Carrot Top

Okay. I'll contribute. There was the time that I put a really enormous thing in my mouth and I'll tell you all about it. It was. . . Oh. Wait a minute. Sorry. This is eGullet. That thing was definitely not USDA. .................................................... Here's one. When I was about eighteen years old one time I was in a bar - a "yacht club" bar. The reason "yacht club" is in quotes is because it was a wanna-be yacht club bar. A yacht club bar in name only - a poseur of a yacht club bar. Why these places with strange carpeting, colored lights and sticky dark fake wooden tables think they can get away with this is beyond me, but anyway. One of the usual drunks came in. A boatbuilder. He held up a handful of green peppers in his hand. "Hey anyone want to taste my Polish peppers from my garden? Nobody can grow a pepper like me." Nobody took him up on his offer. They continued murmuring into their beers about who would win the America's Cup and why interspersed with insults of everyone they could think of that did not happen to be there that night. "I dare ya" he continued. "These babies are hot, hotter than any pepper this size ever." I'd had a few beers and as the smallest person there (and the only female there that had not won any alligator or mud-wrestling contests to date) I thought it imperative to prove my worth, my strength, my incredible powers. In other words, I was really determined to show off. This happens to short people sometimes. "They're hot, doll" he said, slightly giggling through his cigarette and the spittle on the side of his mouth. "Yeah, okay. How hot could they be? They look like regular peppers to me" I said, taking one from him and chomping down on it in a crunchy juice spewing bite. It seemed as it my mouth blew up to twice its size. My lips were an explosion of heat and the entire lower half of my face started to burn as if it were stuck to a piece of solid ice on a metal pipe. I smiled weakly and said "Uh, I have to go to the Ladies Room." Let us not dwell on what happens after one eats a pepper like this after drinking a lot of beer. I never could have imagined such a thing. Thank god my head was spinning a bit throughout this entire episode or I would have started crying, and that surely would have lost me the bet. One orange, one bite. You were smarter than me, Fresser. At least the orange didn't try to kill you.

My exact thought but I'm so glad someone else said it. . .

There is a reduced soy-sauce/garlic/chili oil/ five star anise mix that I used to make that would then be blended into a homemade mayonnaise (some adaptation of a "nouvelle cuisine" recipe that was then used for a steak salad). From memory, I do think that it is important to reduce it slowly over low heat rather than quickly over a high heat. Why? Who knows. It just worked better, tasted better.

Perhaps this thread could be re-named "The Gallery of (Regrettable? Perhaps there is a better term. . . ) Food Tricks" and all could compete to top each other as in "The Gallery of Regrettable Foods" thread that already exists for actual things cooked. Fantastic performances, guys. Fantastic. Blue-ribbon prizes to all. Keep up the good work!

That is an amazing treasure-trove of ideas you've listed, Mottmott. If you keep thinking of all of them you will be quite full before you even bite into the finished dish. The way I decide is to think of how I want the house to smell while I'm cooking. Let your imaginary nose lead you. . . .

The answer is many. Include the family diner in this list and there will be a huge component of PROFESSIONALS who do this on a daily basis that make a good living doing it. They have the titles of "chef", "cook", and "manager". And people pay to eat their food daily - tons of it. Does the fact that this is the way America eats affect the home cook? .................................................... On the other hand, how far does one take this in the other direction? How many home cooks make their own pate brisee or puff pastry? Their own stocks or broths? Their own butter? Cheese? Grow their own chickens? Raise their own lamb? Vegetables? "Cooking" is a sum of many parts. What finally hits the palate is affected as much by the original ingredient (that came from somewhere, was grown in some soil, fed on some grain or feed, butchered in some particular way, handled or aged or rushed to the market afterwards - each of these steps being performed by some human being highly competent in what they each do) as it is by the recipe (which someone developed and wrote down at some point) and by the chopping, combining, and heating or chilling that is done. Selection of product in the store of course also affects the final product and to know how to buy well is an art or science of sorts and one that is affected by the depth of the pockets. A simply shaved perfect truffle served over a plate of homemade (store-bought) pasta tossed with French butter. Or a piece of bony chuck combined with packaged aromatics from the supermarket, cooked to perfection. Which one demands more art? Of what sort? Who would be the "better" cook? The more "appreciated" cook? ......................................................................... Each thing that we eat is combined of a multitude of small acts of collaboration. (To good result or bad.) Each thing that we eat should allow credit for more than just the final act. The final act of cookery is only one small part of the whole. So credit? Give it - don't worry about taking it. The results will show.

