Carrot Top
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Posts posted by Carrot Top
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I think that any time we find something we enjoy and use it to bring joy to the lives' of others, we become better in the process.
Ellen, it is you and others who are helping *me* think this through.
And I can not tell you how very moved I've been by each one of the responses.One of my own peculiar problems to resolve for myself involves what you quoted above. Yes, I do believe this with all my heart. But then again, with cooking and how I use it to show love, it sort of backfired badly once in my life, and I am still feeling the repercussions and trying to find a way out or around them. The instance was that I married someone who appeared to be a fine person but who turned out have a scumbag hidden within, and I did not discover that fact for a number of years. So each day, for these years, I cooked for him. I applied myself to creating a happiness through food for him (and of course in any other way I could think of). The foods he liked were not mostly the sorts I would prefer, but that really didn't matter to me . . . as you say above, it is about using something we enjoy to bring joy to the lives of others. And after a number of years I discovered that I was feeding my love in daily bites on the dinner table to someone who was not who he pretended he was - someone whose idea of "love" was quite a confused one. Someone who was a selfish, conniving, liar. Yes, strong words. And true. The answer is, of course, that I made a wrong choice in terms of person-to-feed, person-to-bring-joy-to. But I have to tell you, it threw me for a real loop. And since cooking is what I do mostly (or did mostly) as expression and as profession, the idea, the feeling that is involved with cooking took the hit. It has been stung badly by this thing. It is not what it was.
Then of course my mother's ideas of feminism come into the picture, hovering there saying "I told you so. You fed him rather than feeding yourself."
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In thinking of how I feed my children after reading these many posts, the emotion there for me, is devotion. Loving spoons of devotion each day, but of course devotion is a quiet thing, and devotion takes patience. It is not generally as loudly passionate as some other emotions. I'm really glad to have this sense of devotion. Really, really glad.
But I'd still like to try to clear up the other stuff if possible, for the good name of cooking in my life. 
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I say forget about the organizations that are trying to lobby and focus directly on what the "problems" are specifically. Then choose a POV.
The trans-fat ban was a BAN which is different than what this situation is. That was a "NO" said to the public. This is not a "no", merely a "yes a little more of that, please".
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Right now, I have a high paying technical job that I enjoy. But someday I want to have children, and stay at home to raise them and keep house, with a husband who supports me in this. I worry sometimes that I won't find someone whose vision matches mine. I worry that men my age see partnerships like marriage as a math equation adding our two incomes.
I like the idea of "care-work", very much. And I can understand your concerns about finding someone whose vision matches yours. I even like (no, love) the idea of the Goddess of Home and Hearth, who figured often in ancient literature.
On the other hand, it does feel as if the fact should be mentioned that stay-at-home Moms (care-workers, those who cook in the kitchen as well as do the many other tasks of the household, which costs when added up as they do in the financial sections of newspapers each year can total the equivalent salary if paid to others of close to one million dollars a year - Yay Moms! ) (or Dads, too, if they happen to be doing full time "care-work") leave themselves at risk in terms of their financial future (and then, obviously it would also be their children's future) if they happen to divorce, or if they happen to want to re-enter the work force at some point, at the same level they enjoyed previous to leaving it for undertaking "care-work". So it definitely is a trade-off and definitely a sort of risk, for those that have enjoyed the pleasures and the benefits of a high-level professionalism in some field.
Ha! Have we created a "Cook at your own risk" (as care-giver) world?
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Somehow here we (I say "we" with reservation because though it happens, I only partake of the food in a much smaller quantity than the children do) have edged into having a small breakfast before they go to school for the day, then two meals which are almost like suppers or dinners themselves, right after school ends about 3:00 then another later about 8:00. How this has happened is that (whether or not I pack a lunch for them or whether they decide to eat at the school cafeteria) they really do not eat a full lunch. Either from the stress of the middle-school cafeteria (which I understand can be an awesome thing due to social pressures and the age of the kids which creates some "interesting" behavior among some of them sometimes, to say the least
) or, if it was a school-bought lunch that day, from the awfullness of the food itself. Granted, if the kids were *really* hungry, they would eat. But they have been lucky enough in their lives that they don't really know that sort of hunger. And I figure that to give them this sort of "meal" is healthier in the long run than offering a whole lot of cookies and milk. So when I pick them up from school they are ravenous. So I make them a big sandwich (often a hot one) with salads or something for sides. Large enough for a casual meal. Sometimes, they have soup or a stew instead, with a salad. Then homework happens, then their activities happen. Karate three times a week for Drew, two hours each (he "teaches" the four and five year olds though he is only thirteen, along with his usual classes) that lands right smack-dab in the middle of the more traditional "dinner-time". Kristen also has activities several nights a week that happen around these times. When they come home from the activities, around 7:30, they ask: "What's for dinner?" and I say, "You sort of already had dinner, how about a snack?" and they say "MOMMMM. I'm HUNGRY." And I've learned that they are hungry for two things when they say this: First, a real meal that looks like a traditional "dinner". And second, the idea of having "dinner", not a snack. That seems Right to them. So it happens.
