Carrot Top

There used to be an odd little German place right off Court Street up the street from the Borough Hall Station. Only open at lunch but one thing they always served (year round, forget about seasonality) was a really nice Sauerbraten with all the sides. There was also a Spanish take-out/deli/bodega on Court Street, halfway up the block heading into Bkln. from the same subway station that had good home-style oxtail stew with yellow rice or braised chicken, the same, and again only open for lunch. I wonder if they are still there. Just "home-style" cooking but both very good at what they did. P.S. I also wonder if the fresh poultry market is open down by the docks around the Cobble Hill/Red Hook border. Oh! Also some great bakeries in Cobble Hill, and certainly not a huge walk at all.

Perhaps Mom would like to start off dinner with a cocktail. A Pousse-Cafe or two? Three Pousse-Cafe's imbibed can have the effect of those drinking them wishing to endow Sainthood upon all those around them. If they don't pass out first, that is.

Wow. I guess Nile perch *is* exported. Interesting documentary.

P.S. Actually either of those spreads would be luscious on shortbread cookies. With a cup of strong tea or good coffee . . . what's not to love? (Sorry, just can't stop thinking about this topic. )

Oh! You should have no regrets about your purchase. Even if you (or whomever receives them as gifts) do eat them simply as spreads on breads, they will be wonderful and even more interesting than just "the regular preserves". Once upon a time, a long time ago, before I went on to become a chef that cooked "real food" I was a pastry chef. Linzertorte was the very first thing I ever was told to make, in a professional kitchen. The kitchen was hot and steamy, the dough soft and melty and close to impossible to work with. It was a very hard day. Nevertheless, Linzertorte remains one of my very favorite pastries when made well . . . and I did have a chance to taste the real thing in Vienna one year. I envy you your trip. A good Linzertorte should sort of melt the moment it hits your tongue. There should be no hardness or dryness. Though I have tasted examples similar to which you describe. Bad bad people to make them like this. The recipe for the Marienbadenschitten (I think I spelled that right ) is one I came across a long time ago, too, and have never seen it in print since. I was assured by a waitress who was my pastry-taster and cohort in the then-War To Make More German and Viennese Pastries, who originally hailed from the Marienbad area that indeed, it was something she remembered. I didn't write it down, though. Seems to me that each bite of the preserves will bring a very nice memory of your trip, howsoever you decide to eat them. Enjoy!

Standing on Montague Street, face the river, then turn right and start walking towards the bridge. Almost at the end of Henry Street you'll find Henry's End which was great when I lived there, and which still seems to be getting some pretty good commentary. I second Pan's suggestions on Atlantic Avenue. The spinach pies are always good for a quick snack or lunch or to take home at any of the shops or bakeries (they come in different shapes with different doughs and flavorings sometimes so check out all the different places if you like spinach pie). Brooklyn Heights was my home for twenty years. I loved it. I hope you have the same experience.

They could be used as spreads, of course. But why give up the chance to make Linzertorte? If you make a double batch of Linzertorte dough, you can use the apricot one you purchased to make "Marienbad Schnitten" which uses the same dough in pastries that are made with layers of the baked dough stacked with the apricot preserves spread inbetween. I think that I even like this better than Linzertorte. Which is saying a lot.

