andiesenji

I have traveled in various parts of Mexico and they have regional recipes that are not usually seen in other regions and the way certain foods are prepared can vary considerably from one part of the country to another. Carnitas is a good example. I know cooks who have tried to duplicate it by roasting pork but what they don't realize is that in Mexico the pork is roasted in liquid, not dry-roasted. The taste and texture of the meat is totally different and many recipes do not mention the method of roasting.

Basenjis are not fond of being shut away from the action. They are known as "the barkless dogs" but that does not mean they are mute - and, they are very clever at getting into things. I now have a large 2 door fridge but a few years ago when I had a single door everyone who came to my home wondered why I had a large velcro strap near the top. It was to fasten the door closed because one of my basenjis learned how to open the door. Unfortunately she never learned to close it. I love family traditions and recipes. I grew up in a household of very elderly people. My great grandmother who lived to be almost 105 - she was born in 1844 and died in 1949 when I was 10. She came from England in 1919 with my grandfather and all of her life she kept journals and was an avid collector of recipes, and interested in the preparing of foods, unlike most Victorian ladies of her society. She was a wonderful storyteller and often described foods she had enjoyed on her travels in Europe, Egypt and other parts of North Africa. I have developed a couple of recipes from things she mentioned in her journals and for which I have found no references in any of my large collection of cookbooks. Andie

I seldom sit when I work in the kitchen - I have three roll around carts at various heights and different surfaces for different uses - they "park" under the center island which is a baker's bench. I bake a lot of bread and most standard counters are the wrong height for comfortable working with large batches of dough. My kitchen is fairly large and it is easier to put heavy pans and pots and prepped foods on the carts then roll them to wherever I will be working next. One of the carts has a marble top and one end has fold-down racks for sheet pans. I have a commerical Blodgett oven that holds up to 7 full-sized sheet pans (for shallow things such as cookies) and I needed a place to park the pans before and after baking. I bought standard kitchen carts and had them cut down to the height I needed then had large casters put on them as the ones that came on them were not adequate for the weight. One has a stainless steel top that is recessed 1/2 inch all around and is perfect for working with sloppy stuff as that lip keeps liquids from dripping off the sides. The third one, like the island itself has a butcher block top 6 inches thick. They are 24 x 42 and fit under the bench which is 48 in wide. I buy the extra wide cushioned shelf liner in big rolls at Costco and use it for keeping things from sliding, particularly on the marble-topped cart. (after having a full glass bowl slide off after it stopped abruptly when I was rolling it across the kitchen and one of the wheels hit something that had fallen to the floor.) Another reason I do not sit when doing any kind of prep is that my dogs would be right in there with me if it was within their reach. I have basenjis who are very intelligment and very curious about anything that is going on and they want to be in the middle of it if it has anything to do with food.

I have a two-handled mezzaluna with a blade that is about 10 inches long. I did use it in a bowl but found that it tended to "walk" on the counter even if I had a pad under it. I bought one of the 3 1/2 thick end grain chopping blocks, http://www.knifemerchant.com/products.asp?SRS=1 (My favorite knife man) then took it to the local high school and had the wood shop teacher give it to the class to hollow it out on one side with an arc that just fits the mezzaluna. I use it for chopping everything. I grow a lot of herbs and it is the best method I have found. Nuts, meats, etc., I went to this method because I have arthritis in my right hand and it became difficult to grasp the regular type of chopper. the mezz with the two verticle handles is much easier to hold.

Here is a note about brick cheese http://www.ulster.net/~psycho/brick.html (note they describe it as "slightly aromatic" that increases with age) and the source http://www.widmerscheese.com/catlist.cfm?passid=WV

I love the Wisconsin brick cheese which is difficult to find outside that state. I order it from an online purveyor. The FexEx guy who delivers to my office has complained that it stinks up his truck and he alters his route to come to my office first so that it won't be in his truck duing the hottest part of the day.

The slit on the chopper is for slicing. Usually used for potatoes and onions. I collect antique kitchen gadgets and utensils. I have quite a few choppers, single, double and triple, various types of handles. This one was made in the late thirties for people who had limited means and small kitchens to combine two implements in one. It is difficult to sharpen the slicer blade, some of the ones I have seen have been hammered flat. It can be sharpened with one of the diamond nail files but it really isn't worth the trouble.

