Smithy

Wot she said. ...and thanks for the laugh about the Schuylkill Freeway on-ramp!

Here in Minnesota it's still considered rude to take the last piece - so when there's one serving left, somebody cuts that in two and takes one of the halves. The next person cuts it in half again and takes a bit. And so it goes...until we're down to crumbs, but nobody took the last piece!

I usually can resist donuts; there are so many better ways to take on more calories than I burn. However, that chocolate donut in the center is calling my name. I can hear it, all the way up here in Minnesota, calling my name.... *drool*

I'm looking forward to some of the answers regarding this. I first ran across the term "composed salad" maybe 7 years ago (and that particular salad's a winner at my house) but still don't really understand what makes it a composed salad or not. The working definition seems to mean that it's artistically arranged and not tossed - but I suspect that if I said a salad is first composed, then tossed I'd be missing the point.

Susan, I think it's the late cool season rather than anything you did or didn't do. I bought 3 tomato plants and 3 baby pepper plants (as well as a slew of herbs) from my favorite online nursery. The herbs have done reasonably well, but the tomatoes and peppers are a bust. I bought yet another tomato plant from a local nursery. These folks were willing to keep the plants in the greenhouse until the purchaser was ready to get them. I took over a healthy strapping potted tomato along about July 4 (maybe a week earlier) with many blossoms and a few green tomatoes. Now there are a few blossoms, many green tomatoes, and only a few red ones. Tonight they're predicting 38F. It's just too darned cold and wet this year. I haven't seen anything red in the Farmers' Market so far, either. A greenhouse would help. Moving would help. A south-facing wall to back up the plants (for reflected heat) would help. But basically, this has been a tough year.

That sounds gloriously messy, and do-able with my equipment. Thanks for the idea! I may also set up some syrup to make rock candy, but of course that takes a lot longer before the crystals become visible. Edited to add: how flexible would the cotton candy threads be? Is there a good ratio of glucose to sugar that would let them set up enough to be picked up, but not be brittle?

You can tell he's driving and not flying, can't you? (At least, he's not taking the airlines.) Can you imagine what the Transporation Security Administration would do with that tackle box?

I've kept the recommendations from before (and of course, they're right there upthread), so please don't think I'm ignoring them. I'm just gunshy of trying another white sea fish at great expense, considering how much I paid for that snapper and how disappointed I was in its flavor. It's a bit like Nadia's reluctance to try Lebanese again, for a while.

I think it may seem weird in some cultures, normal in others. I've been in some places where they put all the food out in front of us and then disappeared around the corner, I suppose to make it clear that we could eat all we wanted (the ultimate hospitality). Every so often someone would appear from around the corner and replenish a bowl that we'd finally managed to empty. We thought that was pretty weird, but it seemed to be the norm there. I'd say you should do as they do in the culture where you're living - which means to plate your guests' food now - except for those adventuresome guests you might have over for an "American style family dinner". Or you could do as my family did when I was growing up in California: plate the initial servings, and then pass the serving dishes around for seconds as appropriate.

This thread is a real eye-opener. I admit to being one of those folks who think "fruitcake? eww!" because the immediate recollection is of those dry things with chunks of unnatural fruit. Why, why? I ask you, would anyone make green cherries (if that's what they are)...and maraschino cherries are an abomination. Gaah. I do, however, like some fruits in breads. Stollen is wonderful stuff. Date cake is wonderful stuff. It's hard to go wrong with nuts. So as I read this, I think maybe, just maybe there are fruitcakes worth eating out there. I'm pretty sure they don't come in stores, though. One of my favorite fruited cake recipes might just barely be within the realm of fruitcake, as I read this thread, because it has dried cherries, raisins, walnuts and bourbon. It's wonderful - a family favorite - and easy to boot: Liv's Mother's Kentucky Cake from the recipe collection at The Splendid Table's website.

