Smithy

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?

Add me to the mashed potato crowd! There are plenty of variations that should hold people's interest: garlic mashed potatoes are really hot right now; cheesy mashed potatoes, horseradish mashed potatoes, etc. would be good to mention. If you don't think that's enough, you can always through in the idea of mashed potato madeleines, or other molded mashes. Congratulations on the impending addition!

Beautiful! How was the flavor? Did the pot make a difference beyond the aesthetics?

I'm not so sure that would be bad. I recently had a dish of grilled livers (chicken, lamb, and possibly beef) tossed with garlic, lemon sauce and some seasonings I've forgotten. There may have been tahina in there as well. (I can't remember for certain.) It didn't have the hummus-like texture described above, but I could imagine mashing it and using it as a spread. The flavors were excellent.

There's a Middle Eastern garlic sauce that sounds rather like it. The garlic sauce is basically whizzed up garlic, salt, lemon juice, and a bit of egg, with a thin stream of oil added. FoodMan gives a recipe for it in his eGullet Culinary Institute course, Introduction to Lebanese Cuisine (scroll a little way down the page to find it). ChefCrash is right; the white color could be from emulsification, just as it is with mayonnaise. Using only the egg whites will result in a whiter sauce than if you include the yolks. The stuff I've seen has always been the consistency of mayonnaise, but if you add enough oil, or perhaps some water? you might get the thin sauce you describe. Another avenue to try is to find a recipe for aïoli. I think aïoli and thomeya (a name for that Middle Eastern sauce) are very similar, and both names indicate garlic, as yours does, in their respective languages. Does this help? Edited to add: I just found a "Spanish-style garlic sauce" that uses bread (even stale bread) as a thickener, and doesn't use eggs. I bet this has the consistency you're after. Clickety here.

You've outdone yourselves. Those photos and the step-by-step discussions of the smoking process are amazing. If, or when, I ever decide to try smoking meat, I'll now have a fine tutorial. As always, I'm impressed by the quality of your blogging. You three have posted your usual fine photos (even with a new camera, Susan) and words. The fact that you've done it under such pressure, and managed to stay civil, and not turned into blithering idiots, really shows gumption. Congratulations on your successes. Congratulations, too, to the others who've tagged along and quit - or at least started to quit - during this time. Thank you for sharing this time with us. Do please let us know, somehow, how it all goes, even after this blog is closed. There'll still be plenty of support and encouragement for you.

Does Janet Evanovich write for Harlequin? I thought she pitched to a different market, at a higher level, than the Harlequin Romances. (I confess, I'm too lazy to go check further to who publishes her books.) I think she may just happen to have written a NASCAR racer into her book rather than participating in the marketing line I'm talking about. I'd like to know about the celeb endorsement bit, too. My guess is that the typical eGulleteer would be skeptical until the quality were proven. Does that hold for the "rest of the world" too? (My, aren't we the exclusive ones. ) And for the record, one of my dear friends adores his Wolfgang Puck cookware, given to him by his son. (I think it's called "9W".) I would have avoided it *because* of the product endorsement, but it does its job well in my friend's household.

Who else remembers locker plants? They were a bit cold for brining, but where I grew up they were the way to go for long-term meat storage at Very Cold Temperatures. The place shut down long before I moved away, but I still remember Dad bundling me into the too-large too-heavy parka with the wolf-rimmed hood, before he bundled himself up. Then he, the similarly-attired locker plant operator, and I would trundle in, open up our particular rented locker, and select the cut of venison for our special dinner. That place probably wasn't all that big, but at the time it felt like Narnia. There should be such places now, with climate-controlled spaces for your choice of temperature. Frozen storage? Over here. Brining? Right this way. ObCongrats: I've said it before, but I'll say again, how impressed I am with you bloggers and other quitters. It's a tough row to hoe under any circumstances. Doing it in public without going homicidal is...well...pushing past mere sainthood.

As I live and breathe!!! That's what was in mine back in '86!!! My late FIL, and indeed every person of male persuasion in the whole family was or is an AVID hunter. He had shot the bobcat out at the deer camp, and brought it home, where he stashed it in MY freezer. ...(go back and read it...all of it...again!) So I knew just where to locate the packages of shrimp, ran in the door, lifted the lid, leaned WAY over to position my head JUST SO to hold the top up, rested the lid on my skull, and kicked the side of the still-dark freezer. And as the light gleamed on, I found myself face-to-face with a freezer full of bobcat, all brindly fur and shining eyes, lying there all snarly-fanged, just inches from my face. I don't know which happened first. I jumped back and up enough to free the lid, which thumped down upon one of my uplifted hands, whumping it underneath its fall. I think it even bounced once or twice. And I don't remember if it hurt. ... ← Unless someone admits to having severed human body parts in their chest freezer, you DEFINITELY win. ← Maybe about the wierdest part, but racheld definitely wins the GulleyLaugh award!

At least it isn't a cheesehead hat. That would be treasonous.

I think you just trumped my finch carcass.

?eh? Please tell us more! I did recently hear that NASCAR and Harlequin Romance are teaming up for, er, racy romances (I couldn't resist), on the theory that romance novels are as fine a family activity as NASCAR racing. Tomatoes I hadn't heard about.

We learned the same thing. It was a week or two later that we realized the vendor had kept the original card, too. Was that supposed to happen? (But what would we do with a 3-picture memory card?) Anyway, enjoy the new camera! And I still think a time-capsule with the carcass of the old camera and other memorabilia of this time, buried at The Cabin with all due pomp and circumstance after the ground thaws, is the way to go. If you're worried about electronics and soil pollution, remove the circuit board first. The kids should enjoy that bit of surgery.

...yeah. Without going too far OT, some friends gave me a bunch of Pampered Chef stuff one year. I did like the nut chopper, as long as it lasted, but the garlic press thingie that they gave me was pretty useless. It was a screw tube that you twisted to force the garlic through the holes. It took a lot more hand/arm strength than I thought the process was worth. There wasn't enough mechanical advantage to overcome the friction of the (plastic) screw threads; the holes didn't really cut...it was a poor design. Your press sounds like a better design. Hmm. I do like their garlic roaster, although that's pretty foolproof. I guess I've had better luck with PC than some folks here - but I still prefer to support my local kitchen store.

Good point.