How many chain restaurants have menus mostly composed of foods ordered in packages and reheated/dolled up?

Roanoke Natural Foods is the closest thing to a Whole Foods this area has but it is an entirely different animal. It is a smallish-to-medium size "Health Food" store that gave itself a new paint job and hired an designer and some help that do not look as if they will keel over any moment from malnutrition or long-term unhappiness as is common in most health food stores. The selection is not huge but they do have a "deli counter" that offers some ready-made things and hot herbal teas with a tiny brown rice cracker or two to sip while you ponder the six-dollar bite of cheese you might indulge in. Whole Foods Market (aka "Whole Paycheck") goes the extra ten miles or so beyond a dolled up natural foods market in all ways. Big-time corporate. Copywriters hired to write job descriptions for the cashiers and that sort of thing. Dreadful and exciting all at the same time. Va va voom. How we do all want to be Whole. In our Foods. At our Markets. Damn the prices. Sell the first-born. All kids do is eat, anyway.

Tableware Lust falls into the same category of Linens Lust. It is an excellent obsession, and should be looked at this way: It is much less expensive to buy a set of new (dishes, silverware, glasses and all that goes with it) ( or in the linens category towels, sheets, pillowcases, quilts, curtains) than it is to buy furniture or alternately to go on a vacation. To have a change in the colors, textures, shapes - and following along with that the ideas that go along with the design - is not only pleasant but NECCESARY. Why? Because boredom leads to being dullardly. And we can't have that, can we? ............................................................................... It is cheaper than therapy, too - and you actually have something to put in the pipedream of a Yard Sale that will happen sometime that will of course set you up financially secure for the rest of your days. Vivre le Tableware Lust!!! (Pier One, too, should be added to the list of where the car heads while in the throes of desire. . . )

S'mores strudels.

About five years ago they turned the old railroad station into a "Farmer's Market" and cute little food-mall sort of place. It is not huge but it is pleasant in season outside -plants and fruits and vegetables are sold. . .and inside there are several places to eat and buy food. Among these is a fish market and they do sell sandwiches, fried oysters, etc. There is also a place to have coffee and an Italian restaurant which might be called "Soho" which several people have told me is decent. There are signs to this place everywhere as you exit the highway. (It might be called The Depot? but I can't remember exactly. Surely the website for Charleston would have this information.) When visiting Charleston this is one of the places I go - the other is the mall in the center of the city which is also a good way to waste time and money. For shoppers seeking bargains (including some excellent kitchen supplies if you hit it right) there is a place called "Gabriel Brothers" about five minutes out of the center of town which sells overstock stuff. Incredible buys there. Brand name stuff.

What exactly is it that Hooters (Hooter's?) sells? ← Opportunities to gawk at scantily-clad waitresses. ← Is there some special foodstuff that they sell to go along with that activity? The signage solution seems quite simple, actually.

As Calvin Coolidge said (oh yes, of course I was right there when he said it. . ) "Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped". Sounds like your employers are utilizing their prosperity in a very good way.

Thank you for this knowledge, Native Speaker. Startling though this may be, what you say, to someone grown in the Big Apple, I do believe it. Such a cultural shift and difference from where one's day is spent trying to avoid murdering the person next to them on the crowded subway or trying to avoid them murdering you or at the very least to stop them from grabbing one's behind secretly within the masses of people to meeting an old lady at a church supper one single time whom after twenty minutes of simple conversation openly invites one to come to their home SEEMINGLY ALMOST ANYTIME and who means it.

Is "giefu" an acronym for something? At least the last two letters?

A gift card to Cracker Barrel would do quite nicely too, don't you think? Less obvious - less chance of being called (too) cheap - more Macchiavellian. Lovely.

What exactly is it that Hooters (Hooter's?) sells?

No, that is Hardee's. Or is it "Hardees"? After the advent of their "four-dollar burger", you will find that anyone that eats this thing is guaranteed to be able to do nothing except go home and lay on the couch in a greasy satisfied tummy-hurting stupor without any ability to think clearly for days afterwards. Grammar is the least of it.