Bluefish Run. Now there is something fun. Bluefish travel together, swimming around looking for little fish to eat. Sometimes they find little fish travelling around together, and then the fun begins. The big handsome bluefish attack the little fish, running them right into shore if they are close enough. The water churns and twists and bubbles with the fervor of the attack. And then, of course, any fisherman or fisherwoman nearby gets slightly maddened, too, as the urge rises within one's heart and soul, to pull in a big gorgeous bluefish. One year when I was living on a boat in a boatyard (which had the gall to call itself a marina but which really was a boatyard) in Stamford, Connecticut, we had a bluefish run. The first shout was heard, from some guy working on his boat. "Bluefish! Bluefish!" he cried, as he dropped the tool used to endlessly remove barnacles from the bottoms of boats. His voice echoed through the boatyard, topping off the noises of electric sanders that were being used to smooth decks, rounding off the sounds of radios playing and the laughter that went along with the cases of beer being downed by those who had put away their electric sanders for the day. Within seconds, men came running from every direction. The men that worked in this boatyard were first-generation Portugese-American or second-generation Italian-American. They had no fear of having to be quiet and subdued. They ran to the water, ran onto the docks, ran onto the decks of boats, churning the air of the sunny day themselves with shouts, exclamations, directions, exhortations, waving arms, running legs. Joy was bubbling in an intense and completely enticing way, and the hunt was on. Babbles of voices rose in Portugese and half-Italian mixed with English. The stoners that worked at the boatyard followed along, hitching up their jeans which were always falling down, lighting up a butt or a joint, tossing their hair out of their eyes as they stood to watch. Some blond crew-cut heads rose from the inside of some boats, smiling and bemused at the sudden madness that had seized the day, hands wrapped round gins-and-tonics, and they stood and watched as the scene unfolded. Some of the guys had arrived with fishing poles in hands. Others were running in every direction to try to find them. "Got a pole? Got a pole?" they shouted. I gave them the two poles I had from the boat and then felt worried. How was I going to get my own bluefish? There were not enough poles. Guys started jumping on to the decks of unwatched boats, running below decks to find any poles they could. One guy emerged from below-deck of a larger boat with four poles. He ran by me, handing me a pole. "Grab a piece of bread! Anything! Get that line in the water!" he rapidly tossed to me as he disappeared towards the end of the dock. I don't remember what I grabbed for the hook, just as I can not remember the name of the small fish that were being attacked by the bluefish. I cast the line into the churning water (what a feeling, always, the line heading out with grace into the air) and it landed. Plunk. And it didn't take long, for these fish were in a frenzy. Chop chop chop chop they were biting whatever was in their way in search of a bite of those fine little fish they were chasing down. Jesus. The pole almost got pulled out of my hands the fish was so strong. I must have screamed, and I almost fell off the boat, for some guy came running to give me directions on how to bring in the fish. I did bring it in, and it was a twelve-pound bluefish. Gorgeous. A big fish to clean. Awesome, for someone who had only cleaned smaller fish. If I remember right (fish tales do tend to go awry for some reason) it was about three feet long. I cleaned it, and cut it into steaks and gave lots of it away, and cooked it that night in the tiny oven that was in our Sparkman and Stevens 1939 wooden sailboat, basted with bacon and topped with onions and herbs. It was pretty good. Almost good enough to take away the embarrassment of when the man who owned the fish pole I was using walked up to me after I caught the fish and took a good long stare at his pole - the one that had been whisked out of his boat by my friendly unknown pole-provider. I almost choked as he stared, and said "Someone handed it to me". Mortifying. But then again, this was the time of the bluefish run. A feeding frenzy. For all.

Here is something on Nile perch. I have a feeling, though, that most of those real Nile/Egyptian perch are not exported, but I could be wrong. I'm sort of wondering if the fish is actually a shad. It *is* the season, here, for shad, and to call it an Egyptian perch might be a mere romantic gesture being made (which seems to happen often enough with some varieties of fish . . . ), a nickname being given to a variety that otherwise might not be purchased as readily.

