andiesenji

I have a bottle of 50-year-old Pedroni-Cesare and a bottle of 75 -year-old Giusti Reserva Condimenti, etc., etc., that a friend brought back from Italy. These are "sipping" or apéritif "vinegars" and my friend advised me to pour 1/4 oz over crushed ice and add seltzer water. They are both delicious. I have several other bottles of various ages and most are fine for drizzling over cheese, meat, in salads, and so on. I found one rather inexpensive one that is quite good, in fact, it is (to my taste) superior to some that are much more costly. It is produced by San Giacomo and comes in a neat little squat, square bottle with a wide cork stopper. I found a single bottle at Marshall's, (of all places) and it was marked down to 11.00. I actually bought it for the bottle, but was very plesantly suprised by the flavor.vendor #1 Chefshop has a great selection of both balsamic and other vinegars.

PETA is not as squeeky-clean regarding the treatment of animals as they would have everyone believe. My very first personal experience with the results of PETA meddling was when one of my basenjis, sold to a couple in Pennsylvania, was released from her crate at a dog show, along with several other dogs, in 1981. My beautiful bitch puppy (just 8 months old and already with 9 points toward her championship) ran into a busy street and was struck and killed by a car, as were three other dogs, and several others were injured. The puppy's owners had a 7-year-old daughter who saw the incident. She was traumatized too. This was not just another puppy, I had imported her mother from Australia at considerable expense, had bred to a top-winning dog who had produced several champions and who had excellent temperament(also a substantial fee). She was to have been an important part of my future breeding program and was the only bitch puppy in the litter. The PETA activists left behind flyers that said "caging live things is cruel." When I learned what had happened, I would have liked to chase those awful things calling themselves people, in front of a car and let them feel the impact, the terror and the pain. It is 25 years later and I am still so angry about this heedless and horribly inhumane action that I actually believe I could kick the bejeezus out of anyone who admitted to being a PETA member in my presence. Ingrid Newkirk has made multiple statements that she believes that all domestic animals should be made extinct so they could no longer be "exploited." She is the worst kind of fanatic. In my opinion she should be extinct. It is a great tragedy against nature when any living creature becomes extinct but that is what will happen if these PETA activists get their way. Who will give a place to this breed of ducks and who will spend money on feed for them if they can't be used to produce foie gras? Would you spend money on pasturage and grain for cattle if you couldn't make a profit? I don't think so. The saddest and strangest thing is that these legislators that vote for these food bans can't understand this point and what is even more ridiculous is that some of them have financial interests in business that actually produce animal products. I believe animals should be treated humanely and I think the battery raised chickens and turkeys should be better regulated as should cattle feed lots, pig farms and the manner in which they are slaughtered. I also believe that there should be a total ban on whaling and have contributed to the supports for many years. There has to be a point where someone says, enough! PETA is not for animal welfare, they are forso-called animal rights which they apparently believe should take precedence over human rights. However, their hands are not clean, they have been caught multiple times on camera, euthanizing animals in a shelter that they maintain, including identifiable pets with identity chips turned over to them while the owners were on vacation and these particular two dogs and one cat got out when the pet-sitter left a door ajar. She tried to recover the animals but was told to return on the following Monday with proof of ownership. When the owners went to the shelter three days later they were told the animals were euthanized "because they were in poor health and had been abused." This was disputed by the animals vet and the shelter was sued and settled out of court. Lest you think I am making this up.... PETA's nasty secrets. and about Ingrid Newkirk...

In my opinion PETA has only the best interests of PETA at heart. I asked them for help in shutting down an ongoing auction of dogs, some of which were suspected to be dognapped pets, and I was told that, #1, it was too dangerous for a group of protestors because the people running the auction were "hicks that love guns" and "it won't make enough news for it to be worth our while." When I noted that some of the dogs were auctioned off to people who supplied dogs to laboratories, they said "give us the name of a laboratory and we will work on them, that will make the news." Also, as has been said before, the feeding of these fowl is not all that inhumane. All migratory fowl will gorge in preparation for a long migration even when domesticated for hundreds of generations. Ducks and geese that have a heightened apitude for this have been bred over many, many generations to enhance this trait. If you were to see the ducks running after the person with the feed bucket, you might understand this a little better. Animals are smart enough to stay away from people who abuse them. Swans gorge also, we no longer consider them to be a menu item, however they can produce immense livers all by themselves when they gorge but don't migrate.

