daniellewiley

Hmmm... $4 for a jar of crushed garlic or < $0.50 [if that] for a head of garlic. And the fresh clove tastes better. Mincing takes about as much effort as opening a jar. I guess I'll never get the point of these so-called "convenience" goods. ← Not sure where you saw $4 for crushed garlic. The ginger is listed on the website for $3 and I pay even less, since I buy it in a local store. Oh, and get back to me on "convenience" goods when you cook for a family and work full time. I guess it's a good thing that I can afford things that I like that make my life easier. ← I'm quoting NY prices. My mother worked full time AND raised me -- single parent with all of the stress that that entails. no help from a spouse, no help from the government. she may have used convenience products, it's possible, but I seem to remember an overabundance of fresh food. including an insistence that I eat my vegetables. My experience differs from yours obviously. Take a garlic clove, whack at it once with the flat blade of a knife, peel off second skin. Easy. Takes 30 seconds, if that. So you've got arthritis...the vast majority of people who use convenience products don't. That's what my post was directed towards. It's very Rachael Ray/Sandra Lee-ish. Anyway, I'm not here to preach. It was an opinion, not a statement of fact. ← I use the pre-crushed ginger, but not the garlic. I am also a mom of two young kids, and I work full-time. And, though I do rely on convenience foods occasionally, they certainly see an abundance of fresh food, and they are well aware that vegetables are a must. The occasional reliance on some pre-prepared foods doesn't automatically place someone in the Sandra Lee category. We're not talking about cake mix and Hamburger Helper.

Hey all, Due to my son's birthday and other craziness, Michael and I will JUST be joining you all for the Friday night dinner. I just paid five minutes ago. We are very excited! Danielle

Hi - please add me plus one to the Friday night dinner. Thanks!

Wow, thursday sounds awesome. You can put me down for +1 for both events. Thanks Ronnie!

Figure me plus 1 for Saturday's dinner and festivities. I'm excited! (Oh, and I can probably bring a few people up to Evanston in my car from the city.)

OK, CaliPoutine dragged me back over here from the blogosphere to alert me to this planning thread. I'm definitely in. Figure it's me plus 1. I might let my daughter tag along for the entire thing (or my husband - depends who's nicer to me leading up to it, LOL). She loved helping Randi cook when we attended in 2006:

What do you do with all that heavy cream? (especially now that it's not in your coffee)

This will be fun! We also have a kindergartner in the house AND an au pair. Does your au pair cook much food for you guys? (ours has NEVER) Looking forward to Oliver's contributions. My Dylan is currently planning her first cooking vlog, so I can relate to his photography planning.

Well, that show doesn't really represent ANY cross-section of female community - straight or gay. I also love how everyone they encounter (for the most part) ends up being a lesbian. (This is not to say that I don't LOVE the show.) Anyway, sorry to get off topic - it was really interesting reading your take on this issue!!

I was hoping someone would ask about the container. Its a lock and lock container that I bought on Clement Street in San Francisco. Target has a good selection of Lock and Lock's too and you might be able to find the divided container there. QVC also has a great selection, a lot of different items you wont find in the stores. I have a great set of 3 round bowls that nest that I like to use when I make salad for Robin. ← We love them too, especially for my daughter's lunches. We got ours at Target, but when I recently visited the Korean market here in Chicago, they had about 50 different sizes and shapes of Lock and Lock. Perhaps other Asian markets are the same?

2 Calphalon silicone baking mats Pork and Sons cookbook Deceptively Delicious Cookbook (yuck - this one annoyed me)

You're right. That's the culture!

Tina Fey was talking about Kombucha last night on Letterman. She pointed out that there is alcohol in the finished drink. Perhaps that's the cause of the peppy feeling? I knew about the alcohol, but from what I understand, it is a very low amount. You don't get carded buying it after all. Just thought it was funny in light of these conversations.

I hope that it doesn't have to be said that I would let a kid get anywhere NEAR smoking-hot cast iron. ← It is detailed on her blog that Mom did in fact handle the cast iron, though it does bear repeating here I suppose. I think its great that her five year old got to make bread! Nothing but good will come of that. ← She does help make quesadillas at the stove, but I'd have to be pretty damn crazy to let her handle a Le Creuset that was pre-heated to 450 degrees. She was very proud of the bread. I told her that we would try some new variations this week, and she has requested olive.

