Carrot Top

What a kind offer! Thank you, Domestic Goddess (and yes you are ). Will do.

I can hear their groans of derision right now. Cheek-pinching is one of the banes of existence in childhood. I've been looking for a nice-looking pot like this - nothing in the stores near here, that's for sure - and haven't found one on-line either. Yours is a very comforting-looking pot. Lovely.

Yes, I've made bubbles. Not difficult at all but simply time-consuming in that they have to simmer for a bit. There are "quick-cook" bubbles available also but I'd heard mixed reports and when I tried them, to me they did not have as good a texture. One of the problems is that the bubbles do not store well. Generally they are best consumed the day they are cooked, so it's best to make bubble tea for a small crowd or, of course, otherwise just for a few people who are willing to drink bubble tea all day long )

Ahhh. That looked so good that I had to go online to find this to buy. And I understand the cheek-pinching thing totally. How can you *not* want to pinch the cheeks of children that are so totally adorable? Impossible.

I dunno. The reasons I am reading here seem to be Interfering Government and/or Delicate Sensibilities. ............................... The ball perhaps is not pretty?

Well, it makes me sad to think that so many are missing out on this satisfying feeling of chopping up frozen tom paste, but to each their own. Maybe this could be a new invention to be marketed somehow perhaps? I might try a variation soon, based on this idea, just for fun. Using a cookie press. Useful for developing upper-arm strength, too.

Personally it would feel wrong to me. It would be like having two children then needing to decide between them in every situation that came up. In thinking about it, probably I would just remove the bottle of vodka from the freezer and drink it up while trying to decide. Thereby making more room for more tomato paste in the freezer.

Sometimes when I'm lazy (which is often) I freeze whatever is left of the can scooped out into and wrapped up really tight in plastic wrap to avoid freezer burn then put that in another, thicker plastic bag wrapped tight. Yes, lazy but slightly neurotic. Then when I want a spoonful (which is usually all I use anyway) I take it out and pull out a big sharp knife and chop off what I want from the frozen thingie. I must tell you that this affords much more emotional satisfaction that merely spooning a spoonful out. Chop chop. Such strength, such prowess, big sharp knife, and there you have a nice little chunk of tomato paste to make the world okay with. Ahhhh. Happiness.

Here's a selection of the sort of book that includes these things: Books on Restaurant Operations and Management - Amazon And also, the Culinary Institute of America uses textbooks that include this information. They may be available for sale through the site or if not, a telephone inquiry could yield the "how to's" of obtaining the particular textbook . . . Most local colleges (or technical schools in some cases) that have programs in restaurant or hotel management are also a source for books that include these feasability studies.

Cook's Illustrated did a taste test, and it is online, but I dropped my subscription to the mag so can not access it for a link. The prices of the tubes are ridiculous. That used to be explained by the fact that they were imported but I don't know if even that is true anymore. Supposedly also you can *save* money by buying them because you can just squeeze out the amount you want instead of opening a whole can, but that is easily solved by just popping small amounts into baggies from the cans and freezing till needed. I just looked in my cupboard and I have two different cans of tomato paste. Not because of any reason except that when I go to the grocery store with the kids I tend to grab and run as fast as I can to avoid the cart being filled by piles of things they think they need that I do not want to pay for. But anyway. One is Hunts. Ingredients: Tomato paste, salt, spices, natural flavors, citric acid. It is dense and solid in the can and I just stuck a bit in my mouth. Really good flavor. Tomato-y, to be exact. The other is Kroger brand. "Italian Style" it says, tomato paste. Ingredients:Tomato paste, water, sugar, salt, spices, romano cheese, soybean oil, hydrolyzed corn gluten, wheat gluten, soy protein, garlic, torula yeast (!), and natural flavor. Contains: Milk, wheat, soy. It is soft looking, not as dense. A taste of this reminds me of canned spaghetti or of "pizza sauce". Sweet and light, bringing images of cafeterias to mind. I like the first one. My children probably would like the second. Have to go freeze bits of tomato paste now.