Well, I want to try the Charles Perry version, with cayenne, and see what happens, so I'm glad Adam posted it here. Er, what other fresh fish should I try instead of red snapper, since that doesn't seem to arrive in good condition at our markets? Does anyone know whether walleye or northern pike would work? What about rainbow trout? Herring? Or should I try sea bass next time as someone else suggested? What about halibut? Both of those come in frozen from the ocean, but might stand up better to the treatment than the snapper did. Finally: I'm fascinated by the comment that mustard was used in the days before red pepper was known. I never think of mustard as being hot. Do I use wimpy mustard?

That looks lovely! I've been looking at that issue of Fine Cooking and wanting to try the tarts, but haven't tried it yet - lack of time mostly, and a bit failure of nerve to try something new. Good on you!

I posted a question like this in the General forum, but was advised that the "sugar babies" tend to hang out here more. I hope someone can help me. I want to do a little demonstration, for people interested in geology, of how a material will take on different physical properties (bulky crystals, glassy, thready) depending on how it's heated and cooled. What I'm specifically after, if I can do it, is a way to make a single pot of sugar syrup, caramel, or some other easily cooked material that I can heat and then pour into two batches. One batch sits and cools until it's hard at room temperature in a solid sheet. The other batch gets pulled or paddled as it cools, so it makes long thin threads. (Think of the tacky threads you get when you put glue between two pieces, let it almost set, then pull it apart.) The final cooled product will in one case be a bunch of long skinny threads, and the other cooled product will be a single sheet that, when fractured with a hammer, doesn't make long skinny threads. Maybe it makes hexagonal columns instead, maybe it makes little round bits. If I had a cotton candy maker this would be easy, I think, but I don't. If push comes to shove I can make rock candy for one of the examples, but that's a slower process and also doesn't make the threads I'm after. Any ideas, anyone? I'm thinking that pulled sugar gets closest to the thready look I want, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Maybe someone else knows a better substance to cook for this demonstration.

I can't believe this blog is nearly over! Y'all really have had rotten weather lately. It's been muggy here in Duluth, but the thunderstorms have passed south of us before swinging up to wallop you. I'll bet Anne's place is helping you work out more of the details of what you do and don't want in your kitchen, when you renovate!

*FLASH* update! I went to the California Tree Fruit web site and basically asked the same question I asked here. Their representative (who works about 30 miles from where I grew up) very graciously responded within a day. She reports that no, the PLU's do not represent the fruit variety; that would require hundreds of PLU's and raise the complexity of supermarket listings to an unmanageable level. However, she said they're working on a comprehensive listing of stone fruit varieties and characteristics for their wholesalers. She says it's a bit unwieldy since it wasn't intended for publication on their web site, but she'll be happy to share it with me. That way I can cart it to the store with me, look at the fruit variety listed on the packing crates, and determine which segment of our household's market I'm shopping for that week. This has been an interesting discussion, and I thank everyone here for his or her insights.

Welcome, AmyKay!! We're happy to have you here, and it's an honor that this forum is the first place you've chosen to post! I've heard of cherimoya, but I don't know anything about it. You describe it as having a creamy texture. Can you give more information? For instance - is it sweet, sour, big, small, pulpy? What the heck is a cherimoya, anyway, and where does it grow? Finally, do post pictures if you can - and if you can't, tell us how it comes out anyway. Very few eGulleteers bite - except on food - so don't be shy about posting! Oh, and by the by - getting an SO drunk on something so he thinks it's good is a pretty good strategy, in my book.

KatieLoeb, I think you get the prize for most creative name and recipe so far..."Trailer Park Ambrosia Sorbet", indeed! Will there be a picture?

Oh, Susan - that's mighty purty! It certainly looks better than before. Congratulations!