Using the beans is a terrific idea. Why didn't I learn that 40 years ago? My first instructor in my first class in French method required that I make a French omelet and I had to work the omelet in the pan and flip it so one third of the omelet turned back on itself without using any utensil, swirling the mixture in the pan then giving it a push, lift and pull motion. I can't even begin to tell you how many messes I cleaned off that stove before I got it down pat. I can do it in my sleep now, especially if I use a non-stick pan, my training was before the Teflon era and my pans were tin-lined copper (which I still have). Nowadays I generally use the Calphalon.

I have several sizes of enameled cast iron lids (Descoware, similar to Le Cruset, which I have had since the 60s) These lids are heavy enough to weight anything and I use the size that just fits inside the pot. These have a loop handle so are easy to lift out with a pot hook without scalding the fingers. You can often find these at yard sales and swap meets.

Great subject! Who hasn't looked at a fluffy white thunderhead and thought of a dish of mashed potatoes or whipped cream piled on top of a dish. I walked past a local florist shop last week and saw a giant brandy snifter in the window filled with fresh flower blossoms, mostly white, with different colors scatter through it. A vision of a classic English trifle popped into my mind. It doesn't take much to remind me of food. Scents are also a trigger. Some time ago I picked up a magazine that had a vanilla scent and immediately thought of bread pudding. As soon as I got home that evening I had to fix one.

When I was a child my family had kippers at breakfast almost every morning. Then and now even the sight of smoked fish, pickled fish, etc. triggers my gag reflex. People have tried to ply me with the "gourmet" smoked fish, trout, salmon, albacore, but I simply can't get past that childhood memory. I like smoked meats and fowl and I am find with unsmoked freshwater fish. I don't eat ocean fish because I developed an allergy related to iodine a few years ago. Another childhood food aversion that has lasted to the present is rhubarb. We were fed a stewed rhubarb as a spring "tonic" and I can remember sitting at the table for hours because I was physically unable to choke it down and wasn't allowed to leave the table until I finished it. Usually one of my cousins would sneak in and finish off my dish of the horrible stuff so I could go out and play. Oh yes, I have always loved liver. This is a "trick" to make beef liver taste like calves liver. When you are ready to fry the liver have a pot of simmering milk ready and dip the liver into the milk for about a minute, lift it out, pat it dry and dredge it in your seasoned flour and immediately pop it in the skillet, quickly brown it lightly on one side then the other. Add a couple of tablespoon of the milk to the pan, cover tightly and let it steam for 2-3 minutes, depending on the thickness of the liver. Uncover and continue cooking a couple of minutes until done. You can cut into a piece to check the center - once you get the timing down with your first batch you will know when it is right. The liver will be so tender you won't need a knive to cut it up.

My very favorite cheeses are the English Caerphilly, Lancashire or Leicester, Stilton Then there is the Ricotta Salata Buffalo mozzarella from Italy Spanish Manchego Pierre Robert from France and a true Wisconsin Brick cheese which is really difficult to find anywhere outside that state. Fortunately there is a Wisconsin cheese purveyor who ships.

Yes. Aren't they wonderful. I ordered some seeds last year but the plants did not produce the same kind of peppers that I had bought (at Bristol Farms, a very up-scale market here in soCal). They were hot but not at all sweet and weren't the correct shape. I am trying to find a source for the plants themselves.

Cheese, goat cheese, buffalo mozz, etc. I have long been a customer of Ideal Cheese co which is in New York City and have had cheeses shipped here to southern California with nary a single problem. Their service is exceptional. http://www.idealcheese.com/ or call them at (800) 382-0109 They carry some cheeses that are very hard to find. I especially love the Ricotta Salata and buy it 5 pounds at a time as it is marvelous in salads. It is nothing like regular ricotta - it is made from sheep's milk and has a wonderful flavor. Their buffalo mozzarella is the best I have tried. If you like the traditional English cheeses, the Lancashire is fantastic served with fruit. It "marries" beautifully with apples and/or pears. They also have a new type of pepper from South Africa which is very sweet and spicy and is extraordinary stuffed with the above mentioned Ricotta Salata. Forbes has listed them as the best cheese retailer on the web and Zagat survey has also listed them as tops.