This is a book written mostly for an academic audience, I think, Owen. I happened across it when researching something else in food "history", on Amazon, and ordered it from there. You can find most books that speak of these topics (rather than the more general books on food science, food recipes, food stories i.e. "how to cook" or "what we or they eat") in university libraries. Here is a link (I hope it works) to one section on food history in our university library here. There are lots of other ways to search for these sorts of books, you just have to sort of putter around a bit. The amount and the variety of texts available are astounding, and not the general sort of thing one finds in a bookstore or in a regular sort of library. I'm sure that Sandy will have his own answer for this, but I have to point you to the original discussion that he and I had, that led to my sending this book on to him. It's in this topic. He pointed out to me that I had been thinking in solely a heterosexual way when writing my little story, and that indeed there were other sub-texts in the Gourmet magazine writings, as there are for those who seek them, in many other places. (From Post 14) I honestly hadn't thought about that before. And then the juxtaposition with the fact that I'd just ordered this other book on Amazon was a lucky and interesting happenstance. Maybe, if you are interested, Sandy can send the book on to you after he's finished with it. I like the idea of books being out and about, travelling the world to all sorts of places and all sorts of minds and readings.

I don't know what to think about this really. The larger topic is food, of course, but within that topic are so many sub-topics. The one book speaks of food preparation and/or of food science. The other book speaks of food sociology and/or culture. In that sense, the books may be thought to be on different topics with one overall link, therefore to be "indexed" under different headings, therefore the implication would be that the title would not be thought to create the implicit tension you describe. But it would take a librarian knowledgeable about indexing to really know this. Maybe there is one that will read this and comment. Not that the way a book is indexed in a library system always fully relates to what is felt or seen by the reader out in the "real world", of course. I have to go back to thinking of how one is supposed to treat information used in formal writing, i.e., if it is considered to be "general knowledge" one does not have to find an authority to name as source within the bibliography, whereas if it is not considered "general knowledge" or the idea or concept or quote does directly spring from a known source that has shaped it in some way to their own idea, then it should be credited. Maybe "secret" this or that was considered a general enough phrase to allow for the omission of credit in this case . . .(?)

Heh. You just made me realize that (though I am not someone that is a restaurant hound searching for somewhere to eat by reviewer direction) the restaurant review in our local paper might actually be the most entertaining writing going on in the entire paper. Where that leaves the state of the newspaper, the state of my intellect in general, and the state of our geographic region in some ways is uh . . . dubious, at best. I love that line. As you can see from my post above. The motto for people who act this way is "Better safe than sorry". Life is a scary business. Why risk losing maybe twenty dollars and an hour on an unknown meal in some unknown place? Terrible, terrible. It's nice to think one knows what one is talking about, based on what some other people say. "I'm okay, you're okay, we're all okay." (Insert pleased smile here). The argument that one might lose a larger sum and more time when dining at a more expensive place is one made, too. My theory has always been "if you can't afford to screw up, don't do it." Food is a living thing, chefs and people who work at restaurants are living things, and even the best-reviewed restaurant might not give one the buzz one was promised. ............................................... But anyway. Let me go read the restaurant review (for some place I have no real intention of visiting based upon it) and throw away the rest of the paper.

Flat Earth Crisps is actually sort of a scary name.

Her success as an author is shown by the fact that you so easily and affectionately call her "Peg", Anna. It's fascinating how a (good) book can be different things to different people, far beyond what was probably ever intended when it was written. I'm happy to have this copy here. It has a peculiar pull upon me. I think you'll enjoy reading it again too, if you do get a copy. This book does have a personality. "Secret" is a great word, isn't it, Max. Secret agents, secret gardens, secret ingredients. Curiosity can not help but rise about something when "secret" is invoked. I remember that book and wonder why it might not make it onto the list of "books that age gracefully" if it would not. Lots of good stuff in it. Maybe it was timing, a bit too early in some ways or a bit slightly at the end of a certain edge in others? And that has to do more with when it was published more than content? Or would it be something else more intangible? I'm not sure. Now I might have to buy it to find out.

Gochisousama deshita, Hiroyuki.