Grub, in case you're still wondering , these blowtorch canisters are fairly small - we aren't talking about things you have to wheel around as with a full-blown welding kit. They stand maybe 15" high and are easily managed with one hand. They are easy to find in any hardware store. We have used ours for sweating copper pipes, but we mostly use ours for lighting the wood in our fireplace, unless we've actually managed to get truly dry wood for the winter. I haven't experimented with using one in the kitchen, but I'm getting excited about the prospects now that I've read this thread! The small "cook's blowtorch" is small and wimpy, and much more expensive because it's being marketed to the specialty group. In addition, I *think* it's usually designed for butane (I could be wrong about this). Butane is a wimpy fuel compared to propane. My final advice to you would be to make sure you have a fire extinguisher nearby...not because the torch is explosive (that's been well-answered already) but because it's a powerful mobile flame. Once you get used to it, you may get careless about where you're pointing it. What is MAPP, someone? Anyone?

Smithy, there is a HUGE variation in recipes for this dish. I looked around a little and what I'm planning to do looks a lot like this: Link I really loved the garnish I had at our friends' house, so I will add caramelized onion and toasted pine nuts after it is baked. As for type of fish, you want a white-fleshed sea fish. In a pinch cod filets would be a lot better than oily fish like tuna or salmon. You'll get the best results with red snapper, if you can find it. ← I did this last night for dinner, and (as usual) ran into questions when it was too late to ask. First question: The recipe in the link above calls for 1 chili pepper. Ahm, what kind? How big? How hot? I have some dried shatta from Egypt that I was afraid would overpower the dish. I ended up substituting a tablespoon of paprika (mostly hot, some sweet, mixed) to get a bit of heat without burning our taste buds. Second: how thin is the tahina supposed to be? Thin enough that you can pour it onto the fish? I had to plop mine onto the fish with a spoon, and then try to spread it. I think if it had been thinner it would have looked more artistic - although the flavor was fine. All in all this was nice. I used red snapper filets. I wasn't crazy about the flavor of the fish when it was all finished; to me it tasted maybe a little old, maybe a little overcooked. My husband loved the fish as it was. The sauce was quite good, and we had to laugh: he'd have liked a bit less lemon and more tahina; I was squeezing extra lemon on overall! This is fairly typical of our respective tastes, though. What intrigued me was that I used a lot more cilantro than the recipe calls for, and still couldn't taste it unless I tasted *for* it. Then, if was tasting for it, I could detect a subtle hint of that herb. It added a nice background flavor without shouting everything else down. Overall, we both liked this dish and I will do it again, but probably with some fish that didn't have to be frozen quite so long before eating. (Maybe a northern pike, which wouldn't have to be frozen at all.) I would like some advice on what type of pepper would be typical. Finally, next time I'll remember about the garnish. That sounds lovely.

I think the ripeness window of most varieties is so short - only 2-3 weeks in most cases - that it just isn't practical to order by variety. Nonetheless the variety is marked on the packing carton, so if I can get the produce manager to tell me what variety they have in, I suppose I can compare that to my comprehensive variety listing (if I ever find one) to work out whether I should buy enough fruit for my husband as well as myself. As a former produce manager, Aileen, do you think it's practical to be able to call the produce manager and ask that question? Do you think it would be practical in a large store to post the variety? Right now the signs list general information: tree-ripe (ha) red peaches, California, $ss/lb. How much of a headache would it be to add varietal information, do you think?

I don't believe the "manufactured" story. From what I've been told, it helps track the produce so they have a better idea of what's selling, from where, and to where it's going. I confess, however, that I can't see why the old packing cartons didn't accomplish the same thing. The phase-out of the stickers is true, at least if hearing about it from 3 independent sources can be taken as truth. (I'm not in the business, so it all may be a pack o' lies.) According to what I've heard, they're working on a laser tattoo system instead. Nobody else likes those stickers, either. I am amused that in the last few years the citrus industry has been working toward the stickers and away from the little ink stamps they've traditionally used...and here the stone fruit folks are losing the stickers. Thanks for the web sites, folks. It doesn't help us determine the fruit variety, but it'll entertain us as we compare PLU's to the list to see what else we can learn. Edited to add: I see Dave had the same tattoo information, but more so. Good job, sir.