For many years I worked with lead crystal, and "German water white" glass panels, free-hand engraving them with all types of animals, birds, etc. In fact, for a while a couple of years ago my avatar was one of my engravings. I always wore a respirator when engraving lead crystal either with handpiece or on a copper-wheel engraving lathe. This is because the superfine glass dust can penetrate far into the lungs and one can be injured not only by the glass dust but by the lead, that is "liberated" by friction and the grinding, and which in that form can be picked up by the blood circulating in the lung tissues. Leaded glass artists are also supposed to be careful not to inhale the fumes from soldering the lead that holds the pieces of glass together. This type of exposure is nearly a thousand times more concentrated than anything one can get from drinking a normally acidic liquid from lead crystal and even so, it takes years of exposure to show up in the hair and tissues. One can get far more lead from eating certain types of fish in a single meal than from drinking wine from lead crystal for several years. Glass is very different from pottery glazes, which are not as cohesive as glass and from which large amounts of lead can leach into acids. The warnings about lead leaching from glazed pottery was the first notice about the danger in certain food containers. This was then carried over to lead crystal without much in the way of testing. When definitive tests were first done and only extremely minute amounts of lead were noted, some "consumer advocates" were not satisfied and demanded tests that were more extreme. Of course these tests then showed higher levels of lead being leached into the liquid, however it was not mentioned that the liquid itself was not consumable and was, in fact, poisonous without the lead. If tests were conducted to determine the amount of cyanide that is found in certain types of granite, one could argue that it shouldn't be used where food comes into contact with it. However, in the stable matrix it is practically impossible to measure the cyanide unless the granite is crushed and treated with leaching chemicals. If you think this is ridiculous, consider that a few years ago a group of "consumer advocates" brought suit against the producer of Crystal Geyser water simply because the water source in the high Sierras percolates through the local granite which - guess what - contains cyanide. However with testing of hundreds of samples of water, the amount of cyanide found was barely measurable, as I recall, less than 2 parts per billion units. The case was dismissed. Crystal Geyser is still in business. I wouldn't hesitate to use lead crystal. I have some Baccarat that is 32% and lead makes it tough. I never liked engraving on plain glass because of the stresses in the glass that can be seen only with a polarizing light. One touch with an engraving tool will cause the glass to explode. Leaded glass has fewer stress points and is safer for engraving.

I can guarantee that a microplane works fairly well on rock-hard brown sugar or on jaggery. However I have an ancient and rather large, coarse wood-shaping rasp with big teeth that I use because it is flat on one side and curved on the other and one stroke produces a heaping tablespoon of grated sugar. If you have room in your freezer, place any grain product in the freezer for 48 to 72 hours, allow to come back to room temp and store in a tightly sealed container (I prefer the Cambro containers) with a couple of bay leaves and you will avoid weevils, moths, etc. I store dried corn and cornmeal, grits, whole wheat, and other grains, seeds and nuts subject to rancidity, in the freezer.

