daniellewiley

Good morning from soggy Toledo, Ohio. It has been raining for days, which the grass and plants appreciate, but we're all getting a little bit sitr crazy! I'm very excited about this week, though I must warn you that it will be far less exotic than laksa's wonderful blog. I grew up in NY (on Long Island), but my husband, daughter and I live in Toledo. To give everyone some reference, we are very close to the Michigan border. We are an hour from Detroit, and about 50 minutes from Ann Arbor. In fact, Ann Arbor is where we do most of our food shopping. We get our high quality supplies (EVOO, sherry vinegar, mustards, capers packed in salt, etc.) from Zingerman's, get most of our meats from a wonderful butcher up there called Sparrow Meat Market, and then pick up the rest of our supplies at Whole Foods. They also have a new Trader Joe's that we have just started to take advantage of. This week, though, we will be sticking to Toledo for all of our food supplies, which isn't as bad as some might assume. One of the things I love about Toledo is its ethnic neighborhoods, all of which have their own markets. We have Tiger Bakery for Lebanese food, Stanley's for Polish food, Takacs and Golden Oven Bakery for Hungarian favorites, Sofo's for Italian food, and La Perla for Mexican food such as homemade tortillas. We also have an excellent fruit and vegetable market called Rhode's which I will be visiting today for inspiration. I won't have my week's menu planned until after that trip, but here are some highlights that you can look forward to: This evening for dinner, we will be heading out to the annual German American Festival in Oregon, Ohio. Today is the last day of the three-day festival, and I'm excited about my pig hock with potato salad. I am sure that my almost-three-year-old daughter Dylan will want something resembling a hot dog, so I will try to introduce her the "wurst booth". Stay tuned this evening for lots of photos of this crazy event and the food we eat there. We'll also go out to eat one night this week. I used to be the food critic in Ann Arbor, so I thought it would be fun to "review" a restaurant for you guys. I'm leaning towards one of the Lebanese favorites in town. The Lebanese population is by far the most prevalent of all of the immigrant groups here, so it seems like a good choice. Dylan, my daughter, is a big fan of the place we're going to go, because they allow you to order a side dish of olives. She loves olives. Finally, I'll end the blog on Saturday with a breakfast tailgate at a University of Michigan football game. My husband is a U of M alum, and we have four season tickets. This is the first game of the season and it starts at noon. The breakfast tailgates are always my favorites. So, that's the deal with me. I'm going to try to get back to my coffee and NY Times now before my daughter comes home. She had her first ever sleepover at Grandma's house, and I need to take advantage of my remaining free time!

Back when I was getting a ton of migraines, my fall back cure was a very large dirty martini. Worked every time.

Same problem here, but it's with ALL artificial sweeteners. My friend is a doctor of Chinese medicine, and she muscle tested me for a bunch of foods. Apparently I have an emotional allergy to artificial sweeteners.

It's fascinating reading about your life as a personal chef. I've always been intrigued by the idea, as is my sister-in-law. Thanks for all the documentation, and I can't wait to read more!

I always think of Julia around her birthday. She is just one day younger than my Grandma Ana, who will be 92 tomorrow. I can't believe that this has happened at this time of the year. Both Julia and Grandma Ana are (I can't use past tense yet) strong women who love food, love sharing their opinions and love telling others what's right. I will start planning my honorary dinner tonight, and will join you all on Sunday (and all weekend) as we raise a toast to Julia.

I don't care for liquid centers. I like chocolates with a chewy center, such as mint or raspberry jelly. My husband brought home chocolate covered orange peels from Europe and I enjoyed those very much as well.

My favorite preparation is grilling. We clean 'em, trim 'em, and wrap 'em in foil with olive oil, salt and pepper. Yum.

Oh, I just love Israeli junk food. Especially the chocolate - it has a totally different flavor than American chocolate. I spent five weeks in Israel when I was 15, and I gained about 15 pounds. My favorite was Kif Kef, which is the Israeli Kit Kat

LOL, that sounds like my brother. We have to hide ANYTHING we don't want him to eat, especially olives. That guy could eat olives all day long. He'll find any olive in my house unless it's in an underwear drawer. I need to start hiding treats from my 2 year old. She's been helping herself WAY too much!

My most hated food in the whole world is the lowly caraway seed. Just one is enough to make me want to hurl. I can only tolerate them ground up with the flour in (seedless) rye or pumpernickel bread. I also dislike: raisins, cotton candy, cilantro (I'm getting a little more tolerant of this but it DOES taste like Palmolive), and Ranch dressing, except on pasta salad.

