andiesenji

I don't know if she wrote an Albanian cookbook. I have a couple of her books, written in the late 70s or early 80s. I know I have had them for many years. One is on middle eastern cooking but I don't remember the exact name. I think they were both published by L.A. Times books and sold through the old "Home" magazine in the Sunday paper. One is California recipes, requests from the Times food section.

One of the guys who works at the lab across the hall from my office has a fil who is from Albania. (Worked on a ship and requested and was granted asylum in port of L.A. years ago (mid 70s) after he got word his entire family had been executed by the communists.) Leo tells me that his wife makes a pepper paste when her father is coming for dinner that is so hot it brings tears to his eyes and he is used to hot foods. He has been promising to get the recipe for me for many months but so far no go. It is sweet/sour/salty as well as hot and also contains a lot of garlic, besides a fat pepper that looks like a pimento and skinny yellow peppers that must be the hot ones. (I showed him some pepper pictures on Graeme Caselton's web site.) He was also going to get a recipe for little meat pastries (look like an empanada) which are served with this hot pepper paste and yogurt sauce. Haven't got that one yet either. Albanian recipes aren't all that easy to find.

I have acquired 57 new cookbooks during the past four months. (These are the ones I have stacked next to my desk, I think I have bought others but am not sure where they are at the moment.) One is also a murder mystery, Sugar Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke. The first half of the book is the mystery, 168 pages. The second half of the book is the cookbook, more than 50 recipes from appetizers such as Spinach Rollups to soups such as Sally's Radish Soup and all the way through to desserts such as Pecan Pie for a Holiday Crowd and drinks such as Dimpled Duchess and ending with "Extras (that didn't fit anywhere else)" ....... I enjoyed the mystery and am going to try several of the recipes. I have met the author (lives in the SF Valley) and have made recipes from her earlier books and all have been excellent. I recommend it without reservation. My housekeeper has been doing some cleaning of the bookcases in a couple of the rooms and so far has counted more than 2100 cookbooks, many mixed in with other books. Since I also have a lot of cookbooks packed away in footlockers in my storage building, I apparently have a lot more than I estimated earlier in this thread, when I posted on May 1, 2004, that I had "well over a thousand" cookbooks. The last time I cataloged my books (not just cookbooks), in 1999, I had listed 826 cookbooks in storage and 912 in the bookcases dedicated to cookbooks. Apparently I had a lot distributed througout the bookcases in the house or I have managed to acquire more than a thousand in the past five years. Some did arrive as part of a private library I bought at auction (purchased mainly because of the many dog books, natural history books and early 20th century literature books, which I also collect.) Anka still has two rooms to go in her cleaning and I can't even begin to estimate how many cookbooks might be in those bookcases as they should be mostly fiction, science fiction/fantasy and mysteries. My best estimate at present is that I have 3170 cookbooks which is about 1500 more than I estimated last year and with the additions I listed prior to today. Amazing, I had no idea there were so many.

Oh Happy, Happy Day!!!

You also might try rocking him to sleep.......... I have a 5-pound rock that might do..

I have the wire shelving and the shelves will hold a full size sheet pan plus a smaller one. Smart & Final have the sheet pans for 10.99 regular (used to be 9.99) and a while back they had a special, 10 for 79.99, which I bought. I use the sheet pans and smaller, inexpensive, bus trays on the wire shelves as it makes it easier to move things around, especially appliances with feet.

Where I grew up in western Kentucky, yellow corn was known as "hog corn" or "horse corn" as it was usually fed to livestock. The white "shoepeg" dent corn raised on the farm for our use often had one or two red kernels on an ear - we called them "lucky Indian corn" . It always seemed those ears were especially sweet, fresh or dried. We had a neat "huller" that we kids loved to operate, a hand-cranked machine for removing the dried corn kernels from the cobs. We didn't have to do it, it was work, but it was also fun. There was also one that had a kerosene (coal oil) motor and later still an electric one. Farmers in the area would come to our place, rent time on one of the machines to hull the corn, then pay to have their corn ground in the grist mill (water powered), white corn for table use, yellow corn for chicken feed (**and other enterprises ). They made a social event out of it, groups of men in overalls standing around, telling tall tales about their hunting dogs, their mules, their fishing exploits, etc., smoking roll-your-own cigarettes or chewing tobacco and passing around a bottle or two. (** from the "other enterprises" ) For us that was fun, hanging around the mill, cranking the huller, listening to the stories. I feel sad for today's kids who have the entire world at their fingertips via the internet but will never know how much fun one can have just being in the midst of activities such as this. As corny as it may sound today, these rough, poorly educated men rarely used profanity. A "Dag nab it", "Dad burn it", "Dern" an occasionall "Damm" was about all we ever heard.

