Carrot Top

Hmmm. Your list of pertinent questions leave me feeling rather impertinent in having made up my own mind on this question. Although my sense of "eat or be eaten" is unlikely to be changed (as I noted, too many years of living in Brooklyn can make one this way) it still would be good to know some answers to that really good and detailed list you had the b. . b. . brains to post. In the sentence above, you note that your experience is that there is considerable variation in several particulars between operations. I believe you, but would like to hear more if you would wish to jostle your pen into giving us more details upon your specific experiences. (?) Pretty please with sugar on top.

Just a question about Japanese food, language, aesthetics and possibly culture. Are the terms wabi, sabi, and shibui ever used in descriptions of food or dining? If not, are there other terms that might be used intead to give shape to a similar meaning?

Boyfriends? You can apply the same rules to them as to any other vegetable, Ptipois. Just approach them, pick them up and poke them. If they are too heavy to lift, choose instead a spot on them that interests you and give it a few good pinches. You'll find out a lot this way. ..................................................................... But who cares to discuss boyfriends when instead we can discuss books about Farmer's Markets!? Here is my question, directed to Jamie: You've given us a list of questions to ponder as to what the effects of this book might be, and noted that it is an older book just recently re-issued by University of Chicago Press. How did this book initially come to your notice? *Is* it being touted in the media (or do you have an "inside source". . . ) Basically, my question is - where did you find this particular package of eh. . .psalt?

Or it could just be me they didn't like. You're from Manhattan. I was from Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights, to be exact - but what does a cow know?

Ahhh. Now add a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the center of that and you've got heaven. Rather turducken-like, too.

Agreed with you there, Sugarella. There is no more disgusting and difficult fish to clean than skate unless it is octopus - and that might not even be quite as horrid. Neither one will make the list in my opinion! (Though I'll happily eat either if someone else wants to take on all the work! )

Several thoughts about foie gras ran through my mind today. The first is of its history. Where did it come from, and what was the original intent of the people who produced this product? There is proof that the idea of force-feeding geese was known as long ago as Ancient Roman times - and even perhaps earlier. It would seem to me, that then as today - the original intent of the producer was to practice good animal husbandry. It would be interesting to know of how it was "discovered" that a goose's liver was a most exquisite thing to dine upon when enlarged by force-feeding the goose. It would seem to me that as with most things "discovered" in long-ago days that this was not found to be so by lab tests but more likely by some gluttonous goose with a habit of overeating. Gus the Gluttonous Goose. (It has been known to happen.) Farmers then, as today (unless they are a conglomerate) were not generally known to be among the wealthy. Careful husbandry (care - with an overlying hint of thrift attached to it) was the only way they might survive well - if they survived well at all. To the farmer, a goose is a product. Now the moral question must be raised as to whether an animal has the same rights to freedom as any human being, and that is something that each person must answer for themselves. . . but to my mind - well. It used to be that when I thought of chickens my mind raced to The Little Red Hen. How cute! How sweet! A little hen, anthropomorphized into a quite sane and literate teller of How To Best Live Life. I loved chickens. Till I visited my first chicken farm. It was there that I discovered that most chickens did not have the same innate and marvellous intelligence of the hen I loved - and indeed they stunk to high heavens and they tried to bite me. Cows. Yes - there were always the beautiful cows out in the fields, decorating the landscape so nicely. Visit one. It most likely will try to step on you, and will be quite difficult to get six hundred pounds of Daisy off your foot. Lambs are adorable. But ask any farmer how much trouble a young male lamb can cause just because he is himself. My final conclusion came to be that most animals (unless they are wily enough to pretend to want to be happy-go-lucky companions to the wonder that is the human race) are best raised to be eaten. For if they had their chance, I have no doubt at all that they would eat us. But back to the idea of husbandry. The production of foie gras is the practice of good animal husbandry at its highest level. Here is a goose. This goose can provide a roast for dinner OR it can provide foie gras and perhaps later a nice braise. The notion of thrift, careful and thoughtful management of the natural resources that we as human beings consider ourselves to be the stewards of in this world, is drawn well in the example of foie gras production. And thrift, itself, when practiced in this manner, is a classical virtue. It ties together a sense of care for what has been provided for us with a living reality of care shown through husbandry. That foie gras is a luxury item perhaps causes some of the anger that is attached to it. It reeks of conspicuous consumption - there is a taint of lack of care given to the animal - there is a sense of a product being made for the wealthy while putting a poor animal at risk of pain in the process. Yet there is no proof that the animal suffers and indeed there is evidence that these geese enjoy their feedings when properly done as any good working farmer should know how to - and as the production of foie gras is monitored by governmental agencies it probably behooves farmers to know how to do it in the right manner. Foie gras, besides being something delicious to eat (to my mind) finally, exemplifies a virtue, not a sin. So I will thank the goose (in my mind) and be grateful to the farmers of all times past for being able stewards of many good things, and will sit down with grace intended to dine upon it.

