andiesenji

My Igloo will freeze stuff that is close to the outlet - I learned not to put glass milk bottles in that area because the milk froze and broke the bottles. It's this one.

Homemade parched corn. (similar to CornNuts) I can state from personal experience that a quart jar of the stuff can keep two teenagers occupied for a couple of hours, along with sufficient water and/or other liquids. Although a pair of earplugs is helpful. If you want a recipe, let me know. I have made pemmican, with homemade jerky and dried fruits. I have an Igloo compact fridge for my van that plugs into one of the outlets and also runs off AC. I had an auxillary battery installed in my van along with an isolator switch so it will charge and power the outlets when the motor is not running, and there is no draw on the main battery.

What, that isn't a staple?

If you can find a Corning "factory-outlet" store, look for the small deep bowls and the small shallow bowls which are very inexpensive. Wal-Mart carries them and occasionally a color or pattern is discontinued and they sell the "open stock" stuff cheap! The stuff is tough. I have had them fall off the counter and bounce across the floor with nary a chip. I jerked a dishtowel off the counter and had one that was hiding inside, fly across the kitchen, hit the tile backsplash behind the cooktop, careen off the cooktop and slide down the counter until it spun to a stop. I have lots of little bowls, old and not so old, including stacks of Tupperware from the days when I lived next door to a dealer and was "paid" for helping host parties, in merch. They also seem to be indestructible. Except for the ones destroyed by puppies while teething. I bought some of the little silicone "pinch" bowls but they are too small for most stuff. For spices and stuff I use egg cups. I have a lot of egg cups. I don't mind losing a few which sometimes happens when I toss them into the sink and they miss the bottom liner, or I don't get them properly fastened down in the dishwasher and they get blown out of the tray. If you want cute and colorful, check out Pier One or Cost Plus World Market. They have some that you won't see anywhere else.

I occasionally wimp out and use a can of baked beans. The big blue and red can that says B & B. And I'm not above using a can of black beans. I like the Mexican brand with the yellow label but can't recall the name. (I can picture the can but none of the text, except for the frijoles negro, describing the contents which contains much less water than "domestic" brands.) I don't have any in the pantry at the moment though. (I looked.) I also keep a few boxes of cake mix in the pantry for emergencies.

For French, you might try this site! It's free..

Gesztenyetorte or Gesztenye torta Hungarian chestnut cake geh sten ye tor ta in certain regions of Hungary a bit of a y sound at the beginning and alternate spelling, gestenyepür torta or yeah sten ye pür tor ta I learned this from my Hungarian housekeeper.

I got some. I used it in bean soup - made with Rancho Gordo's heirloom beans. Perfect flavor and vegetarian for my friends. (I usually "flavor" beans with ham hocks or ham trimmings).

I have puzzled over the list for the past few days and have finally figured out that I had listed the following (omitting the crossed out stuff) 2 # large carrots 2 # parsnips 3 or 4 bunches celery (depending on size) 10# white onions 10 # yellow onions 10# ginger 5 # paste tomatoes 12 navel oranges, large 10 green apples 10 Jonathan apples 2 grapefruit 4 large sweet potatoes 6 baking potatoes (also large) Yukon potatoes (amount depends on size) New potatoes (ditto) gallon tin of sorghum molasses 4 chickens 2 # beef cheeks 7 # chuck roast (to be ground at home) 2-3 # calves liver 1 1/2 # chicken livers 2 whole pork loins 6 steaks - New York strip for Gerry Wilde's recipe for Steak Diablo 5 pound slab of bacon 2 pounds pancetta Pick up turkey on Thursday (a free-range bronze turkey special ordered). That is 99.9% of the note. I have yet to decipher the last note. I was making oven-roasted vegetables, thus the carrots, parsnips, celery, onions, etc. preparing carmelized onions ditto candied ginger, candied orange and grapefruit peel. applesauce to go with the pork loin was probably making a paté, thus the livers. pancetta was probably making chicken stock - thus the chickens, which were probably stewing hens. At one time - 50 years ago - I knew Gregg shorthand and used to write my notes and shopping lists that way. Now I doubt I could recall more than two or three symbols - it looks like Greek to me! A few months ago I found a note in an old book, written in shorthand, and I had absolutely no idea what it was about or when I had made it. If I found a shopping list, if one could be identified as such, I wouldn't even try.

Me too! And I still have part of a box of the full-size pan liners. like this But no longer have my big Blodgett oven. Since I do much less baking, I sold it and now have a large space to be filled, probably with an oven and warming drawer. Haven't decided on the details yet. Meanwhile, the pan liners have come in handy for wrapping stuff.