I thought it sounded good. Mickie is not a cook and not much of a foodie so she isn't able to describe things the way we would. She said there was a sort of lemony cream stuff sort of like lemon pie filling, sliced strawberries and the crumbled bacon. It was part of a brunch buffet service so she didn't order if off the menu and has no idea what it was called.

I mentioned this in the office this morning and one of the "girls" described a "dessert" she had at a restaurant in Santa Barbara last summer. Unfortunately she can't remember the name of the restaurant, only that it was on or near Stearns Wharf. It was strawberries and crisp crumbled bacon rolled into a crepe with something that sounds like lemon curd.

Okay folks, here is an answer from someone from the deep south, Laurel, Mississippi. Her mamma made several versions of maccaroni and cheese, INCLUDING one with toasted bred crumbs on the top, and also sometimes with crumbled bacon. She said that sometimes they had mac and cheese as well as maccaroni salad at the same meal, usually with collard greens. The mac and cheese was treated the same as if it was meat, when times were difficult.

The biggest difference is between regular table salt and Diamond crystal salt which has such an open structure that comparable volumes weigh much different. If you go by weight you will be okay. If a recipe calls for a tablespoon of "salt" simply weigh a tablespoon of regular salt and mark what it weighs, then weigh out the same amount of kosher salt and then put it into a dry measure so you can see how much it is in volume and indicate that in your recipe. The recipes that I do all the time have the weight conversions in pencil next to the regular measurements. I find that I get the same results time after time with this routine.

Several bakeries use date syrup in their bran muffins. I have seen it on the list of ingredients. The bran muffins sold at my local health food store (I stopped in this morning and looked) are made with the fruit puree sold as a substitute for fat but is simply a puree of stewed prunes with a little lemon juice added for stabilization. They are very moist because of the sugar content in the fruit puree. They actually do not have a prune flavor. They are made with a combination of wheat bran, oat bran, whole wheat flour and spelt flour. They make three versions, plain, with raisins and with dried chopped apples. They are huge, one is enough for two people, maybe three.....

I use kosher salt for all my baking.

When I was in the Army, one of my roommates would take toast, butter it, apply mayo, then peanut butter then sprinkle sugar on the peanut butter and occasionally add a few strips of bacon then add another piece of toast coated with mayo. I couldn't watch her eat it, particularly when she dipped a corner in her milk.

When I spoke to this person, I could not believe how ignorant he was about wild mushrooms. I suggested he contact U.C. Davis which has a huge amount of information about mycology but he simply wasn't interested. His entire premise seemed to be that if someone got a toxic mushroom he would lose his job because the county would be sued. When I pointed out that EVERY SINGLE INCIDENCE of mushroom poisoning in California in the past 20 years has been from individuals picking their own, he wasn't interested in hearing it. He had apparently made up his mind, from little or no information and was proceeding on that premise. Ignorance in an individual who has this kind of power is unpardonable. He should be disciplined simply because he has failed to get the information which would settle this. Taking a stand on an untenable base is ridiculous as well as dangerous.

Patti, I did find pounding the paste better than using the food processor (I started in the latter and moved to the former). Also, the lemon grass. I ended up using 4 pieces because by the time I removed the tough leaves and got to that tender center, there wasn't much of it. In lieu of the mortar and pestal, I spice grinder or microplaning some of this stuff might be a good idea. Also, fresh galangal is really fibrous, I can't think of a reason not to used dried. ← When using fresh galangal, as well as older ginger, etc., a ginger grater is best. Working the cut face of the galangal back and forth over the teeth of the grater extracts a non-fibrous paste and juice. Most of the little graters are too small and difficult to hold on to and I have a rather large glass one that I found quite a few years ago. However I have found that a suribachi works quite well also, particularly the coarser ones. I then use a bamboo "brush" to get all the goodness out of the grater or the suribachi. When I get home this evening I will take a photo of the glass one so you can see what it looks like and keep an eye out for one.

Make your grapefruit curd. I make an infused syrup using the skin or zest to make it extra strong. For each cup of curd take 1/2 cup of whipping cream and whip to maximum, then fold in the curd. Try a small batch first - if you use a stabilizer like Whip-it, it will hold for a long time in the fridge. Serve in stemmed dishes or margarita glasses garnished with a twist of candied peel.