I have found that some things last much longer than as listed on this site. And I agree with divalasvegas about the staying power of honey. I have re-liquified honey that has crystalized and was probably at least 10 years old, (the bee people who produced it retired and sold their property that long ago) and it was perfectly good. I have an unopened (sealed) half-gallon jar of sorghum molasses that was shipped to me from home several years ago. I finished the last of the other container during my pre-holiday baking last November. Sugar, once refined, does not "go bad" - brown sugar, with its higher liquid molasses content may harden, but it can be grated and used, even when very old, and will be perfectly fine. Before we had granulated sugar, sugar "loaves" or "cones" were shipped around the world on sailing vesses that might spend two or three years at sea and the sugar may have been stored for many more years before being used. In fact, sugar actually prolongs the life of some foods. Some preserves have lasted for many years, as long as they remained well-sealed in a glass container and maintained in proper storage. Mustard itself has proven to also be a preservative and if properly prepared, canned and maintained, can last for years with no difficulty. I have a 60-year-old Balsamic vinegar that is exquisite and there are 100-year-old Balsamics available if one wants to pay the price. (Some people age better than others also.)

On that note, this joke just came in via email. It sounds pretty close to the truth to me: A man bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: "Free to good home. You want it, you take it." For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal. It looked too good to be true, so he changed the sign to read: "Fridge for sale $50." The next day someone stole it. ←

Bread salad with a rustic bread, torn into chunks, fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped red onions, sweet butter lettuce, salt & pepper and a drizzle of fresh walnut oil and a spritz of one of the very old, very sweet balsamic vinegars. I also am a big fan of the Cobb salad. The very first one I had was at the place it originated, the Brown Derby in Hollywood, in October 1958. It was the best!

Here is another tip. If you can find powdered alum (or lump alum which you have to crush) soak the peel in cold water into which you have mixed a teaspoon of alum per quart, for at least 3 hours. Then rinse repeatedly in cold water before you begin your par-boiling. The alum will remove some of the bitterness and will keep the structure of the peel from getting too soft. This is generally used for citron, which is pretty bitter anyway, and it seems to work well with particularly bitter grapefruit. I've used it for candying limes, which turn gray if not treated with alum (sometimes they turn gray anyway but that is just a quirk of those particular limes). My aunt adds a pinch of "bicarb" (baking soda) to the first batch of par-boiling water, but I have never tried this myself and have no direct evidence that it works.

Sizzler does have an extensive salad bar and seems to be adding items fairly often. As Fat Guy said above, many of the "buffet" places offer salad bars. I always liked the "smorgasborg" places - there used to be a place called Taste of Scandinavia on Ventura Blvd in Woodland Hills that was wonderful. These are the places that seem to have become extinct. There are a few specialty buffet places around that are exceptional. Whenever we go to Fairplex (L.A. County Fairgrounds) for an event, we try to get over to Grand Buffet on Euclid st, just off the San Bernardino freeway (I-10). I think it is in Upland. The Claim Jumper restaurants have a pretty good salad bar.

Back in the '70s a friend I met here, before she returned to Australia, (Mt. Dandenong, Victoria) introduced me to ty-nee-tips tea and sent me a supply from Oz every few months for years afterwards. It stopped after a couple of postal strikes that caused the package to be delayed so long (and apparently kept in poor conditions) that the stuff wasn't worth brewing when I finally received it. And also a store had opened locally that carried. And before anyone tries to correct me, there are no caps in the name. I still have one of the bright blue boxes in my collection of tea artifacts. I can't recall a time that I didn't drink tea. I was given milky tea as a very young child at meals and any time I wasn't feeling well, my great-grandmother's usual advice was first a cup of tea before any other remedies were tried. I had toy tea sets when I was little but was given my first "real" teapot (which I still have) when I was 9. As far as brewing tea is concerned, I have tried almost every method known to man. I have a couple of automatic tea makers made in England - I have had one converted to US electrical current. I have a TeaMate that was available for only a couple of years here in the states, and I have yet to figure out why they stopped importing it. I think it is a terrific appliance. I tried the Mrs. Tea once and was not impressed. I gave one of the new Sunbeam Teamakers to my daughter for her birthday and she loves it.