I use butter muslin or superfine mesh cheesecloth. You can buy it at Williams-Sonoma on line. I bought a roll of the stuff years ago from a friend who used to make cheese from her sheep's milk - she moved to northern California so is no longer local for me but I have enough for my own use to last a while. I make my own cream cheese, cottage cheese and butter - also ghee and use this with excellent results. I also use it for making jellies. I haven't searched for another source on the web, but unless you are going to be making it in large amounts the W-S stuff should serve you well. It can be washed (use Dawn dish detergent) and dried, it will shrink a bit. Stretch it if you can while it is drying.

Wow! What a project. I can just imagine the hurdles you have to jump to get your business licensed. It has to be at least as bad as it is here in So.Cal. I no longer work professionally but used to rent a certified kitchen at a local private school to do my baking when I was still doing some catering. I didn't want to go through all the hassle to get my kitchen at home certified even though I have professional equipment. (Blodgett oven, Hobart dishwasher, Hobart mixer, etc.) I went to Dunwoodie baking school back in the 50s, then worked in my mother's bakery in Wisconsin until we had a major blow up and parted way. (Mainly because I worked nights in the bakery then was expected to take on additional jobs if another employee did not show up to work in the store or take one of the delivery routes.) I still love baking and do a lot for just my own pleasure, plus experimenting and developing new recipes and resurrecting very old recipes and working out modern formulas for them. You are a very brave and gutsy lady to take on such a project and I wish you well. Andie

My boss and I drink a lot of tea at the office and I finally bit the bullet and bought one of the Zojirushi 3.5 liter electric hot pots. It dispenses the near boiling water directly into a mug. I also used one at home until I had an Instant hot water appliance installed at my sink (along with a filter system). Over the years there has been a lot of disucsson on the Teamail list about the various (and sometimes ingenious) ways tea lovers prepare tea at work. Ordinarily I brew tea in a TeaMate appliance. Unfortunately Chefs Choice has discontinued handling this appliance in the U.S. Unlike the Mrs Tea, which "perked" the tea, the TeaMate operates much like traditional brewing. I have two and did have one at the office for a while but brought it home to keep as a spare when they were discontinued. I usually only brew one mug at a time at the office so the Zo is perfect because we also have a couple of coffee and/or other hot drink consumers at the office.

I love salads of any kind, however my favorities are vegetable salads, tomatoes, peas, blanched carrots, celery, peppers, etc., mixed with various grains and perhaps a bit of meat for flavor. The Waldorf type salads with chicken are also high on my list of favorites. The classic gurkensalat is the most refreshing on hot summer days. The sweet-sour taste is a lovely counterpoint to cold sandwiches as well as grilled meats and poultry. I recently made a coleslaw with cabbage, jicama and radish dressed with a sour cream and white balsamic vinegar dressing which I tucked into pita pockets with grilled teriyaki skirt steak.

I think one of the basic differences between professional and home cooking is the strict prep work and making sure the product is exactly the same every time it is served. There is no room for spontaneity in the professional kitchen, as a rule. The attention to detail in maintaining portion control, time in, up and out, is important if the house is to make a profit. One of my teachers used to carry calipers to measure the dice and every piece had to be identical...... I began as a baker (Dunwoodie school, Minneapolis) in the mid 1950s and after I graduated worked in the bakery owned by my mother. I loved baking then and still do although I changed professions in the 60s and worked in the medical field. Besides my day job I began working part time as a pesonal chef after I took some culinary classes and I did this for quite a few years, until arthritis in my knees made it impossible. I also worked from time to time in a friend's restaurant when his sous chef was out with a "migraine" (hangover). I love good food and still love to cook and although I live alone I prepare a meal the same as I would for guests. I still do a lot of baking, mostly breads, and experiment with new recipes. I also have developed some new recipes (at least ones that I have not been able to find in my collection of cookbooks) and have also modernized some very old recipes - in particular a dessert mentioned in one of my great-grandmother's journals when she was travelling in France in 1871. It is a bit complicated and I doubt that very many home cooks would ever bother to try to prepare it, however it makes a beautiful presentation. Essentially it is an egg custard surrounding brioche buns that have a marzipan filling. It takes two days to prepare which is why few home cooks would bother. It is a bread pudding carried to the nth degree.........

I have to second the motion about okra. I have never been able to consume it except when it was deep fried with a tempura-like crust and I couldn't tell what it was. I can't stand rubbery omelets and absolutely refuse to eat eggs that have been abused in that manner. I always give specific instructions when I order an omelet and if it is served overcooked I will send it back or change my order. My test is to drop my fork on the omelet from a couple of inches and if the tines bounce off then, in my opinion, it has been vulcanized and is not edible. I like spicy foods but refuse to eat anything that has been overspiced to the point that the flavor of the food itself cannot be determined. One of the food crimes I most deplore is the serving of "blackened" stuff - chicken, fish, whatever. -- Spices should enhance the flavor, not destroy it.