The use of the word "gift" in this way is a purposeful use of inference that extends the concept of "giving" into something that has a higher purpose that reflects back onto the person doing the action in a way that adds two points to their self esteem. Not that it really matters - for in reality, it is still McDonalds. But the personal pat on the back is sensed for having "gifted" (you know, as in when universities have "gifts" given to them for their higher purposes of education by their alumni or anyone else hungry to see their last name engraved on a building for posterity). Yes - one's own personal piece of McDonalds. Not simply given you know. . .but by god, it has been "gifted". How incredibly important one can be with their four dollars or so. Is this equality of sorts for the masses? ....................................................................... As far as "I could care less" that has confused me for years, as have several other double negative statements that float around in common use. It is troublesome for how can one have a normal conversation when someone comes out with one of these statements - personally my mind sticks at the statement and ponders it endlessly, wondering what on earth they really mean to say while on and on the conversation goes without any attention being given to it by my confused brain. Here's another one: In New York, I clearly understand what "Let's do lunch sometime" means. I've even said it myself. What I've NEVER been able to clearly understand (as a transplanted Northerner) is what on earth "You come on by and visit me sometime" means when said by a native Southerner. They seem to mean it. Indeed they keep repeating it. Does this really mean they want you to visit? Does it really mean "Drive up the road ten miles to my house and knock on my door anytime at all with a fresh baked cake and we'll sit down and shell beans or something"? Or is it a convoluted form of what a New Yorker says but longer and with a bigger smile? Please advise if you are privy to this information. To date, I have only smiled stupidly in response and said "Yes, you too now". Then went off to ponder what it meant, for eternity as of yet. Gift me with this knowledge if you have it, native speaker? Merci.

That sounds like a great idea but most likely it will not happen short of a catastrophic event that affect the entire country. Plus it is a fact that many people do not enjoy cooking. Strange but true, and it will not be changed no matter how often or how loudly the pulpit of cookery love is approached by the bringers of the message. Personally I hate the mess that is made in the car, but we continue to eat in the car when we "have to". Therefore my preference would be to see more light, healthy, low-salt/sugar/fat foods available with less obnoxious tons of wrapping papers that they come in - along the roads that we travel. Plus a new small business with a niche in "quick-cleaning" car interiors from eating in them would be a great idea, too. Yeah - with an ice-cream parlor attached to it. That way we could go from the car straight to the ice-cream parlor for a quick little bite of ice-cream while someone quickly and efficiently cleaned out the car from the last meal we ate in it before we trundled back into the car to proceed wherever it was that we were going. Where were we going anyway? Work? The mall? Oh, yeah. I forgot. A restaurant. That's it. That's where we need to go. Gobble gobble.

Zabaione. Mayonnaise of all sorts. Bearnaise sauce. In a "Morning After" drink to fix a hangover?

Great idea, Lois. Here is a link to an old thread if it is useful: What is there to eat in your backyard? Added to my previous list are now apples and black walnuts in the back yard. And when I lived on a boat many years ago, I made a fishtrap out of chicken wire -used to pull up small sole and once in a while a lobster when the crabs did'n't sneak the bait out.

Food at its best should taste of itself. A chicken should make one swoon with the lusty juice of chicken-ness. Fruit should bury one with the intensity of sweet flavors and sugars. Vegetables should bring the rich savor of earth and sunlight and rain to our palates in their varying personalities, so that a sense of rootedness to nature is sensed. But how often does this happen in our world of everything-available-all-the-time-picked-processed-shipped-protected? Not often. I would like to make a list of the foods that hit this mark of taste of essence - but not include those things that one needs to take extreme measures to procure. They must be available to most people in most places as a rule of thumb, a "usual" sort of thing. These essential foods must have enough taste to be eaten plain and unadorned as is as if in a Zen like simplicity. They must shine their essence through themselves without requiring fussing, heavy seasoning, complicated cooking methods or other trickery to coax taste. Foods that can take the stage and dance a wondrous dance of flavor as soloists. Are there any in your grocery store? What are they? I can think of one: Dole Gold Pineapples. And another: Angus Beef from Kroger. Another I've heard of which has not arrived in this area yet: Smart Chicken. More, please, more. . . More? Karen

I've been trying for years to find someone who knows where the original uncut manuscript might be, if it still exists. ←

On the other hand, if looked at with a different eye, it could be a challenge to creativity due to how the canvas is shaped - and at best, the food may be "secondary" but in such a way that a good bra is secondary to the way a woman's blouse hangs. (Sorry. Just trying to make a clear statement here, and it is the season to keep receiving Victoria's Secret catalogues and e-mails.) (And a second apology for choosing the feminine sex for commentary. I will undoubtedly make up for it later somewhere by mentioning the male sex in some equal manner if I can. ) The food can be and should be a charming, warming, and somewhat quietly elusive support to whatever goals have been set to happen at that table. At best, it is. Surely everyone knows how food can make the chilly amicable and the hostile soothed. If the food is *only* about the chef, then of course it would not work as a politically astute repast.