Maybe I should name these late afternoon/late evening meals by adding the "f" of "first"and the "s" of "second" to the word "dinner"? "Finner" and "Sinner".
Ah, yes. We pay for our sins. -
and yes Virginia, they even know (or at least have a pretty good idea why they are obese).
All without knowing the exact amount of calories in the krispy kremes they are scarfing down with a cup of coffee laden with three tablespoons of sugar and half and half.
Maybe, despite this many chose to be overweight or obese and live happily with the consequences. I don't know because I chose not to make assumptions for others.
[ . . .]
if you chose to indulge then accept the consequences (we all know what those consequences are--really we do).
Artful implication with the use of "yes, Virginia" that the issues on the table are a myth, like Santa Claus, and that anyone who chooses to think otherwise is a child-like innocent, like the Virginia of the famous letter. Unfortunately, this implication does not compute as anything but sarcasm used in argument for emotional effect, in my book.
Again, you have said you do not make assumptions for others but it does sound rather as if that is precisely what you are doing in saying that "we all know what those consequences are--really we do."
I would agree with you though, in saying that this is not a simple issue. I don't believe that anyone said it was, though I could be wrong.
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You may not have meant this to be humorous, Milagai, but the idea of "Mr. Tool Belt skills" had me laughing all afternoon.
Oh. It's *still* funny!
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If ever (godforbid) I am single again, I shall try this time to follow fifi's example instead.
I'm trying to remember what fifi's example is, Kouign Aman. Can you remind me of what it was that she did? I seem to remember her working outside the home as a professional, and seem to remember a housekeeper? maybe? and of course I remember many good recipes of fifi's, but the specifics are vague. Can you fill in the blanks for me and for others who may not know exactly what you mean in this sense?
fifi, is, of course, an excellent example in many ways, so a more definite categorization of example is required here. -
Well, I can remember when there were no health warnings on cigarette packets. That particular health-related intake of a substance went full circle, certainly. With lots of lawyers getting rich during the process.
With the health-related claims that are being made against obesity, and with the potential of charges that could be raised in the future of "negligence" in terms of not being fully to all crossed t's and dotted i's, communicative in terms of the health risks in terms of eating these huge portions or large amounts of fat, against the corporate chains (deep pocket bullseye just sitting there), I wonder if it might happen that the chains do become more completely or aggressively "user-friendly" in terms of providing this information . . .i.e. having it there to see on the spot rather than making the customer doing the work to find the information . . .
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If every restaurant had such a fact sheet available, I'd be thrilled.
I don't usually ask but twice recently I felt the urge to. Once at IHOP, where I had not been for many years. After being startled by the portion sizes I asked the server what the calorie count was and got a response that seemed like the question was phrased in the Martian language - totally incomprehensible to them. Online the information was available and I think the breakfast counted out at something like two thousand calories (
, yes) with a lovely high fat count, too. The other time after ordering a something-or-other at Starbucks I asked, and the server looked below the counter in the standardized recipe book to give me the information, after asking her manager if they had the information.
I wouldn't be surprised if most chain restaurants already have general nutritional information, either attached to the standardized recipe sheets or in the manager's office. And I wouldn't be surprised, also, if there is a line in each chain's policy and procedures manual that defines whether or not the information should be given out to customers who ask.
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(It does occur to me that female minds have more than 2 halves...!)
Ah, Hathor. I'll have to expose myself in answering you.
First (and least, but always nagging) there is the thought that one should be bringing oneself to a state of being where they "look out for #1" before they look out for others. This was one of the tenets taught me by my own (ardently feminist) mother, but it never quite took. The reason given for doing this, in theory, is that when you are looking out for others first "you" come behind and therefore suffer in ways. Traditionally women had the role of supporter in this sense. Today we are taught to fight the nurturing-others urge in lieu of a nurturing-ourselves urge, to equalize balances of other things. In cooking, this would translate to cooking what one wants oneself rather than cooking what others want.
Sigh.
Secondarily (exposure moment) I find that I do not enjoy cooking for my children on a daily basis as much as I have enjoyed cooking for romantic partners (i.e. spouse/boyfriend types) in the past. I can explain this to myself by the fact that the children's tastes are limited (though I've always tried new and different things, they still prefer the "same old standards") but sense there is more to it, for me. When I read of the story of the mother who stopped cooking when her spouse died I had a shock of recognition. Which was odd, to say the least.
So I ask myself, do I really need to have a romantic partner around to really enjoy cooking again?
That's a pretty wierd question for me to look at.
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I've been thinking about this subject ever since these posts in another thread . . . the first part in a general sort of way and the second one with a more specific wondering:
Does how we think about food affect our daily lives, or our lives within our various cultures in any way? Beyond the simple fact that we all make decisions each day as what to eat and perhaps what to cook?Yes, and moreso than most might suspect. After all, as dissimilar notables as Brillat-Savarin and Tiny Tim more or less agreed that we are what we eat.
Are women responsible in fact for most of the home food preparation/family food preparation across the board in all cultures? How does this affect the food being served? And perhaps not answerable in this forum, how does that affect women in general?Women may be "responsible in fact", (although at least in our culture not quite as exclusively as in earlier times), but perhaps not in principle?