I have been shopping at Star Restaurant Equipment & Supply on Sepulveda Blvd., in Van Nuys since they opened in 1963. Star Kitchen.com I actually stumbled on it after leaving Builder's Emporium just up the street (long since closed). As we were in the midst of a kitchen remodel and I was unsatisfied with some of the things offered by the contractors, I decided to take a quick scan of Star and walked out a couple of hours later and $$$$$ poorer, but very, very satisfied. Over the years I have purchased all kinds of things, from the tiniest condiment cups to a large butcherblock bench. I have met people in the store from as far away as Las Vegas, Catalina and Hawaii, also a gentleman from Singapore who was buying what seemed like an entire kitchen for his daughter. I especially like the store because they leave you alone to brouse all you wish but if you need help, it is unfailingly courteous and given without any hint of hurrying one along because a more important customer has appeared. I have referred people to the store who are not professionals and aren't really sure about the name of the item they want, but have a simple sketch or description and have been delighted when the desired item (in one case a rack that could be mounted on a wall to hold small trays or plates, i.e., a pizza-pan rack). My main problem is getting OUT of the store with just the items I went there to buy. I have to leave my credit cards at home and take a finite amount of cash.

I like to slice on a long bias so the meat fibers are plus or minus an inch long. This works well for people who don't want to use the stuff for flossing. Of course, this depends on the type of meat you are using and how far you will take the drying. Other people in my informal barbecue group, (we often buy large portions of meat as a group and divvy it up, such as the entire round, top & bottom) like to slice the meat (more like a slab than a slice) with the grain but they twist and pound it (difficult to describe the technique exactly) to weaken some of the linear strands and it seems to work quite well. After removing the outer membrane and most of the fat, they slice off about a 1 inch slab, hook one end of it on a spike and twists the slab until it looks like a thick hose. It is then pounded with a iron rod (actually a fireplace poker with the hook sawed off the end) then twisted the other direction and pounded again. When laid flat, it gets a bit more pounding, along with applying a seasoned rub, with a meat tenderizer club or a batticarne. The one guy that regularly does this has one with a handle that looks rather like a mini griddle and the business end is about four or five inches in diameter. Found one at Amazon: it's like this one, not quite as pretty. The meat ends up less than 1/2 inch thick by the time it goes into the dehydrator (or smoker, which is what several folks use).

Certainly no offense is or should be taken! You have to please yourself. Some people don't like whole grain mustard and some people don't like sweet mustards. The companies who produce mustard commercially have spend many millions on perfecting a product that will appeal to the most people. At least now one knows the contents contain nothing that is harmful. At one time people liked to make their own mustard because when it was made in small factories or shops, the owners sometime added other stuff to extend the mustard. Some really weird stuff was added. By all means continue to use whatever you like. Making one's own is just an adventure in seeing how much diversity can be developed in the home kitchen.

I never, ever, infuse garlic in oil without heating it. The spore that cause botulism are destroyed once the material is heated to a certain point and held at that point for a certain time. Acid foods above a certain percentage of acid also INHIBIT the growth and development of the toxins produced by the spores. Long, slow roasting of garlic in oil, which is how I treat a lot of garlic, will destroy the botulinum bacteria. The government regulations require commercial processors to cook potentially dangerous foods (low acid foods) at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 3 minutes. That is the key for killing the bacteria itself. Now, one has to remember that if one has a can or a jar of possibly contaminated food, the bacteria has already produced the toxins that cause the disease. Do NOT use anything that has been canned, jarred and or processes, i.e. cold-infused oils, oil-processed peppers, green beans, etc. Anything pickled with acid content above 4.0 is just fine. Read this Wikipedia article about: Botulism On much older threads, I have described my method of slow-roasting garlic in a pot full of oil. I store this at room temperature in my pantry. I have used numerous gallons of the stuff during the past 30-some years and never had a problem. I used to buy fresh garlic but for the past few years have bought the big containers of peeled garlic at Costco, Sam's Club or Smart & Final. I put the garlic in a 6-quart deep roasting pan or Dutch oven (often a Corning Visions Dutch oven), add a jug of virgin olive oil - I like the stuff in the gallon tin container. Extra-virgin is not needed, just the regular stuff, mild is better than the strong green stuff. The pot goes into the cold oven and the temp is set to 275 degrees F. The timer is set for two hours. At the end of that time I will fish out one or two of the largest garlic cloves, mash them on a piece of bread and see if the roasting has reached the level of sweetness that I want. Sometimes, if the cloves are really huge, it will take another hour. Needless to say, you and most of the people in your neighborhood will be aware that you are cooking the garlic. Unless someone really hates the stuff, it is not unpleasant. For people who really like garlic, it is lovely. You can give it a try in much smaller batches but you must check the temp of the oil with a candy or frying thermometer to make sure it reaches 250 degrees F and stays there at least three minutes and that is in the bottom of the pot where the garlic cloves have settled. Ladle it into a clean, dry jar and cap it tightly. When you are ready to use it, scald a ladle or tongs and dry them well, to retrieve some of the garlic cloves and pour out as much oil as you want. As long as you don't introduce any moisture into the oil, it will keep at room temp for a few months without any hint of rancidity. If you do get some water into it, you can store it in the fridge but but the entire jar inside something that you can seal. Otherwise the entire fridge will smell and taste of garlic. For other stuff, try canning pickles, tomatoes or tomato sauce. The acid content is so high botulism is not a danger.