I par-boil the peel until it has lost the bitterness. Some take longer than others. Only then do I add the peel to the syrup and begin the candying process. Sometimes it takes 8 par-boiling sessions. With very thick rinds, I do trim the white pith down a bit, however I usually keep it about 1/4 inch thick. With Pomelos, that have extremely thick pith, you have to cut off a lot. Some grapefruit varieties do work better than others. One particular "white" variety which is sometimes available here in southern California is the rather seedy Duncan. It has a much better flavor and the skin is a bit milder in flavor than the hybrid varieties such as Marsh. There is a new hybrid called Mellogold that is exceptionally sweet. Of the "pink" varieties, I like the Red Blush best. The OroBlanco, which is a grapefruit/pomelo cross is very good for candied peel.

I just thought of "Swiss" steak... That is something that hasn't come over my horizon for a good number of years. Fondue made a comeback last year and suddenly there were fondue pots all over the place when just a few months earlier the only place you could be sure of finding them was on ebay. And how about that old standby of the "Ladies-Lunch" circuit, Chicken A La King?

I have a 5-quart Descoware "buffet casserole" that I bought in the late 60s. It is almost exactly like the Le Cruset 5 quart except the Descoware has a loop handle on the lid. (which I like better). I use it for preparing things that are cooked covered, then the lid removed to reduce the liquid as rapidly as possible. (Smothered pork chops, "Swiss" steak, and especially paella) In fact, when I purchased it, the piece was identified as a "covered paella pan".... When browning things like pork chops and chicken, etc., I don't want to crowd the items in the pan and the 3 1/2 quart is just a bit too small for my uses, however it is personal preference. I find it is a very versatile piece and often move it from stovetop to oven or broiler and because of the short loop handles, it fits in my smaller convection oven where a frypan will not. It really depends on how many servings you are going to prepare. I still work three days a week and have a long commute so I often prepare enough for two meals (actually 4 servings, because it is my housekeeper and me). And I also do a fair amount of entertaining - thus the paella or cippino - even though I do not eat seafood, many of my friends do.

I've got a big vibrating lap machine in my garage that hasn't been used for several years. I wonder if it would work. Although it probably is much too powerful. However, you might be able to use one of these little ones. mine is a Covington 24 inch (round). I used it for polishing big slabs of agate, petrified wood, split geodes and obsidian that I used for bases for some of my glass art pieces. Often you can find used lapidary equipment at swap meets very cheap. I saw one that sold on ebay a few months ago for $45.00.

I love the slightly spicy pickled peppadews which have a much thinner skin than bell peppers. The local produce market carries a pimento/poblano cross, grown locally, which matures rapidly and has the sweet/spicy flavor one would expect with this combination, not too hot, just right. I use the same pickling mixture that I use for my bread and butter pickles which can also be made in small batches and stored in the refrigerator or canned in larger batches. I use a slightly sweeter mixture for pickled watermelon and honeydew melon rind pickles. A couple of years ago I began pickling jicama sticks. They stay quite crunchy even without an alum bath.

I would advise you to take Highway 1 and stop off in Cambria, which has several really great B&Bs. The one place I love to go for dinner is The Sow's Ear. On your way, if you are travelling south to north on 101, get off the freeway at the Buellton, the western entrance to the Santa Ynez Valley. You can stop for lunch a Pea Soup Andersons, or continue eastward to Solvang, the little Danish community where you can find some awesome breakfast offerings at just about any place with a sign in front that mentions what they serve. Solvang. You can continue down that road which joins Calif. 154 at Santa Ynez and continuing south takes you through the beautiful valley, past Lake Cachuma and San Marcos Pass, then rejoins the 101 just south of Goleta at the north end of Santa Barbara. It is a lovely drive and the only bit of the 101 you miss is the very windy pass down to the coast and along the coast from Gaviota to just south of Goleta, which, unless you like to look at a lot of kelp-filled ocean, there really isn't a lot to see. Unless I am in a big rush, I always take San Marcos Pass to Buellton on my way north. It isn't as speedy, as the 101, but it refreshes the soul. If you have ever seen any of Evind Earle's paintings or illustrations, you will recognized the places he painted during his years in the Santa Ynez Valley. It is a magical place. Evind Earle paintings. It is also part of the area in which the film Sideway was shot. Sideways map. I think it is a little over 100 miles from Buellton to Cambria, just the right distance/time between breakfast and lunch or lunch/dinner.