I absolutely agree with you on this point, and I shop as you do. The problem is that my husband wants only freestone fruit, even if it's of lower quality, and he wants to know how to tell which he's getting. I haven't worked out a way to sniff, feel or touch to figure that out. Looking at the box label only helps if I have a listing of fruit varieties, complete with whether it's a freestone or cling variety, and the listing includes the variety currently in the store. So far that approach has had minimal success because (a) there are often more than one variety in any given box, since the turnover is high, and (b) I haven't found a comprehensive listing, and the varieties shown on the box are frequently not on my list. Thanks for the information so far, folks. Anyone else?

I really don't think the local sewage treatment plants would approve of this approach. The little coal bits are hard and difficult to break down, and the ash is going to affect the pH of the water treatment system. (I realize that one person doing this is unlikely to have any effect. It's the magnification of having many people do it that would be a problem.) In the end, the solids are screened out of the sewage - that is, if they didn't plug a line along the way - and put into the landfill or burned or possibly land-applied as fertilizer, depending on what your sewage works does. It's better and more energy-efficient to send the material directly to the landfill via the garbage dumpster. The general attitude of the sewage folks is that it's best to keep the non-sewage solids out of the sewage in the first place - hence, the prohibition of garbage disposals in some cities. Hm..some cities have municipal composting programs. If yours does, you could add the ash to that, since you don't compost yourself. I like the soap and pottery ideas. If you happen to have a garden with acidic soil you can use some of the ash to correct the pH, but it sounds like you've already looked at that one.

Wow...the whole-grains thing just threw me for a loop. I'm still going to suggest that one way to reduce the meat is by putting chunks of meat in with another dish. My thought was, for instance, to saute cut-up chicken breast in canola oil with the seasonings of your choice (say, basil, oregano and lemon juice for a Greek flavor) and then throw in some rice, let it turn translucent in the oil, and pitch in chicken broth with it. Simmer until rice is done, and you have a pilaf. Change the seasonings and you can switch countries with the same general combination of ingredients. It gives a filling feeling without totally depriving you of meat. Maybe if you used white rice you could get around that whole-grain prosciption. I've actually had the best luck with forced reductions in food, but only when they were associated with either going off on vacations involving strenuous exercise and a different diet altogether (think backpacking) or else getting sick and not being able to eat anything. The first won't work for you and the second is quite counterproductive. When I try the same thing at home ('no more xxxx until I've lost yy pounds') it's backfired on me the same way it has for you. Therefore, barring some forced change I'm inclined to agree that gradual reductions are better than the cold-turkey routines. That way, you can sneak up on your subconscious. What about beans? Kidney beans, chickpeas, white beans? I love the meaty texture and flavor of bean salads, and they can be jazzed up with bits of onion, herbs, preserved lemons, that sort of thing. What about fruits, dried or otherwise? Sun-dried tomatoes in oil? Those can be good ways to work some extra texture and flavor into your foods. I can't help thinking that fruits and vegetables are likely to carry nutrients that you need, as well as good flavor. You can throw those sorts of things into rice dishes, too (there I go again with the rice). A lot of nuts have the right sort of fatty acids - walnuts are good for you, for instance - and might help with that meaty requirement. I think you're spot-on about needing to look for the right nutrition for your particular health needs instead of watching the scale. I neglected to mention upthread that when my friend cut back on saturated fats and started paying attention to the omega-3 vs. omega-6 fatty acids bit, she lost some 15 or 20 pounds even though she always ate plenty. I generally lose a pound or two when I go to visit them. Their diet isn't that peculiar, and there's always plenty to eat, but it's light on animal protein, with little to no animal fats, no corn oil, and canola and/or olive oil as the cooking fats. Since we like green salads those are always around, but that isn't a requirement of the way they eat. A lot of the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids business goes toward autoinflammatory diseases and autoimmune diseases. I think gout fits in there, and I'm sure arthritis does.