The fat guys have not hit our markets here yet. But when they do I'll have to name them Ryan, Randy and Simon as American Idol is the only cool TV show I watch. Those little dolls Ryan Randy and Simon will be roll cut then stir fried till they almost crackle on the outside but remain pleasantly smooth on the inside. Removed from the heat in their pan, a bit of beef broth will be poured upon them with a dash of soy sauce. Quickly a raw egg yolk or two (depending on what the fellows deserve, based on their performance in the hot pan with the broth) will then be stirred in to make a smooth, slightly emulsified covering sauce for them. A grind of pepper and Ryan, Randy and Simon will be ready to eat. Yum.

Here's something found in a quick search: History of tomato paste The site linked has recipes and other info, too. Maybe all you ever wanted to know about tomato paste. But then again, maybe not.

I vaguely remember reading of tomato paste as originally being "developed" as part of the usual processes of the kitchen of a farm - cooking tomatoes with water down to a concentrate (just like one would do with boullion/stock), then home canning (or perhaps even drying?) the product was one way to extend the useful life of the crop. I've seen recipes in old Italian cookbooks where the paste was used as the major ingredient for a sauce, and specifically remember one from an old Gourmet magazine from the 1970's where polenta was topped with a meat sauce that was mostly ground beef, dried mushrooms, dried herbs and tomato paste. And it was delicious. Some brands of canned tomato paste do taste more acidic than others. It would be interesting perhaps to do a taste test comparison.

You're now an honorary member of the Small-Portions Club. Membership fees are waived. Just bring a cake to the next meeting.

Order what you want or don't order if you don't want to. Eat a little or eat a lot or don't eat. Smile and laugh a lot. If you feel like it. I do, but I've hated the few times in my life when someone (usually a guy) says "smile" to me as if I were a performing seal placed there to please. Makes me want to bite or growl or spit, instead. Life does go on, whatever happens. (Sorry if I didn't repeat the mantra right, it's been a downhill slide since they kicked me out of Bodhisatva school. )

Oh, yeah, Kate. Agreed. If the server seemed to be somewhat normal and not a total twit, I'd ask why no half salad, and if the response was "my manager" then I'd ask to speak (ah, "speak", sounds so "nice", dun't it now ) to the manager then I'd either charm said manager into changing said policy or alternately have a good laugh at management, probably making the server's day. Half a salad. It's not like the place would go out of business for selling half a salad once in a while, indeed good customer service brings in more customers. Half a cow, now - that might be pushing it. You'd need a cross-bow and a good saw. Half a salad, all you need is a willingness to please. I tend to frequent restaurants that will give me half-portions or who will serve entrees as apps. I don't mind paying a little extra for the privilege and I tip very well. I'm not a big person and don't have a huge appetite, so seeing a pile of food before me actually sort of sickens me to the idea of eating at all. And so many of these things do not travel home in a doggy bag too well. Maybe I should start a special interest group: Small-Portions Eaters Anonymous. Our motto would be: We pay for it so you don't have to.

This particular phrase struck me, in the original post. Seems to me that family love and tolerance needs to be an interactive thing. Margie states clearly that she *did* try to order something and had already been put through the wringer in some sense by the server who would not serve half a salad. These situations, to my mind, require Jack Nicholson at the scene to reprimand the server with the appropriate come-back like the one he used in "Easy Rider". Instead, Margie was reprimanded. Whose comfort level was increased here with love and care shown by family? Looks like it was the servers level of comfort, to me. If I had been at the table with my daughter and this situation had occured, I would want my daughter (or DIL) to be made comfortable, not the server. Utter nonsense, that they would not serve half a salad. If then, my family member had chosen not to order something, I'd move my chair closer to them, wrap my arm around the back of it, and give them lots of smiles while giving the server utterly nasty and hopefully imperious-looking stares every time they approached the table. * *(And honey, we'd have a blast. Probably, we'd start laughing so hard at the utter ridiculousness of the situation that tears would be rolling down our cheeks. ) This is how I deal with my family in general - how we deal with each other, really. Cocktail hour, man. ← Very traditional WASP thing to do, Megan. My small, far-flung family does that too. Even if the day starts with Brunch. Startling the amounts of alcohol some of them can consume while still seeming totally sober. (I always wish I'd see them go past that point of seeming totally sober, but it's never happened. Someone should do a socio-cultural study on this. ) And they still manage to get up at the crack of dawn to make others feel guilty about not getting to work before they do. Scary, really. In a vaguely impressive sort of way.