Sorry, I know better, I just didn't take the time to edit it. One of my cousins, with whom I grew up, lives just over the state line in South Coffeyville, OK. I just sent him a birthday card and now I am wondering if I addressed it correctly !!! At least I know the zip code is correct.

I have never stopped cooking the "retro" foods that I have enjoyed over the years and some of my recipes go much further back than just my lifetime. A couple of weeks ago, (prior to messing up my left knee) I made an Orange Chiffon Cake, using the recipe that was printed on the SoftaSilk Cake Flour box in 1948 - the first time I tasted it. I have been making this cake, exactly the same way, from scratch, since I learned how to do it correctly in 1950. My grandmother had bought a Sunbeam Mixmaster in late 1949 and since the cook was wary of using that "new-fangled machine" my grandmother began doing a few things in the kitchen, such as baking this particular cake, and she let me "help." I don't know why these cakes went out of fashion but I have always loved them. The chiffon cake story. I still make the black skillet cornbread the way I saw it done when I was a child and there are many others that have been life-long favorites. Incidentally, I still have my grandmother's Mixmaster.

A neighbor did some shopping for me yesterday and brought me a jar of "Durkee Famous (Sandwich and Salad) Sauce" (I had been telling her about this discussion.) She is from Coffeeville, Kansas and said this was a staple in their kitchen during her teen years in the late 60s, early 70s. Her dad was a Kansas Highway Patrol officer and her mom would prepare a stack of sandwiches for him, MW on one slice of bread, the Durkee on the other, with various meats and cheeses between, no lettuce, no tomato, occasionally some pickle slices somewhere between the meat and cheese to keep the pickle juice from soaking into the bread. She said that seeing the jar of Durkee on the shelf in the market brought back fond memories of her dad going off to work with the round plaid cooler that held his soft drinks and a good supply of sandwiches and fruit to keep him going for his entire shift, with enough to share with other officers who might be out in the boonies, far away from a food source. So our discussion here has created ripples that have spread out and brought a happy memory to someone outside of our little community.

I can't stand for very long. I have a powered chair with an elevating seat, for when I have to spend much time at the counter, otherwise I sit at the table I had moved into the kitchen when I didn't renew my commercial certification. Right now I am even more limited because I messed up my knee and am supposed to be on crutches if I have to do any walking. I was doing so well until this happened, it is really a bummer. I was just getting up from my chair at the office and my right foot slipped on a piece of paper I didn't see and took all my (considerable) weight on my bent left leg. I have a partial tear of the quadriceps muscle attachment at the outer half of my left kneecap. At first it was very swollen, now it is in technicolor.

Actually, I have two, Cooking with Bread by Adelaid Hecthlinger and Cooking With Artisan Breads by Gwenyth Bassetti and Jean Galton which I think might be of use to anyone who bakes their own bread. I have made several recipes from the latter book, one a loaf stuffed with meat and vegetables that was delicious. The other book is 30-some years old and I remember making some recipes when my family was still together.