Elk is the mildest of game meats. Because elk feed on meadow grasses, much like range beef cattle, the meat does not develop the gamey flavor of dear and moose. Moose can be pretty strong because they feed on the roots of trees that grow into wet areas, will, like deer, strip the bark from young trees and similar things. Western mule deer, that also feed more on grasses than the eastern whitetail, also have less of a gamey flavor. Somewhat OT but ff anyone is interested in game birds per se, in so. Calif. info from '04 - '06 The wild game bird population in California changes year by year, depending on the amount of rain, and when it comes. UC Davis offers a lot of help for people who want to try their hand at raising game birds. Game bird info And here is a document: UC Davis PDF document It can be quite profitable. Several kids in local 4-H programs are raising birds to earn money for college. Their future production is reserved for the next two years and will be going to high-end restaurants. (They are being very secretive about the identity of their customers.) There is also a magazine Gamebird. And if anyone wants to go whole-hog so to speak, and go out and hunt your own. You can find a list of butcher shops in California who will handle the hard part of the processing. at California Predators Club!

There are a great many reasons why a wider variety of meat and fowl are no longer available to the average consumer. Mostly it is about regulations that are onerous for small farmers (and encouraged by the major processors to stifle ANY competition at atll) plus the cost of labor because it takes more "on-hands" work to slaughter and pluck a dove or squab, quail, duck, goose, woodcock, etc., as well as ostrich and other large birds, whereas chickens and the ubiquitious white turkeys are processed almost entirely by machines. Having plucked thousands of fowl of various types, as well as doing my share of skinning and dressing many types of animals, I can assure you that since a worker is no longer willing to do the work for 1.50 an hour, it makes it far too costly to bring to market, even without the rules and regulations that are a burden. Fifty years ago there were still small farmers in southern California who raised "exotic" game birds and processed them on their own property and trucked them daily to hotels, restaurants and stores. By the end of the '60s they were gone. I have friends who raise ostrich and who have been harassed by people who they know do not live in the area, have had their fences torn down by off-road vehicles, farm from a road, so not an accident, and having graffiti sprayed on the buildings. The local law enforcement is laughable as they seem to think it is "kid's pranks" but my friends find it odd that when they report an incident, it can take more than a day for an officer to respond but when a local beef feed lot was invaded and several calves stolen, there was immediet response and even a helicopter called into to track the "rustlers." The total loss for all the beef animals wouldn't even come near the value of a single breeding female ostrich. Something stinks somewhere. In heavily populated areas, such as So. Calif., many of the small farmers were zoned out of existance. Family farms that had operated for a hundred years were surrounded by residential developments, their taxes pushed up to the point where they couldn't afford them and re-zoning meant they could no longer raise any kind of fowl because of noise or other regulations. I used to buy squab, ducklings, geese, quail, pheasant and partridge from a farmer in Newhall. Now the place is a shopping center. It was a family business and he had 9 children who helped with the raising and processing. It was also a nice drive but that was before the development of Valencia and Santa Clarita and on out to where I now live.

My recipe varies all the time but this is what I use as a rough guide: Sambal about 1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped dried whole chiles. Plump in a little water, or I steam them till soft. Remove seeds and any stem, fibrous ribs, etc., then chop. I use a combination of several chiles and it varies depending on what I have on hand. I like the inclusion of anchos, though not traditional and of course the hot chiles. 4 to 6 large garlic cloves 1 small onion, or half a larger one, cut in quarters and roasted in a little oil with the garlic 1/4 cup palm (wet) sugar 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger or fresh galangal about 1 tablespoon cider vinegar (coconut or palm vinegar if you have it) up to 1 tablespoon tamarind paste, use more if you like the flavor 1/2 teaspoon 5-spice powder coconut or palm oil - 1 tablespoon or so. I steam the chiles before trying to seed and stem them, then chop them into manageable pieces. I like to bash them in a mortar while the garlic and onion is roasting, adding the sugar, salt and ginger or galangal. When the garlic and onion are roasted (similar to confit) I add that and the vinegar and bash and blend everything into a paste. I scrape this into a skillet into which I have placed a dollop of oil, about a tablespoon or so, and fry it over low heat, stirring constantly for a minute or two. Add the tamarind paste and the 5-spice powder. You can substitute any spices you like, this is not carved in stone. Continue cooking until it is evenly “browned” to a deep caramel color. There are some great recipes at Asia Recipe.com I don't use the shrimp paste or other seafood ingredients because I am allergic to shrimp.