I make a green tomato chutney that is a favorite old family recipe, also several other fruit chutneys. My grandfather spend several years in India before and during WWI and prior to emigrating to the U.S. from England in 1919 so I grew up (in Kentucky) eating a variety of foods not usually seen on the tables of that area at that time. The cook was a Gullah person from the South Carolina lowcountry whom my grandfather had hired away from a cousin in Charleston with whom he and his family stayed while he was looking for a property. She was illiterate but had an extensive repetoire of recipes committed to memory. My great-grandmother, very Victorian, was an avid collector of recipes and interesting food facts. Traditional English foods, Indian foods, southern foods all appeared on the table and combined beautifully. Of course as I was growing up I had no idea how unique this was. It was only after I was long away from home that I realized that my experience was so extraordinary. There was a great deal of "putting by" and chutneys, both fresh and home canned always were on the table. They ranged from very mild to very, very hot and some were even fermented to develop a certain flavor. I have not attempted the latter, but have tried to approximate several for which I have no recipes. Trying to duplicate a taste that I knew 50 some years ago is a challenge, but trying is a lot of fun.

I have well over a thousand cookbooks, collecting for more than 40 years they do tend to add up. A fair number are antiquarian books from the nineteenth century, some very rare. I am addicted to used book stores and can spend hours plumbing the dusty depths one occasionally comes across in these treasure houses. (I also collect other types of books.) I am a member of a cookbook list and there are list members who make my collection look paltry. I often pick up cookbooks at thrift stores because many times people clear out the belongings of elderly relatives and donate things for which they have no use. Many times I have found cookbooks with extras, cards with hand-written recipes, recipes clipped from magazines and newspapers, helpful hints, photos, and once a $50. bill folded into a page with an ad for an electric skillet clipped from a McCalls magazine dated 1972. AndieP

When a restaurant serves a meal that is of poor quality one should make it known, otherwise the quality of their food will further deteriorate because they will serve whatever they can get away with as long as people do not complain. When they have consistent complaints they know they will have to improve or go out of business. If a patron settles for whatever is set before them, then they contribute to the poor quality of the food. Recently I ordered an omelet at a local restaurant which I consider to have better than average food and is one that I frequent. I was specific that I wanted the omelet soft, I also was specific that I wanted the potatoes very well done. The server brought the plate to me and obviously she could see the omelet was overdone because she stood there and asked me to check it. I cut into the rubbery mass and noted that it was inedible as far as I was concerned. The potatoes were soggy and not well done..... She took it back, had a conversation with that cook and then had another cook prepare my omelet and potatoes which were served perfectly. A very good friend who was in the food business for many years has often stated that serving less than optimal food to patrons is an insult. Often it is done deliberately by an employee that is unhappy with the owners or management and wants to make trouble. Far too often it is just because of laziness. You are paying good money for the food and the service, in return you should receive good food and good service. I doubt that anyone would pay without complaint if you were presented with a damaged piece of clothing when shopping for that, why should one be expected to pay for what is essentially damaged food.

That was an odd remark - "Abstract" - how sophisticated were these people? Architectural food creations have been around for twenty years. It is indeed possible that the patrons were unsure how to consume what sounds like an outstanding dessert. Obviously they have never watched the TV food network. I am now retired but worked for many years as a personal chef. At one holiday dinner I had made 2 croquemboche which were placed as the centerpieces on the dessert buffet table. They both sat untouched for some time until the single guest who recognized it picked up the two serving spoons and helped himself. After that I suggested to my clients that they have a server when an unusual food was on the menu.

All these suggestions have whetted my appetite and now I am trying to decide what to fix. I love the somewhat scorched sliced potatoes on the edges of a skillit of fried potatoes. When I order potatoes with breakfast, whether home fries, hash browns or "cottage" fries, I always ask for them to be extremely well done, and do not mind if they are scorched. The burnt sugar flavor also seems to be universally desired. Who has not burnt a marshmallow to the point where it appears vulcanized, then carefull peeled away the black crust on which to nibble while carefully toasting the remainder of the marshmallow? Heaven! Andiesenji