Carrot Top

"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.

I can remember paralyzing fears from when I lived in Brooklyn Heights. It was like "I really can *not* be seen going into Key Food." Because, of course, one had to go to D'Agostinos. But of course that's Brooklyn Heights. I doubt if people in other parts of the country worry about which grocery store they should go to because of foodie anxiety.

It took me two years of hardship to learn how to link and still sometimes I have problems. This is much more acceptable to me as a fault than say, I dunno, someone who uses Food Lion brand frozen peas. I feel badly to be this way, but it is true.

Gosh, SB, you got me back to the table with that. I am definitely guilty. I like to win, when I can. Plus, I read somewhere that that is what men do in their communications, men who accomplish things, rather than women whose communication style it try to get along with each other and spread peace, supposedly. Do you have a dining room window? What sort of glass is it made out of? I've read of a new kind that reflects the food on any table in a quite exquisite manner. My olive oil comes from the grocery store, though, Kroger actually, and is mid-level cost. I hope people will still talk to me after this confession.

I can't imagine why the song from the movie "Ghostbusters" keeps running through my mind as I read this thread. You know, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts!" Oh well. Must leave for a while to chop the overgrown purslane in my driveway and also vaccum the fast-food crumbs out of my SUV. I look forward to returning later to hear more of the vast and encouraging egalitarianism that exists throughout the countryside where foodies are only foodies but never anxious.

Oh. Raw power, huh? No food anxieties there? Wonderful.

Heavens no. ← cakewalk, I'm enough of a snob that I'd love to be the one that wrote that quote, for it would mean that the NYT had paid me to write something, which they didn't. Unfortunately, it came from the linked/quoted article. But I like the line and love your response even more.

You're welcome. I'm glad to hear that it's only big city New Yorkers that are subject to this particular insecurity. And even more glad to know that only 800 people in the world are affected by it. It's good to be around the real, down-home folk here.

And of course we know that Washington DC is foodie-anxiety free in all relevant geographic areas, too. Guess the NYT blew it again in getting the story wrong.

Funny you should ask. I came across the term "recreational eater" yesterday and became curious about it. A new term, apparently. Only nine Google hits. But I'll take any bets going, that it will grow, the term "recreational eating", and become a part of our daily language soon. Then we'll have to create teams and ratings, of course, for the sport of recreational eating. ................................ Art. I don't think teams can or do create it. Therefore one would have to wonder if a professional restaurant kitchen team led by a chef who was an "artist" would be creating artform food, or if the food would only be art coming from the Master's hands.

An interesting article in today's NYT. Is "who we are" defined by the foodie-ness of our tables? If they have invented pharmaceuticals to deal with other sorts of mind/body problems that limit opportunity in the world, will they invent something to cure or assist in helping foodie anxiety? And where is that consignment shop located?

There's something to this idea. Depends on the criteria of ranking. If it is understanding of food as science and art, the rank would be different than technical skill. Building on the quoted post, I propose the following ranks of people currently on the network: Sandra Lee Rachael Ray Robert Irvine Paula Deen Giada DeLaurentis Tyler Florence Ina Garten Alton Brown Bobby Flay Mario Batalli Emeril Lagasse I'm probably somewhere between Tyler Florence and Ina Garten, putting it that way. I know I'm leaving some out. Fill in the blanks on the missing ones, since I can't seem to figure out how to rank the remainder. ← I like this concept! Where do y'all think Julia Child (yeah, I know she's not TVFN) fits into this kind of hierarchy? This may be sacriledge but I was never impressed by her cooking skills. Her food did not look that good to me and her knife skills, etc. were not great. ← Ah. Poor Julia was not only *not* TVFN but needs to fit into a hierachy also? And you say her cooking skills were not up to par either, nor her food nor her knife skills? ................................... Perhaps my "take" on all this is different, coming from the background of having been an executive chef in a fine dining atmosphere, and also, of course, a home cook. I like to think that people can and will respect their own ways of cooking and making meals at an "amateur" level, without ratings of any sort and most particularly without getting involved with the idea of comparisons to TV cooks except those ratings, or rather goals, that come personally, and from within oneself, as a way to improve *if they feel they wish to*, not because someone else is "better" in some way. Because, really, it is professional cooking that is less important than this thing which is called "amateur cooking" here. This "amateur cooking" is really the cooking the world runs on, and which the world has always run on. Professional cooking is a job, a vocation. It can be a pleasure. It is not as glamorous as some might think who have not done it. But long before there were professional cooks, there were home cooks. Home cooks, who in this thread are given the name "amateur", are vastly more important in the grand scheme of things than anyone on TV or anyone who cooks at a restaurant. Professional cooking is just the fluff, the icing on the cake. It is the entertainment and it is something that people pay for. But it is not where the real thing resides. The real thing of cooking resides in the home, with home cooks, who cook daily for their families as they have always done, long before TV or the wide-spread availability of thousands of hip cookbooks with "how-to's" on knife skills. P.S. Aside from the main discussion, but as it was raised, I must say that personally, I can't find a thing about Julia Child not to respect.