I have bought a couple on ebay. Perhaps not quite as pretty as this one, but perfectly adequate. I like the older ones because they are stronger at the base of the bowl. The fancywork is not just for decoration but acts as a buttress and keeps it from bending. In the photo you can see that the narrowest part of the shaft is thicker than in regular spoons, even serving spoons. There is also the Stilton server that some people think are neater, but one loses the "case." like this

For Stilton, nothing works as well as one of these:

← One problem in serving it as a starter is that some people want to make an entire meal of it and one has to be firm about denying seconds (or thirds) otherwise the entree will be ignored. At a New Year's Day gathering a few years ago I found two of the guys, who had volunteered to do cleanup, in the kitchen, tearing apart a baguette and using the bread to scrape out whatever was still in the dish. One told me that he had never cared for potato soup and didn't care much for Stilton, but the combination was dynamite.

For a 5 pound bag.

Here is my secret indulgence with Stilton. I buy a whole round for the holidays. I have some nifty antique cheese scoops I inherited and quite a bit of the cheese is consumed au naturale at a holiday gathering or two. I scoop out the remainder, which is mixed with "other stuff" - things my friends and I like with it - but I try to maintain a fairly substantial outer "rind" for later use. I have a deep souffle dish into which the Stilton fits perfectly and I trim off the one inch or so that extends above the rim of the dish. Into the hollow cheese goes homemade potato soup, which is then ladeled into individual bowls or sometimes mugs. The warm soup acquires some of the Stilton flavor and takes the homely potato to new heights.

I'm always making condiments. Right at the moment I have some mustard seed soaking, which has been "working" for a couple of weeks. It certainly won't hurt it to sit around for awhile. I plan on using some of the boiled cider syrup with a little of it to see how that develops. I am going to make a batch of mushroom ketchup as soon as a box of 'shrooms I ordered arrives. And I am going to make chili sauce next weekend, my neighbors and I are getting together to make a large batch - at least a hundred pints. We make the basic stuff in the big batch then "adjust" our own for the flavor and heat we want. I also have a batch of sambal that is aging or maturing prior to final adjustments, diluting, "tasting" and canning. The tasting of sambal is tricky, as only minute amounts can be tasted due to the extreme heat of the chiles. I employ rice as a carrier and simply stick a new bambook skewer into the sambal then stir the rice with it. That will allow me to check the flavor as well as the potency of the chiles without my tastebuds suffering from sensory overload! I want to mention one thing about making the sweet or sweeter mustard. If you can find palm sugar - the wet stuff in a jar, try using that to sweeten a small batch of mustard. It does have a flavor that is stronger or more assertive than cane or beet sugar and it seems to me that it "marries" nicely with the mustard. I don't mean that you should run right out and buy some, but just keep it in mind for the future.

There is Cookin Stuff in Torrance that should be close enough for you. It is a great store for gadgeteers and I stop there whenever I am in the South Bay or nearby. There is always something that I simply "can't live without!" I would also suggest you visit one of the Bristol Farms Market locations. This is a high-end market chain that also has cookware/tableware and etc., shops attached to each store, as well as a place to have something to eat and fantastic bakery and deli items. Although the take-out foods are so far beyond ordinary "deli" that I hesitate to use that description. These are gourmet foods and very, very good.

He was Bavarian and ordered the construction of the most famous and most picturesque of the Bavarian castles, pictured here. He was a handsome young man who developed into an excessively corpulant man, secretive and obsessed with foods. He had a chamber, with a table that could be lowered into the kitchen and then raised into his chamber so his servants could not see him while he was eating. He just about bankrupted his country with building fantastic castles. book, Mad King Ludwig P.S. My great-grandmother, born in 1844 and died in 1949, (almost 105) when I was ten, lived in England but travelled a great deal in Europe (and other places) and she kept journals, most of which are in the custody of two of my aunts. She wrote a great deal about foods, recipes she collected on her travels, and I have reconstructed some of the dishes she mentioned, with the help of my aunts. We have delved mostly into her trips to France, Italy, Spain and the middle east but I will see if my aunt can locate the journals that describe her trips to Bavaria and especially to Württemberg, to buy horses as my g-gma was an avid horse fancier, as well as a lover of foods and collector of ethnic recipes.