There are a couple of different varieties of galangal. Either can be grown in pots but need more warmth than ginger to grow vigorously and one needs more moisture in the soil. I would experiment with two pots, keeping one more moist that the other and see which one grows best. I don't have any now, but have grown it in the greenhouse with it placed near the heater and with a plastic "tent" over the pot and plant to keep it moist and warm. I have a friend who lives in Chicago and grows both ginger and galangal in windowboxes (inside) which are placed right above a radiator that is below the window. She has a thick drape she places between the plants and the window at night to keep the cold from seeping in through the glass. Tumeric can also be grown this way and it also requires more warmth and a little more moisture.

That's what I did. I had planned for something different but decided to let them put on a very neutral (old ivory color) tile as a "temporary" measure.

I do that too. Although I have an electric churn. It requires "raw" cream and it isn't as easy to get as it once was. I have an electric pasteurizer to make sure it is safe. for when I make butter and cheese. I took some of my homemade cream cheese and sour cream to the eG potluck last October. Everyone there seemed to find it okay. I should add that I don't make everything from scratch all the time. There are some perfectly good commercial products that are nearly as good as homemade, sometimes better. I just like to know that I CAN do it if I wish. I have always been curious and it has not diminished with age (nearly 66), in some ways it has become more acute. I have been ordering the Cabot butter, brought to our attention last November by Fat Guy in "Butter just like in the old country" It is certainly as good as my homemade butter and considering the time involved in making it, the cost (including shipping) is not that much more. I also like to make some things my own way so I know absolutely what goes into them. Pure and simple is my motto. Homemade butter doesn't always have a lot of color. Homemade lard sometimes does have a bit of color and sometimes is grainy but very rapid cooling can remedy that. You just have to perfect the technique. The next time I make butter I will photograph the process.

Quite interesting. Must be ideal for making tempura batter, too. ← I use it when I make scones which can become tough and dense with just the heat from ones hands mixing the dough. I use this whisk then scoop them onto a sheet pan with a disher of whatever size I want, from tiny to 4 oz, rarely larger, then simply dip a spoon into ice water and press down on the top to flatten them. They remain light and flakey, none of the hockey puck disasters so often sold in stores.

Anka is not an exchange student. She is a student at design school in L.A. because she won an international competition and was invited here with a scholarship partly paid by the school here and partly by a company in Hungary, the rest by her parents. She was living in a house with several other students but had difficulty studying because of constant parties and etc. She is a serious student (looks like a model). Her parents are friends of my boss and he asked me if I knew of any place, such as a family home, where she could stay. I joked that if I lived closer to town she could stay with me and she said she didn't mind the driving. It was her idea to work as my housekeeper as a good work history counts as part of her experience here. I pay her a salary, provide a car plus her room and board and travel expenses, insurance, etc. She did not want to even take a salary but I insisted we keep everything legal. As I have said in earlier posts, she loves to clean. I have not yet caught her cleaning the back step with a toothbrush, but she does use the power washer on it. You could, if you wished, eat off the floor IN THE GARAGE. I mean, I always kept a clean house but now it is nearly like a surgery suite.

and, an additional note: I also use this basic recipe for griddle corn cakes, but with the addition of a little flour, no more than 1/4 cup, possibly a teaspoon of baking powder if the first ones do not puff enough. I also sometimes add a cup of cooked rice to the mixture with a little more buttermilk if the batter is too thick, to make "philpy" a rice cake that was one of the things made by my grandfather's cook several times a week. She wrapped them carefully so they could be packed in the lunch bags the men who worked out in the fields carried. She made several versions, some quite thin and very crusty, almost like a "lace" cookie, others thicker and more cake-like. There are several lowcountry versions of rice bread and rice cakes, some with rice flour, some with corn, etc. In some versions she also added mashed beans. It is an interesting combination and is a complete amino acid chain.

I grew up in Kentucky and we did put bread crumbs on top of mac and cheese and I still do most of the time but not always. (Some people feel Kentucky is not really part of the "true" south but mention that to some Kentuckians and you will get some strong words. It is not just the source of stong likker, beautiful horses and fast women! or something to that effect) In fact, there were several noodle dishes prepared and topped with bread crumbs and of course we had a lenten dish that was "ribbon" noodles tossed with buttered and toasted bread crumbs then served with stewed dried fruits, usually prunes or peaches, the last of the dried fruits from the previous year.

Sometimes I bake the same recipe in a 12 inch skillet and it comes out just about an inch thick and very crusty. The next time I will make it in the larger skillet.