Could someone define art for me please?

I define a skilled amateur cook as someone who can produce a simple and tasty, nutritionally well-balanced meal for their family or friends. The knife skills do not matter as long how the food is cut serves the family or friends well. Knowing how to create sauces beyond a simple pan sauce would not be a requirement in my book, for the world of sauces as created by chefs were sauces not created for home use in general. Three things define a skilled amateur cook, to me. Know how to purchase good fresh food; know how to roast, braise, and saute; know how to put it all together on a plate. It helps to be able to read and follow a recipe but that is not required. This is, I am assuming, home cooking we're talking about as the term used was "amateur". Now perhaps the "TV Celebrity Chef Level" can be attached to the sig lines, too. Just to be sure we all know where everyone stands. This, is what makes any cook, amateur or professional, skilled. Pay attention to what is in front of you. Pay attention to it and think and respond. If I have been rude about this idea, I apologize just slightly. For instead of the original task of determining where one stood in order supposedly to improve, now the entire thing has gone to not only ranking amateurs but also ranking (yes, they are professional, those TV people listed above) professionals in the field and making personal comparison to them, which is so far apart and away from paying attention to the food in front of one that it is an alternate universe. An amusing one in ways, but really if one is taking the idea of cooking *seriously* then it is a step backwards, for the attention is on surface not reality. i.e. To give an example: I am an amateur physician. Every day I think of how to make people feel better, to give forth to the world better health, just as amateur cooks want to give forth to the world better food. I have my family to practice on, and my friends, just as amateur cooks do. I can offer ideas that I've studied in books but obviously have never called myself a professional as that is an entirely different level. Would I be better off in this task of trying to be a skilled amateur physician by keeping my attention on learning more, or would I be better off by measuring myself against others in my peer group (who, of course, would be every other mother of children in the universe), or else maybe by deciding that my measurement of my skills would be based on the TV physician I most resembled? Of course, I'd have to be Dr. Kildare, based on my own self-measurement. The question asked: My answer: A skilled amateur cook pays attention to what is in front of them and responds to what is going on in the cooking process with common sense and some basic cooking skills. A skilled amateur cook is someone who can produce a simple and tasty, nutritionally well-balanced meal. Yours, always, in all attempts at overweening self-importance, Dr. Karen Kildare

Just came across a reference to timballo, in "Lidia's Italy" (a recent release) . In the section on Naples: From timballo, Lidia goes on to offer pizzele ripiene con scarola e salsiccia, then goes further into discussions of "tiella". There are two fillings offered: The first one of scarola, olive, e capperi; the next of polipo, aglio, ed olio extra vergine de olive. I can not tell you how gorgeous the one filled with octopus looks. (Ha, ha, I just wrote octopus like this: octooooopus. And it looked like an octopus. ) Now, there is no denomiation of this specifically being "picnic food" but I would bet that it's been taken on a picnic now and then. It is just too perfect for the idea to not be. "A bottle of wine, some octopus, and thou."