Is this what Anne of Green Gables used to eat for breakfast? Lard and porridge, with a side of pig intestines?! Indeed, that will give a child backbone.

Now that's not fair, Mallet - to leave everyone hanging on to the thought of "WHAT KIND of fat?" Today I am thinking of a mid-day snack of olives - stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, varieties of hot and sweet peppers, anchovies, tuna, and artichoke hearts - battered and fried. Maybe throw in a handful or two with centers of Pernod or Cassis syrups. That could be the beverage part of the meal.

Souffled potatoes. With a bit of Reblochon blended with ever-so-tiny bits of black truffle inserted into the center of each intended pouff before the final baptism by fire and oil.

And also I must apologize for this post. I used the word "honestly" twice. And everyone knows that two negatives make a positive. God how I hate it when I discover I've lied without even knowing it. Bad show. Bad bad bad. But I am looking forward to the book arriving for further discussion, or alternately a nice long nap.

Yes, to your last question. But please do not ever associate me with those people you've mentioned in the first sentence - you know, the PLT's. Thank you.

Hmmm. Another version of Swanson's frozen TV dinners?

Honestly what concerns me most about reading this book is the foreword written by Jack Katz that says: "This is an important book for all theorists of the self." Honestly, my head almost hit the keyboard as I was struck with a sudden, intense urge to take a long nap.

I really wish you hadn't done that. Isn't there some sort of international law which forbids redirecting unsuspecting folks onto pages with photos of cheesecake that give off this terribly awesome aura of desirability first thing in the morning? Yes, my recipe has flour in it, and it is soft and creamy through and through, like the one you showed. The baking time for mine is longer, though - and the top of the cake literally rises above the top of the cakepan and sort of sits there shimmering in a tantalizing sort of way. There is no sense of "undercookedness" yet there is that softness. Downside - again - as with so many fine things in life it must be paid attention to immediately. You wait on it, it does not wait on you. Sigh. Yet this finesse is worth it. It is good, very good - later or even refrigerated and later. But never does the moment return with exactitude of that first bite at the right time. And of course, in a business sense, this translates to not being suitable for a high level of production and/or distribution.

This is an interesting note, and it seems to me to be apt. A book (and here I can think of at least one other example recently discussed that would give rise to the same sort of passionate questionings, definings, and defenses) can be "taken" in different ways by different readers. Just as with all things in life. Your sense of the humor that lies in the book is apparent, Jamie. This is a wonderful thing, for to my mind there is absolutely nothing in the world better than a feeling of being tickled merrily into an appreciation of the subtleties that the world *is*. The funny bone, if well exercised (and with care taken not to offend) is an marvellous tool that can change the world from grey to glorious in a split second. There's always a fine line between being able to enjoy this sort of thing or alternately, having the sense that one is being laughed at, or even more seriously - to feel that the words said might affect life in a negative way. Pah. Yes, I think I'll read the book. Not so much for the "information" presented but to simply feel whatever sense it is that the author does have (for me) - and to assess better how it is that humor perhaps intended can go off the radar. It seems to me as if the core of this question might lay in how the author is dressing him or herself in the process of writing (as Michael has noted above). Interesting.

chili-flavored meringue wrapped round a quail egg which would burst its yolk softly all over the hot meringue as the fork hit it topped with a honey sauce

The only cheesecake I know of that has a similar textural mouthfeel to what you are talking about (but not exactly) through and through the entire cake from first bite to last is a soufleed cheesecake - but it must be served warm, almost directly from the oven. As far as what is marketable, well. . .each client base is different, aren't they. The best way to find out is to ask them directly, if there is any way to do so. . .