Has anyone else tried letting their kid make it? That's one of the things that appealed to me from the first recipe; the tease that even a four year old could make it. I didn't have one of those laying around, but I DID have a five year old, and she made a beautiful loaf. I'm eager to try some of the variations - this was a bit too white for my tastes. Here are the details.

thanks guys for replying! That Emeril's link is great- Guiding Star is the restaurant we ate at (I'm quite sure). I'll need to investigate. Even if we can't get crawfish, I'm sure everything else is damn good as well, and we loved the down home atmosphere. I remember it vividly, and it was over 10 years ago.

I'm bumping this up in the hopes that someone will have some suggestions for us! We are struggling to find a place for Christmas. The biggest issue seems to be our vegetarian. Any ideas? She is happy doing just side dishes, so it shouldn't be a HUGE problem.

I DO, TOO!!! I asked for hands AND writing, way back yonder, but that's one thing about getting old---nobody pays any attention to you. In my case, that's just as well. And I've never been any closer to Philadelphia than Titusville, but I've loved these tours you give every now and then. ← I showed both! Really, I did! Sandy, this is great. Thanks so much for all of the time you are putting into this! Getting exhausted yet? (I can't wait to try Italian sausage in my meatloaf. My husband's family adds it to their stuffed cabbage - similar philosophy.)

Happy Birthday! Nice to see another Scorpio blogging. :-) I'm looking forward to the week.

Thanks everyone for reading this week! I'm excited to let Sandy to take over (first of all, because I can't wait to read it, and second of all, because I am TIRED!!). Today was a very quiet day. After breakfast at Wishbone, we all relaxed while Max napped. Then, Michael ran out to grab donuts from Dinkel's: I ate my donut too quickly to take a picture. We hear these are the best donuts in Chicago, and we love them. We will likely not have a giant taste-off, because Dinkel's is a two minute walk from the house, so why mess with perfection?? After donuts, we went out to run some errands, including a stop at Sam's for a case and a half of wine, some rum and some bourbon. What a place!! It is humongous, and I am very happy to have it available as a resource. I still think I'd like to have a neighborhood place, (probably Lakeview), because I like one-on-one attention, but, you can't beat having Sam's nearby. And for dinner, thanks to JeanBlanchard, we tried the Zinfandel Pot Roast, served with glazed carrots and parsnips, and roasted fingerling potatoes from the farmer's market. Delicious: Thanks again everyone!! (and if you are ever in Chicago, please PM me!)

Just got back from breakfast at Wishbone, a Southern food restaurant about a block or two from our house. I had a disappointing crab benedict, crab cakes, poached egg and dill hollandaise over toasted English muffin. I had to send it back once because the egg was raw. When they brought me a new one, the yolk didn't even run. I have so many problems with Eggs Benedict. Am I crazy to expect fully cooked whites with a runny yolk? I grew up thinking that this was standard, but I'm starting to think that I need to specify when ordering. I'm trying to figure out what to do with tonight's chuck roast. I'm thinking Beef Rendang, but Thai Grocery might be hard to get to given the marathon today. I need to compare the marathon route with my Google map to the grocery.

This morning's breakfast was made after I returned home from the market. I fried up two of the eggs from Country Cottage (delicious) and also baked some Niman Ranch bacon in my toaster oven, after sprinkling it with turbinado sugar and freshly ground black pepper. Awesome. Oh, and a slice or two of bread from Red Hen. (spread with cultured butter): I skipped lunch, but had an early dinner from a local Mexican takout joint called Picante. Dylie had two ground beef tacos, just lettuce. I shared a chicken burrito with Michael. Here's a pic of the burrito: They are huge. Max had rice and beans:

This morning, Max and I went to the Green City Farmer's Market. We got an early start, and arrived at 8am: Our first stop was to get some eggs. When we last visited the market two weeks ago, we missed out on the eggs by 15 minutes. I wanted to be sure we got some. The purveyer is Country Cottage Farm. We've had their chicken before, but never the eggs. I had heard wondeful things though: Next stop was Heartland Meats to pick up some beef for tomorrow night's dinner. I chose a two pound chuck roast. All of his meats are frozen, so it is currently defrosting in my fridge. Looks great. He features Piedmontese beef - higher in protein and lower in fat. I could really care less about the fat, but I've enjoyed the flavor of Piedmontese beef in the past. I also wanted to get a squash. I chose Kabocha: As you can see, I had plenty to choose from: I also wanted to get some greens. Kinnikinnick Farm has a very wide variety. I took the easy way out and bought a bag of mixed braising greens. My handsome shopping partner: And some bread from Red Hen: I'm a huge fan of this market. It has a focus on organic, local and sustainable produce, and I always have a blast when I visit. It is great to chat with the various farmers, and I also love the people watching. When I first started going, a few weeks ago, I had no idea how to manage the market. It's in a very busy part of town, and parking is a bitch. The first two times I went, I parked in the lot, and even though my ticket was validated by the main tent, I went over the one hour allotment and had to pay extra each time. It would normally be $4 for the hour. Because I went over (less than 10 minutes), I ended up paying $6.25 one week and $9 the next. I decided this was ridiculous, and set out to find a better way. I now park on Wells Street, in Old Town, and walk the block or two to the market. In the teaser for this blog, there was a picture of a beautiful door that I found two weeks ago when walking down Wells Street to the market. The other picture, by the way, was of one of my favorite farmers; Tiny Greens. He had a sub working his booth today, so I didn't stop by. I love seeing him, though. He always checks out my blog and Flickr photos, and when I walk up, he shouts, "Foodmomiac!!" It's always charming to have small town neighborhood friendliness in a big city, and I've found that it is very much present at nearly all of places I visit for my food needs.

OK, I am REALLY behind!! First, last night: We met up with a bunch of eGulleters at a restaurant called Hot Chocolate: The chef/owner is Mindy Siegel, who was the acclaimed pastry chef at MK. Thanks to RonnieSuburban's clout, we got the "kitchen table" and we all were able to meet Siegel personally. She is very sweet (no pun intended), and seemed like a sincere person with a great love for what she does. Hot Chocolate has gotten some mixed reviews, mostly because the desserts are perceived to be so much stronger than the entrees. She IS a pastry chef afterall. I set out with an open mind, though, hoping I'd love all of our courses. I started fried green tomatoes, served with teeny lardons and greens that was tossed with a buttermilk ranch dressing. I liked this dish. It didn't blow me away, but it was definitely good: Michael started with the mussels. These were served in a green curry, coconut, and lemongrass broth. We loved them, and the portion was admirable. (I've gotten frustrated quite a bit in the past with restaurants that serve up dinky portions of mussels): We then moved on to the main courses, and from what I gathered, no one at the table was blown away. I had a fresh pappardelle pasta with a braised lamb shank ragout, ricotta salata and crispy lamb. As with the tomatoes, it was very good, but I wasn't left swooning: Michael had the steak, a seared "Kobe" style skirt steak with onion confit, potato puree and gruyere toast. He probably should have sent this back to the kitchen, as it came out cold. However, it didn't seem appropriate given the attention that Siegel was giving us. And she was just so darn nice - we felt like we'd be clods to complain about anything, to be perfectly honest. There was so much food, though, that Michael was fine eating off my plate. Here is the steak: The menu is two-sided, and at the bottom of the front page are the words, "save room." Truer words were never spoken, and we would have done well to heed this warning. Ronnie asked Siegel to figure dessert out for us. There are 13 desserts available, plus six hot chocolates, seven milkshakes. There were also 13 types of cheese. Siegel brought out a ton of desserts, and everything was phenomenal. At this point, my stomach was bursting, but I just kept eating. We all took a bite of each dessert and started passing them around. It was fun. My favorites were the Banana (Volume VII), described as a "banana split" : chocolate brownie, caramelized bananas, banana sherbet, coco nib chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate sorbet, chocolate sauce and butterscotch: and the Chocolate (72%) Cake and Shake, an "all American chocolate cake." layers of chocolate buttermilk cake, bittersweet chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache butter cream and served with a vanilla bean milk shake (I'd love the recipe for this cake - it was outrageous): and the little milkshakes: I can't resist posting this pic. I love how Ronnie is laughing. We had a great time.

Just got back from a very long, and very filling dinner at Hot Chocolate with a bunch of great eGulleters. I'm way too full to upload pics and write it up right now, but I'll be sure to get my report up in the morning!