There are several conditions that can cause abnormal sensations in the feet. Morton's neuroma is one that is fairly easily diagnosed. My boss, an orthopedic surgeon, would simply place a wide strip of tape, fairly tightly, all the way around the foot, just behind the widest part of the foot, where the metatarsal heads line up, then ask the patient to try to stand on the ball of the foot with the heel off the floor about 2 inches. A shock-like sensation will shoot into the 3rd and 4th toes if a neuroma is present. People who have this have a lot of difficulty wearing high heels. I have a sensation in my right foot like there are cotton balls under and between my toes and this is due to ruptured discs in my back between L3-4 and L4-S1 pressing on the nerve roots where they exit through the foramina. I fractured the L4 vertebra and blew out the discs above and below it. When this first happened in April '04, I had severe pain in my entire leg and the muscles became very weak because these are motor nerves that are affected. I can't get my heel off the floor on the right. Diabetes can be very tricky. I have it but have yet to develop diabetic neuropathy, which affects the circulation. My internist says that one of the first signs this is developing is loss of the little patches of hair on the toes over the first phalanges. In fact, I think this is being taught to pedicurists because he says he has had several patients referred to him from one beauty salon where this was noticed by the pedicurist. Tingling, burning, numbness, a feeling that ants are crawiling on the feet or a feeling that little bubbles are popping under the skin, and feelings of flushing or chilling (with no change in room temp) can all be signs of diabetic complications. Plantar fasciitis, an inflammation of the fascia on the sole of the foot can produce a number of symptoms, some rather weird - oddly enough, when this first begins to affect the foot, one has difficulty walking on arising from sleep - after walking about for 15-20 minutes, the symptoms subside and later in the day, after extended periods of weight bearing, the soles of the feet feel numb. Many years ago, when the "Earth shoe" first appeared, we saw a lot of people in the office with foot symptoms that magically cleared up when they resumed wearing regular shoes, without the "negative" sole where the heel was lower than the forefoot. This stretched the Achilles tendon as well as the nerves that are routed through the tarsal tunnel - I am sure you have heard of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - this is caused by stretching the nerves in the wrist the same way. My boss said the "Earth shoe" was a great boon to podiatrists who would often operate on feet that really only needed a change in footwear to "cure" the problem. Oddly enough, I just saw some similar shoes in the Herrington catalog. Everything old is new again! A well-kept secret, is this company Sierra Trading Post They sell name-brand shoes at a deep discount and there is no problem with returns and exchanges - they send a return label along with every order. Often the size selection is limited. They buy stock from stores that are going out of business and end of season stock from retail stores as well as distributors and manufacturers. I have bought numerous shoes and boots from them and so has my daughter. We both have a wide forefoot and very narrow heel and few styles fit really well. For rapidly growing kids, it is a great resource. However they also have a large selection of clogs and a huge selection of athletic shoes and sandals. They have a lot of Birkenstock styles. I am extremely partial to Mephisto shoes and when I saw they now have the Bretta, I ordered a pair in red and a pair in black patent (already bought the black leather locally). Huge bargain! And these shoe wear forever - I have a pair that is 20 years old and still look nearly new.

I also make bread pudding. I posted my recipe in RecipeGullet - for "Mock French toast" which is simply Extra Rich Bread Puddingbread pudding baked the day before, (in a loaf pan) chilled overnight. Then it is sliced and cooked on a griddle just as you would French toast. The big advantage is that it is not as messy and even kids can do the cooking if the pudding is sliced for them. I also make seasoned croutons, dry them, seal in vacuum bags and freeze. (5-8 minutes in a 400 degree F oven is enough to freshen and toast them. I make various "flavors," herb and garlic using various herbs, black pepper and salt, hot pepper, curry, and cinnamon/sugar, mixed sweet spices, fennel, and for serving with squash or pumpkin soup, croutons dusted with pumpkin pie spice into which I have mixed a tiny bit of finely ground dried cipotle peppers. Somewhere around here I have a "Bread" cookbook, which is a collection of recipes using bread, either commercial or home-baked, rather than a bread-baking book. I also love bread salads, particularly a rustic bread made with Asiago cheese, torn into chunks and tossed with coarsly chopped tomato, onion and finely minced parsley.

I happen to like green beans (or a combination of snap beans and "shellies" that is, mature but not dried beans) sautéed in bacon drippings then add 1/4 cup of water to which I have added a tablespoon of cider vinegar, cover tightly and allow to steam for 3-4 minutes, depending on the size of the beans. Then uncover, season with salt, pepper and other seasonings of your choice, occasionally I stir in some onion confit just prior to adding the liquid. I like this mixed or served on top of steamed rice (sometimes leftover fried rice). I serve it with smothered pork chops, with ham or roast chicken.