Michael - that was a beautiful post.

Probably left over from the summer when it got too hot out? Wasn't it Marilyn Monroe who claimed she always kept her uh panties????? in the freezer?

I guess my point in that rather sarcastic post that I made was to flip the thinking on things over (simply for the exercise of it) and also to attempt to extend the thought process to include some of the ways that we as humans, perhaps do things to ourselves that might be perceived as being hurtful as what we might do to geese. In this discussion, that focus was on the idea of stuffing food into a live thing as being hurtful (or not). Of course, though, humans do have the choice of what they do and finally the geese do not. It was the line that was being drawn that was defining humans as being somehow hurtful to animals in raising geese for food in this manner that disturbed me - my point was that humans have a way of doing whatever things they do to *themselves* as well as to other creatures. Just trying to clear the name of the human race by showing its soft underbelly. No idea why I wanted to do this, ( ) except that to me, when attempting to decide questions that have a moral or ethical part to them, I try to look at the question from each and every angle I can find before finally attempting to come up with an answer that I can live with more than not.

The difference, Stef, is an essential sense of self. In the reality of a child that works, they in some way are being respected. It may be some small respect, and it may not be a lot of money that they get at all, and indeed they may not even be treated all that well in some conditions or places. But to be a slave is to be considered a thing rather than a human being. In a straightforward and direct way. It is demeaning to the core of the essential beliefs most people hold that do make us "human" and therefore of a higher order (or at least most people attempt to aim at this goal). If you are free, the world may not be a perfect place but in every small act you make during the day you are free to change or affect your own reality. If you are a slave, you are not free to do so.

As someone else noted plainly, slavery is wrong. And if it would be stopped, it will take more than a one-pronged attack upon the product that is being sold. Though that is a good start. My first question is: Is slavery actually against the law in the countries where this is occuring? Is it called by the name of "slavery" or by some other term that would shade the act differently for those involved in it? The second question is: Who is selling these children into slavery? Their parents? Or are they being abducted then sold? Are there any laws against this in the countries where this is occuring? Sometimes the laws of different places do allow different things that would seem unacceptable to people from other places. I do wonder if this is truly against the law in these countries, either in either a real or stated sense or in the sense that it is something that a blind eye is cast upon in general. It would seem to me that *if* it is legal or acceptable where it is occuring, then it will continue in some form or manner whether the final product (chocolate in this case) is purchased by outsiders or not. For the real product here, at the core - is not chocolate. It is not merely the bar of chocolate that has profit stamped upon it. Each "slave" has profit stamped upon them - each person that is bought and sold. If the practice is condoned, they will simply be used in another industry. Not to bring too unhappy a note to the discussion, because this is already a difficult thing to have to read about. . .but there are worse industries than the production of chocolate that slavery allows children to be sold into. Children. Not adults. Regardless of where each culture places them in our lives in a sociologic sense, they are still (along with the elderly) the most vulnerable among us. Yes, I think that there should be more discussion about this. It warrants quite an extensive thread. It is just that it might be just plain too difficult for many to look straight in the eye. One wants to run away from these sorts of things. But can we, and remain right with ourselves? I hope not.

Beyond the masculine or feminine determinants of the articles in certain languages, there are vegetables that are considered (based on their individual shapes or some other defining feature as you mention with fennel) masculine or feminine. Eggplant is another example. The "sex" is determined based upon the bottom of the eggplant where the bud would have been before falling off. If the eggplant is more flat there it is one sex, more indented another. It is also believed that one sex is more full of seeds than the other, and the other more solid and meaty. I really don't mind seeds in my eggplants, so I can not remember which is supposed to be which. Perhaps someone else will chime in on this. . . Really I don't know whether this is folklore or "real". Either way, it makes the world a more interesting place. Edited to add this link: Sex and Eggplants

Eh. They'd probably need a lot of massaging or something, first - don't cha think?