Carrot Top

When does munchkin become three? I wish you best of luck with your plan.

It must have been a long-term plot by the cat in the first place to have this happen. Nice story.

Ah, Sir Charles. I am glad you've chimed in. Do you really talk like that? Sounds good to me.

So, the Family Dinner is the Family Dinner with someone always jumping up and down from the table at your house. You. That leads to the question of whether there is such a thing as a Family Dinner without somebody being subliminally the servant. I used to know a woman who got so tired of things being like this that instead of putting the kids in time-out she used to say she was going to time-out and would go climb in the baby's crib for a rest.

Here's another thing I wonder about, that touches upon The Family Dinner. It will be Thing Two. I see many children lately who spend lots of time with their grandparents. The grandparents have replaced the parents in terms of spending time with the children as the parents work. When hearing discussions of this here and there, often I hear "Better for the kids to spend time having a decent Family Dinner (at the grandparents) than to be at home eating whatever the parent(s) might be able to feed them with the time they have." I wonder about that, too.

*Time* dedicated to a thing shows results. I have an argument with the "demands our society puts on the time of both adults and children", probably. It is, to me, the time given that matters, not the thing. The thing being, in this case, the Family Dinner. If the focus is on the Thing, it is not on the time. Time is capable of being shaped in so many ways that can fit and fill people better than any Thing. Plus, I do not like this Thing being made into a Results-Driven act. ..................................................... I am beginning to sound like Dr. Seuss. Thing One is The Family Dinner. Thing Two will be . . .(will have to think about it. )

Oh yes. I agree with that. I spend hours and hours each day with my kids. If they are not at school, and not doing something else that is one of their chosen activities, they are with me. *But* there are often times that we do not sit down at a table and eat together. We might set out food in the kitchen and wander through the house nibbling on it. We might choose to eat different things at different times. We might eat fast food, driving somewhere in the car. We even *want* to go out a lot, for often we are at home, together, the three of us. And surprisingly (or maybe not, to those who have experienced this) a brother and a sister with an eighteen-month age difference and vastly different personalities just plain don't want to eat together. Not now. Someday, when they are older, based on what I have seen with others in this situation, they will. Do they gain some sort of moral advantage from being forced to do this now? I'm not so sure about that. Do we have to want to eat together all the time, as a family? Does this one single thing make a family a family, or is it the sum parts of all things that make a family a family? I know people who were forced to sit at table while growing up, eating dinner, nightly - who have terrible family relationships/situations. The function of eating together did not create the domestic bliss that it promised, but rather created a sense of shoving things under the tablecloth in fear and formalcy, the polite veneer of masks pasted on with the intention of many of those who sat at table, food together at dinner, politeness or not - to get up from that table when "excused" then to go as quickly as possible on to other things that might not be so palatable to the Mother and Father who created the Fine Dinner Table - to go on to these things without telling Mom and Dad, for the very rigidity of the family structure would forbid communication of what was "really" going on in these kids' lives. I know kids right now who are dining with their families at the dinner table who are doing other things behind their parent's backs - things that might prove not-so-great in the long run but that is not the point. The point is that the Dinner Meal Together does not create magical communication. It is a nice thing if it works. But if it does not, given the fact that our lives are very different than they were in terms of timing and structure (work and the traditional family being two things that have altered drastically in past years) there are other ways to create the bond. Dinner at Table With Children each day (to my mind) is not a panacea. It is an action that can be taken, among others, to ease communication, if done in a way that works. But it is not the only way, and the world does not and will not end if the structure of it is altered. ................................. Edited, SB, to add my own ( stern visage).

Mmm. But you will admit that university studies make wheels turn when they come from well-respected names. People often get hired for "good jobs" or not based on university affiliation and people look to these places for guidance as how to do their best in the world. Journalism follows along behind university studies in terms of stories presented in the mass media, which then affects how we look at the world and what we consider our best choices to be, within the choices presented and vouched for by our paid and sanctioned intellectual leaders (who would be the university people ). There are people worrying at this very moment that their children will become drug addicts or failures in life (getting bad grades and being unable to get *into* "the better" universities therefore, well. . . the saga of worries could continue endlessly here ending in dissolution of character and other losses) because they do not eat dinner together at a table on an ongoing basis with aforementioned kinder. You, with stern visage, obviously do not worry about these things. But some of the rest of us do.