Oh. If I name-called any mythical person, I don't apologize. I still say that in mythical situations sometimes there are times when mythically, even professionals even more intelligent than Dr. Phil would tell the average person to put their foot down. Even within mythical families. MFK Fisher had a great line about the feelings at the average family dinner, and that line hints that often, they are not all filled with sweetness and light. Sometimes even sticking a smile on your face and bowing down to expectations does not make it all okay. You can smile and bow all you want, while being subtly stabbed by the expectations. One dinner, one lunch? Oh yes. Okay. But some people bow to much more, for years. Some women smile and say "It's okay" till their teeth hurt radiating with a pulse felt from their heart, from the smiles given while bowing to others who *are* about control. Not a pretty scene, no. And I am glad that Margy is not in it. But if she had been, I would have been glad to name-call even more to make my point. Now shall we start a thread called: "How civilized *are* we, anyway?"

Yeah, really. WTF. This deserves a thread of its own. Was the server just too . . . busy? At three o'clock in the afternoon to scrape half of a premade Cobb Salad off the plate and serve half? Or perhaps the chef was too elegant, accompished, and terrifying for the server to ask to make a smaller salad? Oops. Probably I mean the Salad Person at that station was too terrifying to make the request of. Or maybe, even, since I like this phrase, the server was a royal controlling bitch, too. Tuscon - the Wild Wild West. Snap on those holsters if you want to order anything different in a small quiet restaurant on those hot dry afternoons. (Hey - look. I even spelled the name of the place wrong. My bad. )

It's the strong opinions, that keep me reading, personally. If there was only pap to chew on why bother? Margy was brave to post her question - perhaps braver than she knew at first.

The problem inherent in communicating by posts on the internet is that often the posts can be mis-read. As you noted, about your original post. There's a lot of signals missing in this form of communication that are there in "real life" and also the communications are not clipped into a box that limits them in size due to time or form. In a mythical situation, it could be that someone who posted your original post could have been sitting down with, as I noted, "a royal contolling bitch". In that mythical situation, that person could have been the woman who made it very clear to you that your actions were, as you noted "unacceptable". In this mythical situation that would have been your MIL. You note that comments were made without people knowing the entire situation, but of course they could not know that unless you had provided that information . . .and of course nobody really knows what happened at any time between two people in any situation except those two people and even then sometimes the perception of what happened is different. Heh. I was one of the few actually defending you, Margy.

OMFG!!! And then what happened???? See, I have a MILzilla too and I'd still break bread with her. Because I belong the the cult...WWBD? ← If I join this cult can I too make as much money as B does for each bite taken?

And by the same token, it happens in life that you can get what you want and the other person can get what they want with a little thought, tact and consideration. ← Usually. And I am all for that. But not always, and then one must decide whether to eat it or not, to throw it back or not. And in those situations sometimes an alliance can be made (rather than a sickly endless ongoing submission to the power plays) by not accepting what is being thrown at you. For sometimes, strangely enough, those who like to throw things only respect those who can and will throw them back.

And it actually does happen in life sometimes that you can sit down to eat with someone who is a royal controlling bitch. MIL or not. "Older" than you or not.

The original post did not say excuses had not been made. It is possible that they were made and ignored. One would hope so, Megan. This is how it *should* be. But there are families that can dole out more pain than love, for varied reasons.