I finally got Peg Bracken's "I Hate to Cook Book”. It was a very difficult thing to do for me. My feelings were very mixed. My finger went to hit the button to order it on Amazon so many times, then retreated. There was heavy trepidation in my mind and heart about this book. Regardless of the fact that I can and do and will stand up for the use of convenience foods for people that use them consistently and do realize that times exist when even people who would not "normally" use them, do use them in daily cooking. It seems, intellectually, that there should be no shame about anyone cooking this way if they need to, or want to. For not every meal in life is set at a table where fine, pure, luxurious, artisinal, or even “home-cooked” is possible, just as every dress worn is not a Donna Karan nor is every car driven a custom Ferrari. The "I Hate to Cook Book" sat on my mother's bookshelf when I was a child. I have a first edition here, from 1960. Same dust cover. I remember it well. It sat there, and I looked at it, on that same bookshelf for years. I hated that book. I hated the "I Hate to Cook Book". It sat in between several books on art and lots of books on feminism. Lots of books on feminism. The other books were Agatha Christie paperbacks and Nero Wolfe paperbacks. I liked the mysteries. I loved the books on art that had lots of paintings shown stuck in between the thin rice paper sheets bound inside those tall precious books. The books on feminism did not register. I could have cared less about them, they seemed to just be rhetoric which a child does not care much for. But the "I Hate to Cook Book" was a real thing sitting there in its periwinkle blue cover. It was the only cookbook my mother owned, and I do not know where she got it. I know she did not use it, for it never left the shelf. I know that it did, however, have a message that struck me directly in the heart each time I gazed upon it, and I did not like that message. The message was "I hate to cook, Karen. I want to do other things besides make you a meal.” That message made me very unhappy in imagining it, when I did, as a child. For she did hate to cook, my mother. And that seemed so very wrong. That message made me very unhappy in imagining it, when I did, as a child. Now that I am much older I can understand my mother's feelings. And I can certainly understand the social movement that was behind the writing of the book. If one is tied to being one thing, to standing in the shoes of only one role, that can be awfully, terribly, limiting. And not only emotionally but financially, intellectually and many other ways. It's been forty-seven years since Peg Bracken wrote this book. It is a very humorous book. Peg Bracken herself seems like the sort of person that anyone would want for a good friend . . . easy-going, funny, encouraging. And yet I look at the recipes, now, and still, I cringe. There is a sameness to them that lives in things boxed and canned and packaged, a taste that is curiously and solely of the industrialized world. I'm not crazy about that, at all. But then I remember why the book was written. It was written for a taste of freedom. It was written for expansion from rigidly defined roles that were actually painful for many people. But I still don't want to cook anything from it. And I wonder where that leaves me, or if there is an answer to it all. Is the book useful? Yes. Is it good? In ways. But it still doesn't taste just right. I wonder if I dare to use a recipe from it. That, would be very interesting somehow. While I cook, the book will be in my mind as it was back in 1963, on the second shelf up from the floor in the tall white-painted bookshelf, its pretty periwinkle blue cover peering out encouragingly, while I sat there cross-legged on the floor, staring back at it with resentment and a bit of fear for what it seemed to mean to me, what it meant in my life as the child of my own particular mother and of the particular times that spawned the book.

From "As You Like It" Know what I mean, jellybean?

And really. It just came to me. With my "screen name" being what it is I never should have allowed a bunny in the house in the first place.