An article in the New York Times discusses the subject. Well well. Columbia vs. NYU on parenting and particularly on how we raise our children, and most particularly on how we eat and with whom. Which university will get your dollars for further studies?

What struck me as odd is that someone who paid that much for a bottle of wine is telling stories about it. Generally people who are accustomed to that sort of thing don't talk about it.

Last year I got pissed off at my kids for not wanting to eat the things I wanted to cook so when I was at the grocery store I saw this book. "Favorite Brand Name Simple 1-2-3 One Dish". I decided they were going to have to eat from it for the rest of their lives, as long as I was cooking. The recipes have three to five ingredients each. Most are canned or frozen. There are even little pictures of the ingredients in their little cans and packages, right below the recipes. But really, this one is not embarrassing. It is more like "frightening". I wish I had the discipline to use it. Tough love, you know. Supposed to do wonders with kids.

From Wildfoods- Trees, Uses

There are two really good recipes that include sumac in Claudia Roden's "Arabesque": Bread Salad with Sumac (Fattoush) and Chicken Pie with Onions and Sumac (Musakhan). There is advice that the chicken pie filling (which includes lots of caramelized onions, sumac, cinnamon, cardmom and lemon) can also be put in a pita and eaten.

Here's a link to a bit more on the book (Hungry Planet) from NPR. I remember something being on eG about this before, including the NPR link, posted by Pontormo but can not find it. Excellent essay. One of those wake-up calls.

"Cooking the RealAge Way". What can I say. I got excited in the bookstore. Each recipe has this little detailed information box that says "if you eat this 12 times a year" how many days younger you will be. ( ) Like, if you eat the Roasted Pepper and Fresh Mozzarella Panini 12 times a year, the *RealAge effect* (yes, this is what they call it) is that "this easy-to-make-lunch makes you six days younger". No, I haven't used it but sometimes do try to figure out how many days younger I am just from the food I make without the help of it. Which I never, ever, would have done without it. It's a goofy book. Seems to me. There's even a website on the program with a grey-haired guy with plastic surgery beaming from its home page, if one wants to be goofy without the book.

As a transplanted Northerner myself, I try not to talk too much about the South, where I live now, for it is much more fun to listen to Rachel, much much more, and the others, too. My speech lilts and sings only sometimes, and always in response to someone that's talking that way to me, but I love it here and would guess you might too, nonblonde. Really, I wasn't going to say anything at all till I read this and realized it was a Call to Action for me. There were several things you might enjoy that I've posted here before - the first one has gone missing but it was on my neighbor up the street when I lived in the rural south who one night choked on his roast groundhog and woke up the town with the emergency services going to his house. There were some good memories and notes on cooking groundhog in that thread if I remember correctly. So please let me know if you come across any new groundhog recipes. It would also be interesting to know if you come across any regional recipes for Beans and Taters which we discussed in this thread . . . they have a place in my heart. I found the South to be not only charming in the way of living close to the land but also in surprising one with its hidden layers of sophistication, similar to what occured in this thread when I lived in yet another rural area of the South. In my own case, my food habits have just evolved or devolved, depending on how one looks at it, to fit the place I live. Any urges for things that don't exist here have lessened with time and have taken on the aspect of Victorian stuffed animals under glass - slightly dusty and not to be thought about too much. It might as well be a different country sometimes, from "here" where I live and "there" in the big city where I used to live. But all in all, my preference is to live here and get on planes sometimes to go "there". Hope you enjoy your stay, too.

It might take some fine-tuning, LindsayAnn. Microwaves have different wattages that affect the timing of things. I've used a mug before, a smaller one rather than a larger one, with about a half-cup water and a large egg and it takes my microwave fifty-five seconds. (Even this can be affected by whether the egg is very fresh or not! ) Once you get it down pat with the exact vessel, timing and water level it will work. In the meantime, I hear that egg yolk is good for the hair and egg white good for the complexion, so all is not lost.