I do exactly this with chicken salad all the time, when I'm making lunch for myself. I'll have to try it with shrimp. Sounds delicious.

Hey all, I'm researching an article about avocados, and would love to hear what you do with avocados beyond guacamole. If any chefs are reading this, I'm especially interested in anything you serve to your customers that is unexpected, and how they react to the unusual dishes. In the unusual food pairings thread, I posted about the snack I had at the IACP conference, at the avocado booth: a chunk of avocado, rolled in corn nuts and draped in white cotton candy. It was unbelievable! In my research, I've come across avocado pie, and some other intriguing combinations. I want to hear more!!!

I am! And, it seems that all the scorpios here are also bleu cheese lovers.

Try this! http://www.zingermans.com/Product.pasp?Cat...ppingAddressID=

I like it. Except for certain body mutilations, I find all of the above rather attractive, especially tattoos. That said, in certain situations, I'm not expecting body art, so I don't know how I'd react to a tattooed water at say, Les Deux Magots while enjoying warm chevre on Pain Poilane.

Hmmm... This is a hard one to answer. Here's what I do know: I only like hot sandwiches for the most part. Melted cheese is a good thing. OK, I just thought of a favorite (not THE favorite, just up there): It's called Avocado Luck. Take a great quality bread (I use Zingerman's Farm Bread) and cut two generous pieces. Brush one side of each with olive oil. Place one piece oil side down on a Lean Mean Grilling Machine. Add sliced avocado (I use quite a bit), provolone cheese, and a drizzle of raspberry vinaigrette. Place other piece of bread on top, oil side up. Close machine. Cook till nice and melty and crispy. Eat.

Not that I am aware of, though I only visited once.

The chefs at Region were formerly at 910. I can't recommend this restaurant enough - it's fabulous.

Nude male or female? It was a female, posing on a chaise lounge in her backyard. She claimed to be Bob Guccione's daughter.

I genuinely like to hear foreign words pronounced in the way a native speaker would say them. I do too. My husband and I bicker over that all the time! During the Tour de France, I hated hearing stage pronounced Americanized instead of "staaahg." And, when I hear Bruschetta prounounced like brooshetta, I get shivers up my spine. But, I'm a snob.

When I worked at the Food Network, one of my jobs was opening the "fan" mail. We used to get quite a few complaints about Rosengarten's cleanliness, or lack thereof. I'll also never forget the nude photo that someone sent to Emeril.

I second this recommendation. My husband and I went a couple of weeks ago when we were in San Diego on vacation. One of the best meals we've had in a LONG time. I recommend doing Trust the Chef along with the wine recommendations. Fabulous experience and a fun neighborhood to boot.

We moved into our house in February of 2000. It's a big old Victorian, so we have more storage space than we need, and the previous owners have all left a ton of crap to fill up some of that space. I had a garage sale last summer, and decided to clean out the cabinets in the ice room off our kitchen, as there were a bunch of items in there from the previous owner that seemed saleable. I was standing on a ladder pulling out items when I saw something wrapped in plastic. I pulled it out and was appalled to see that it was the remains of cinnamon buns, in a tin tray, complete with a butter knife, wrapped in plastic with a twist tie. Luckily, enough time had passed so that the stinky phase of its decomposition was over. I was half grossed out/half fascinated to see what 3.5 year old (at least) cinnamon buns look like. They were kind of black and grey and seemed really hard.

That's my daughter's favorite breakfast. She's 2.5, and we had to come up with a system, because she was demanding more and more syrup each morning! Now, I just fill a little blue glass egg cup with Grade A syrup for her. She gets to pour it in herself, but when it's done, it's done. She usually reserves some at the bottom of the cup for drinking, LOL. She likes the Grade B just as much as the Grade A, but I try to hog it for cooking, since I love the extra oomph. My favorite recipe with Grade B is my Thanksgiving turkey. We always brine and then barbecue our turkey, and the glaze I use is made with Grade B syrup and dijon mustard. Yum.

We usually make our own (fresh garlic, sea salt, capers, olives, sherry vinegar, olive oil), but we have: - Maple Grove Farms Raspberry Vinaigrette (for grilled avocado cheese sandwiches) - Kraft Catalina (for my sister-in-law who insists on drenching her salad in it despite the fact that I've already tossed the salad with homemade dressing) - Whole Foods Organic Miso - Whole Foods Organic Bleu Cheese (unopened, my husband bought it for an "emergency" - I'm still trying to figure out what kind of emergency we might encounter that will require bottled bleu cheese dressing) - Garlic Expressions (brought over by my mother-in-law a few months ago)