We live in Blacksburg, Virginia which is where Virginia Tech is. So our bunny-beating taken pales in comparison to other sorts of natural or unnatural scenarios which occurred here last week which still linger in ways to affect all of us (and all of those who watched from other places). I still think our bunny experience was a silly (and I say that in a tone of slight self-disgust) suburban scenario. In general, people think of meat as coming from plastic packages. Therefore all animals become cute extensions of ourselves rather than fodder for survival as in a serious agricultual environment. And that is where problems can occur. Yes, I sensed it. And I tried to pretend it away. Obviously there are animals who make excellent pets, we always have some of them in our home. But then there are animals who will not, no matter how one tries to enforce "petdom" upon them. From Bunny's eyes, I am quite sure that he might have felt as if some aliens bred him into captivity then took him into a strange difficult place to live. A boy's room, which regardless of the toys, the towers made of cardboard boxes, the lovely bed which could be jumped onto and peed on, the cords which could be gnawed to try to do in his captors (me, obviously, as I remember that electric shock ) yet which did not have grass and trees and brambles and bugs and the sounds of birds, the smell of the earth . . . which did not allow any way to really really jump and run and hop in answer to any of the things heard or smelled or sensed. In other words, from Bunny's eyes, I am sure he might have felt we were out to give him a life that was not his in any real way that would feel right and good to him. From the natural world's eyes, this Bunny was bred to be part of a food chain. The confusion started with this Bunny when we tried to make out that he was not, that he could become what we wanted him to be for our own particular purpose. Ah. The purpose? Merely to love him? And naturally, to have him behave as if he loved us back, even if he was finally only merely pretending to for the food. From my eyes, I felt wrong about this bunny in the first place and really should have listened to that feeling no matter how much I was encouraged to ignore it, both by my son who wanted a bunny and by the pet store people who obviously will sell whatever they can encourage the average sucker to buy. Perhap Drew wanted a bunny based on the ideas of soft cuddly bunnies that we read of in stories, that we see on cartoons (even though some of those are not cuddly but they are *full* of amusing human characteristics ) who then got a bunny of a sort who was basically just a Food Model Bunny who regardless of ongoing help and assistance and training could stretch himself no further to become a different sort of Model Bunny. Limited by . . . I don't know. Genetics? It always sounds intelligent to use that word even when most of us really don't have a clue as to what we are talking about when we pull it out of the Word Hat. And once again, the mistakes I always make do not come from saying "no" too often. They come from saying "yes" at various times from wanting to be "nice". Sickening, really, that this should be so. So, one more experience to chalk up to being too nice. And for a while I'm going to repeat to myself over and over, "Yes, Bunny *did* turn out to be a Food Bunny. That's what he was. Tigers do not change their stripes." And I'll be watching out for Food Bunnys who try to pass themselves off as not being what they are. Because if you don't eat them, they might end up eating you. Just a natural thing.

Nope. The vet is unsure whether Bunny will make it through surgery, so we will see. Here . . . if there is good news and it all works out great, I promise to post and tell you how it did. If it does not all work out great, I won't post about it. ............................................. Regardless, it was good to hear all the thoughts on this subject, as it has developed. Thank you all for that.

Yes, the sense of foreboding is unfortunate here with this situation. I'm sad to have posted things that cause that, but also feel that since this is a real situation where something that is being bred to be eaten has been sold as something that can be petted and not eaten, and there seem to be some huge problems, I don't want anyone else to have to be in this situation because they *didn't know* there was a difference in these breeds either. I just talked to the specialist vet and he said that this breed of bunny, based on what they are bred to be and what they are naturally, can be "intractible" as pets. Yes, I told the vet I was upset with the pet store people and he said that they were "just high school kids who don't really know enough". Right. I didn't know enough either, but they are in a position where they are advising people. Yikes. Maybe. I feel rather as if I am living "The Omen" right now.

Double post.