You're a charmer, you know that? What's your timing on that, Greg? And I'm curious as to why or how you prefer the microwave in this situation? And what are you using to do this in - a shallow bowl or something else? I can see how that might save washing a pan, maybe. I like that.

I'm not sure *really* that there's anything absolutely "brand-new" in cooking, how about you, Steverino? But I'm glad you mentioned it, so now maybe some other people can have fun with it too. P.S. You're ahead of me in at least one way in how you discovered this method. You were merely attempting to be frugal and respectful of food, not wanting to waste an egg. How I discovered it was that one day I was simply too lazy to want to wash a pot, no forget it I was even too lazy to want to *lift* a pot full of water onto the stove so decided to try nuking in a small bit of water. Thank my lazy Libran stars.

This is the way I always poach eggs, actually. Not traditional but it works. The timing requires tweaking depending on the microwave, the amount of water used, the container used, and the egg size, but once you find the standard, it is easy as pie. Actually, easier.

Harlan Turk, as docsconz mentioned, though his category expands beyond "food". Heidi Swanson.

Although this interactive website looks as though it were designed for children, it is interesting for those of us who sometimes call ourselves grownup (though never when eating lollipops). It is focused on the foods of Britian, but of course there is information about other cultures, too, as somehow it does appear, that aside from the idea of regional food, we actually have interacted with each other over the centuries. The sections are on Food, Nation, and Cultural Identity; Ritual and Tradition; Consumer Knowledge and Power; Retail Experience; Changes in Eating Habits; Food and Regulation; Technology and Change. From the section on Food, Nation, and Cultural Identity: A good list of food scholars has contributed to the site, Claudia Roden among them. Here's a link: Food Stories, British Library You'll find it less dusty than the stacks. Or so I hear. (Edited to correct typo which said "Cultural Indentity" which sounded like cultural indenture which it sometimes can be but of course I meant to write the *much* freer word "identity". )

Today I read in Borborygmus "Food for Thought: A Video Art Sampler" by Yael Raviv which describes the video pieces recently presented at the Media Center of the Jewish Museum in NYC. All on food, semiotics, gefilte fish, Abbie Hoffman, immigrants, recipes, and Jewish identity and culture. I loved it, lots to think about, would love to see the videos. "Food Podcasts" by Anna Shih made me more interested in food podcasts than I have ever been to date. A good history and detailing. Orts and Scantlings Mark Morton's Table Manners had me laughing aloud. (Just one small bit of advice on manners offered from history ) "How Caviar Turned Out to Be Halal" was a fascinating look at the trade in caviar in post-1979 Iran. I generally find it difficult to focus on these sorts of essays but this one was human enough in scope that my attention did not wander. Really good story about a real-life current-day religious/political/food/human diorama. Essay "The Prize Inside" by Toni Mirosevich, a philosophic table dream. I liked it, of course. "Twain's Feast" I couldn't get into, but I've eaten too much Twain indirectly. I like him straight up. Horsey Story as noted above was interesting in terms of focus on why we eat certain things and not others, with lots of words that have scholarly meaning to define pets or not pets or things that we eat or don't want to. The part about how in times past in France a law was passed to prevent butchering meat animals in the streets (as had been commonplace previously) so that the populace would not have dire and similar thoughts about each other and about their rulers was my favorite fact learned from this piece. This is up to page 53. About halfway through. I'm pretty happy.

Memories or not, it would be wonderful to have those pieces left intact, Carolyn. Interesting work.

I'm always careful to chew on only one side, Sandy, switching tongue back and forth between alternating cheeks during those times when I am not completely sticking it out. You can eat prestige on Wall Street, in the larger investment banks. It is an excellent seasoning, most sought-after. Quite tasty too, I hear. Can't wait. And I hope you'll open an outlet here in the outback, where barbecue is a forgotten word, overcome by pizza on the one side and overpriced "tapas" (quote intentional)(snark snark) on the other. Juvenal might have mentioned this too. But that was not in New York, I don't think.