In my own family's case, my parents came from culinarily disparate backgrounds; my being Mother second generation Serbian-American and my Father nth generation Scots/English. While my Father wasn't a fussy eater, and apreciated native Serbian delicacies, the majority of the food my Mother prepared was of the 1950's meat and potatos school, filtered through her own ethnic background and her degree in Home Economics.
In other words, she made what my Father liked.
How this affects women in general I can't say, but from my particular point of view, when my Father died, my Mother quit cooking.
Our generation has expanded its way of living to include other ways of being rather than just man/woman husband/wife, of course. So anyone that has thoughts upon this subject is welcome and invited to add thoughts, for all are valid. I posted the subject as women in kitchen/guys at the table based mostly on history, for I like to think of history and how it affects us.
Do we still cook, as women in the home kitchen (or men sometimes?) for our romantic interest mostly, on a day to day basis? Who do we wish to please when we cook? Our life partner, ourselves, our friends, or our children? How does this affect what we cook? How often does it happen that a lifetime of cooking is set aside when the one(s) we cook for are no longer there? Is this a good thing, a bad thing, or just a "that's the way it is" thing, when a wife and mother (even a mother of grown children) just quits cooking, as above?
Obviously there is no one true answer, but it would be interesting to hear thoughts.
I'm going to bet that the hardest question to answer will be whether women who have been through fifty or so years of feminism as part of life and culture in whatever way - still tend to use and think of the skills of the kitchen with a man, in some romantic sense, layered on top or underneath it all somehow.
I'll be bold and risk derision to say that indeed, I do.
And that makes me both smile wryly while still doing it while wanting to hit myself upside the head at the same time.
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What a kind offer! Thank you, Domestic Goddess (and yes you are ). Will do.
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Carrot Top - I'll show your quote to the kids and let them read it themselves/ I can hear their groans of derision right now. Cheek-pinching is one of the banes of existence in childhood. Here is my small stonepot. I usually make single servings of dwenjjang jjige and kimchee jjige in this pot (I'm the only one who eats it in this household).
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. -
I thought I read that making the tapioca pearls, even with a kit, was the hardest part about trying to make bobba tea at home. Anybody tried making them, and how did it come out?
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
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A hot pot of dwenjjang jjige (soybean stew) contain chockful of tofu blocks, zucchini slices, potato and root veggies.
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.
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So, if everybody already knows what's in the food they're eating, then what's the big deal about making the nutrition information available? Why resist it so hard?
[ . . . ]
Why hide the ball?
I dunno. The reasons I am reading here seem to be Interfering Government and/or Delicate Sensibilities.
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The ball perhaps is not pretty?
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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.
If you buy tomato paste in cans that you can cut both ends off, just remove one end, push on the other end to extrude just as much paste from the can as you require. (it works like ice cream Push-Ups) You can then cover the exposed paste with the removed end and wrap the whole works in foil for refrigeration or freezing.SB (just be careful not to cut your fingers on the sharp can lid edges
)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. 
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I confess it never occurred to me to use both cans and tubes.
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.
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I've experimented with freezing the rest of the can, but have found this to be an unsatisfactory solution because it's a huge pain in the butt when all you want is just another tablespoon of tomato paste.
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.
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Where exactly, if you know?
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.
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I've never done a side-by-side test -- indeed I've never really tasted tomato paste straight, except while licking my fingers -- so I don't know if the tubes taste better. But I've never found them to be economical. One 4.5-ounce tube of Amore paste costs as much as something like six 6-ounce cans of whatever tomato paste is on sale two-for-a-dollar (about $3, either way). So even if every time you open up a can you only use a quarter of it and throw the rest in the trash (an unlikely scenario), you still come out ahead. I've now reached the limits of my mathematical skills, but even if you take Amore's "double concentrated" claim at face value and assume that means an ounce of Amore has twice as much tomato power as an ounce of Contadina, it still doesn't seem worth it. Heck, I was just out this morning and even the organic tomato paste cans only cost 89 cents, and there was a deal on little trays of 12 cans of regular tomato paste that worked out to a hair under 42 cents a can. Meanwhile I think the Amore tubes were $3.29.
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.
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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.
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Here's something found in a quick search:
A Little Bite of HistoryTomato paste started as a homemade concoction in Italian kitchens, spreading across other Mediterranean countries. Though recipes for homemade tomato paste can be found, it is now almost exclusively produced and purchased commercially.
The site linked has recipes and other info, too. Maybe all you ever wanted to know about tomato paste.
But then again, maybe not.
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Does anyone know how tomato paste is made? Is it cooked down, or is it a product of a vacuum evaporation process like concentrated orange juice?
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.
CSPI info on weighty foods at chains
in Restaurant Life
Posted
I'm not so sure that it's in cause of making people "thin" but rather helping people be healthy if they are not. There is a personal testimony in the thread above from someone who did wish to have the nutritional information made more easily available, on-site at the restaurant. Probably there are more people that feel this way.
I was waiting for the slippery slope part to arise.