More on pets and on eating pets: Bunny has continued to have difficulties learning how to be a house bunny, though I have tried to do everything the sites and books advise. He is not a happy house bunny. And in his unhappiness, he continues to inflict damage on the house and therefore on the family, in ways, as my time continues to be spent scrubbing up messes and washing things which the smell will never really probably come out of. I can not, really can not, see keeping an animal confined to a cage for twenty-four hours a day, but every time he comes out the difficulties start over again. Last night we tried to put a bunny leash on him to take him for a walk to keep him busy and hopefully make him happy. He did not like the bunny leash and scraped his way up me, scratching me all over then he did a daredevil jump off my back to the floor. Then he started limping. In order to catch him we had to first remove all the furniture from my son's room as he would skitter from under one thing to under another. I then carried the four foot by three foot cage into his room so that we could try to tempt him into it. We needed to do this in a quick manner of some sort, for it was apparent with his wild jump that he had broken his paw and needed to get to the vet which closed in half an hour. We made it somehow, getting to the vet just as they were closing. Bunny stayed there overnight and this morning he has been diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder which will require fixing. There is only one "exotic animal" vet and he will be in the office in several hours to give full advice. How does this have anything to do with food? Because when I talked to the "regular" vet who called me this morning, she told me that this bunny we have here in the house is not a bunny who should be a pet. This bunny is a bunny that has been bred for food. It is a food bunny. Yet it is being sold in petstores as a pet bunny. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Can a tiger change his stripes? I am a great animal-lover. . . take in strays etc., always have. Yet this is a distinct thing from being an animal-lover. They are selling food animals as pets. How can we have the gall to expect an animal which is not bred to be a thing to be a thing? How, really, can we have the stupidity to think we can somehow "train" a natural, normal, healthy, part-of-the-foodchain animal to be something that it is not? Yet there they are, in each and every petstore. With no warnings given. The vet likened it to trying to bring a Rottweiler into the house to be friends with a new baby. Not natural. There are animals that we eat, and then there are animals that we have as pets. Obviously we can not expect any pet-store to offer good advice on this, and as far as bunnies go, I do not think these facts are generally known, such as one might know about a Rottweiler. Even the book I bought my son to read (ah, yes, it was reccomended by the pet store. Sigh) did not say anything about the difference between "food breeds" and "pet breeds". Oooh. I am steaming. I am angry and very sad, too, that both Bunny and us, are in this contorted situation, and wonder if there is a good fix. Moral: Be sure that your intended pets are definitely intended as pets by breeding and nature, not food by breeding and nature. Double-check, again, even if you think you know by "general knowledge".

Well, during the era in which "Little House on the Prairie" was set (the late 19th century), a large proportion of the US population lived--and worked hard--on farms. And my understanding is that breakfast was indeed a heavy-duty thing for lots of rural folk back then--that is, if they had the wherewithal to afford that kind and amount of food. ← I think that the "steak and egg" breakfast morphed into the "bacon or sausage and egg" breakfast that is quite common today, and not all that very different in terms of caloric content of type of food. Two or three eggs, three to six ounces of some sort of meat, two portions of some sort of bread-stuff with butter and preserves or jelly, a serving of fruit juice and a cup or two of coffee or tea with milk is what a modern-day common American idea consists of. Not that everyone has the time for this before going to work, but this seems to be an ideal that many strive towards as being part of the "good life". ................................................ In the rural past where this breakfast existed (as you say, if there was the wherewithal to afford it) though, it was not generally eaten immediately upon rising. Before eating, there would be the chores to do at daybreak. An hour or two or maybe three of checking fences, feeding and watering livestock, and assuring that the garden was still there and that it would and could be eaten sometime rather than maybe having to eat the aggrevating marauding bunnies that ate it. So in this way, breakfast itself was a different animal, not something eaten "before" the day started but rather into a day well started with physical labor, which would demand that sort of food and induce a good hunger. Well you know. Wielding a blow-dryer and getting these clothes on can be very hard work in the morning. Especially these high-heeled shoes. An egg per shoe might be needed to revive me, to prepare me for the day. A strip of bacon for each eye mascara'd. Buttered jellied biscuits will serve to make up for all that fussing with my hair. And without coffee, of course, I could not even see to do any of this. Ah. Justification can be fun. (Ha, ha! helenjp and I were going on about farmwork at almost the exact same time! The spirit of dank hay and cow patties must be in the air. )

I'll go back and read it, Janet. Thanks. Yes, that was the age of well-practiced manners wielded with sword's edge and a wink, wasn't it. Not the manifesto style of insistence that often can be a hint of shrill layered onto hard rhetoric with a club hidden behind one's back should there be disagreement.