It did firm up after it sat for a while. It tasted wonderful, although the taste lasted with my husband and me longer than we would have preferred. (Our house was quite safe from vampires last night. )

Thanks for those recommendations, Megan! And thanks for the wonderful tours. I'm so impressed with your cookery and your energy! It sounds like you and your friends have tons of fun over food. So, how's your Sunday going?

I'm pulling this bit out of your original question in hopes that the competent chemists among us will answer this question. I don't think toxicity is an issue with laundry detergent but there can be unpleasant side effects (as in a bad case of the trots unless you go very, very lightly). (I know this because my mother washed the dishes with Tide laundry detergent during one memorable camping trip.) Additionally, sudsing is an issue if you're using a dishwasher. Finally, I think the detergents themselves go after different compounds. Dish detergent is not a satisfactory laundry detergent. I am none too sure about using laundry detergent on dishes. Jsolomon? Anyone else? Can you shed more light on the issue of dishwashing vs. laundry detergents, please?

Amen! Isn't that stuff great? But a little goes a looooong way. BonVivantNL, you'd need to look in the laboratory supply catalogs to find Liqui-Nox. I don't think it would be a cost-effective way to wash your dishes.

I've always associated that behavior with teenaged boys! You mean they don't outgrow it?

That chili looks fabulous. Your new camera is doing you proud. Have you tried venison stroganoff yet? We did kebabs the other night, over a pilaf, and were not disappointed.

Beautiful tour, Megan! This is why I don't have any particular requests: not sure what to ask for. Case in point: I have the Balthazar cookbook, I've enjoyed it, but it hadn't occurred to me for a nanosecond that you might be nearby. Oh, that bread looks divine. Have you ever eaten there? What did you think? (If you're running out of places to eat during this blog, I'd add that to your request list...but it's probably terribly pricey.) I had to laugh at your refrigerator. Even when we haven't been shopping for a while, ours never looks that empty. It didn't even look that empty the first day we got it. You must be more disciplined than we are about not buying things in advance of needing them? If it isn't too far OT: what's the derivation of SoHo? Why is there a capital letter in the middle of it? What's so special about SoHo? I've heard the name for years, almost always in conjunction with "fashionable", but never figured out the buzz.

So far, that interactive map isn't working for me, so I don't know whether I'm asking a ridiculously easy or ridiculously broad question. At any rate, here goes: My friends and I will be in Jersey City for a few days, next month. If we make it over to Manhattan for dinner - or lunch - or terrific food/kitchen gear shopping - where would you recommend we go? Can you show us? Photos? Ideas? Where would you take a guest if you only had 1 day to show off your adopted home?

Well, now. I thought this was supposed to be a thread about our own illogical habits, not spousal failure to recognize logic. I see I was mistaken. How illogical of me! The spices go on the turntable on the left-hand side of the cupboard. The herbs go on the right-hand turntable. What's so hard about that? So why is it, I ask you, that the basil is forever hiding on the left, and the pepper blends keep migrating right, and the salts out in front obscure both turntables? Grr. Andie, I notice you did mention EX-spouses. When you got even, you did so with a vengeance.

I don't make tea often, but I use the tea kettle frequently to heat water before adding it to a stew or sauce. It isn't just a decoration. Really! On the other hand, my husband's insistence on taking up a perfectly good burner with his favorite frying pan, instead of putting it in the cupboard with the other pans, now...that is totally illogical.

It depends on what you're doing with it, and what you're using instead of a dutch oven. A deep, heavy pot with a tight lid can help retain an even heat to bring out the best in your stews, braises and stovetop roasts. On the other hand, you don't need a dutch oven to make stock. So: * what sorts of recipes make you wonder about the dutch oven, and * what do you use instead?

Hey, Megan! Welcome to the world of bloggers! I'm already enjoying this blog. I've been in NYC once, long ago, and I enjoyed the visit. It'll be fun to visit vicariously. I especially enjoy seeing the variety of foods available in big cities, and it looks like you'll make a good show of them. Where in California does your mother live? If it isn't too far OT - are you originally from the West Coast, and if so, what brought you east? I don't know enough about NYC to make requests, but everything suggested so far sounds great. It's never occurred to me to wonder what Babbo's is like inside; all I know is Mario's cookbooks. Of course we want to see what your kitchen looks like, too. Blog on!

I think you should call it Pollo Paprikash. Sounds great!

Chufi and I are thinking along the same lines. Why not use bechamel as the binder for the eggplant and lamb? Barring that, I'd say use a dual sauce: a well-seasoned tomato sauce as the main sauce on the ravioli, with a touch of bechamel as a garnish. Of course you can do without the bechamel, but I think it adds a nice flavor. I've never had mint in moussaka! That sounds like a great idea! There was a Moussaka Cookoff last year, where (as with all such cookoffs) folks compared notes, recipes and techniques. Would you care to share your beloved recipe, either here or over there?

Well, perhaps I misunderstood what the cookbook writer said in her introduction to one of the two fatta shamy recipes. She wrote, "This recipe was given to me by two charming sisters at a party to celebrate Sham El Nessim, the holiday which welcomes in spring." I assumed that meant the recipe was especially for Sham El Nessim, but it really didn't say that, now, did it? It said the *party* was for Sham el Nessim. The other fatta shamy recipe doesn't have an introduction. Both fatta shamy recipes use chicken, chicken bouillion, onion, garlic, shamy bread, yogurt, and vinegar. From there they diverge: one uses rice, the other doesn't; one uses tahina and the other considers it optional; and so forth. You asked who gave the recipes. The two charming sisters at the party were Fifi El Sherif and Hoda Auf. The other fatta shamy recipe is credited to Hella Hashem. Another recipe in this cookbook is simply called fatta. The introduction says, "Fatta is one of the most popular national dishes of Egypt. It is eaten on every important occasion such as Big Bairam, Religious feasts, weddings, etc." This fatta recipe, provided by Magda Barakat, calls for meat (veal, beef or lamb) OR chicken; it uses rice with broth; it uses Baladi breads (big pita); and it uses a garlic sauce with tomato. There is no yogurt or tahina in this particular recipe. I don't feel right reproducing the recipes, since the book is copyrighted. The book itself is noted above in my earlier post.

There was some discussion about Moroccan olives and appropriate substitutes in the Moroccan Tagine cooking thread. (This link takes you to the first post where we started discussing olive types.) Which olive you use (whether the dry-cured olive mentioned above, or another) might depend on what recipe you're cooking. Can you tell us more about the recipe?

I had never heard of Argan oil or of Amlou before now. Now that I've gone looking a bit, I see that they're the oil and a "butter" processed from the nuts of the Argan tree. Next question is, what are they like? Flavor? Should I begin to seek these items with total obsession, lest I die before experiencing them? Is this my excuse to plan a trip to Morocco?