Carrot Top

Salt covers up a multitude of sins. It gives a sense of flavor where there is little, it creates a heaviness almost of "feel" in eating things laden with it. It hides any lack of layering of flavors within a thing and pumps up any small flavor that may exist in ingredients that have little flavor to start off with (many of fruits and vegetables in the US which are bred for being transported and bred for "lasting" power rather than for flavor are in this category). Also, people who eat a lot of it become somewhat "taste-dependent" on it. Most packaged foods are very high in salt. Most fast foods are very high in salt. If the salt is not "there" the food does not taste good to them. Vicious cycle. I've also heard that there is some physical thing that happens when people eat things with lots of salt that is equivalent to the taste-desire thing. That somehow the body, having had a certain (fairly high) amount will start biologically demanding it, triggering chemicals that influence "the brain". "What brain", you may ask. Surely I am not the person to answer that. Interesting, though, the physical part about salt dependence, if true.

He's dancin' the foodie dance. If he does it well, Campbell's will be smiling all the way to the bank. I'm glad that you are helping to re-vitalize the economy, though.

I don't know why this is still making me laugh an hour after I read it, but it just is.

The flavors are enticing and the packaging cute but the price is highway robbery.

I actually get pissed off even when thinking of the American way of switching the fork and knife around. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS? Except of course if you are eating a spaghetti squash. Then you must do whatever possible to delay the experience of putting the food in your mouth.

Great ideas, guys. But I find myself too lazy tonight to even really approach the stove so we did a big "Antipasto". Everything laid out on the table, everyone can nibble. There is so much stuff in the fridge to use! I am really glad to have taken that time on Sunday to cook ahead. Let's see. . .on the table: Grilled marinated chicken Roast peppers Pepperonata Olives Salami Fresh mozzarella Caponata Oriental cous-cous "salad" Sugar snaps Celeriac-carrot salad Breadsticks With the pears poached in port for dessert, later. Let's see if that can hold the ravaging appetites.

Wow. I thought the Martians were beaming down more information to me again when I saw that letter "K" there, Klary. But they usually use pea soup, not porridge.

Good for the waistline; bad for fabrics? ← My dear! We cared nothing about the *fabrics*! Why indeed we used to use the hem that draped from the end of our sleeves as what you now call "napkins"! So really useful, you know - for they were always falling into the soup anyway! (And really - that's what ladies maids are for, to constantly tend to our clothes hair and corsets. One has to keep these people employed somehow.) No, my little twinkling - it was the Notorious Scandal I speak of above. I am surprised that you have not been notified of this Scandal but then there is MTV now, so I do understand. Dinner one night. A fine turn-out. Peas for dinner -so fashionable. Forks at the table, and we did have to use them for the peas to prove just how hoity-toity we were! Our reputations were made and ruined on these things. The evening had started badly anyway. Grievous social errors were made. We were short a man (why we needed him, I don't know but we were short him anyway) and the seating was made impossible. I was seated *immediately* next to that little slut Marie Antoinette and you know how she is - always looking for trouble. The manservant passed the peas and served them to our plates. We giggled pleasantly with a lilting tune and reached for our forks. (Dreadful things, two-tined forks.) As we raised the first bite of ever-so-gently balanced peas to our pouting lips, Marie stuck out her elbow and purposely hit my arm. Dreadful! The peas went everywhere, including one little round hot one that spilled directly into my finely-powdered decollatage!!!! For one split second that seemed like eternity there was utter silence at the table. Then with a fine whoosh of his own gold-encrusted fabrics dear old Tally-Ho (I speak now of Talleyrand you understand - this is my pet name for the dear old fellow) jumped up and ran to my side and stuck his own fork directly down the front of my dress in a courageous attempt to retrieve the recalcitrant pea. Oh! How it tickled! In my effort to not let out a raucous bray of pleasure, in attempting to keep my laughter to a lady-like little titter, I choked and my head went forward with a jerking motion. It hit Tally's wig and fell down into a dreadful mass of sticking plaster and iron pins (this is how we needed to keep it set in such fashion). Tally gave up on the notion of using his fork and just stuck his entire fat hand right down the front of my dress. He did retrieve the pea. It was not worth eating. That, is why I hold no great respect for neither pea nor fork. Give me a good silver spoon any day.

Everything actually worked well last night. Just re-heated the Mexican braised beef, microwaved the succotash, and (oops! did make one change) popped some corn muffins into the oven (instead of taking the time to cook noodles). (Ah, yes - the muffins were from a box GASP!) Didn't take any time at all and it was really good. Time to prep dinner: Less than ten minutes. Tonight I need to make some menu changes because the chicken is still here PLUS now there is extra Mexican beef leftover. So I am saved from making pizza dough. Got any ideas for the chicken? (Remember -we're trying *not* to cook here. ) Will check in later.

Interesting recipe, cmilono. Sounds delicious and even has a step that would hint at being time-saving. And welcome to eGullet, also! It's quite nice to be served up a plate of English Muffins with your first post.

Eating fresh peas with forks in France was quite the social enterprise in the late 1700's or so. The forks had two tines. Peas were the "new" thing. Forks were the new thing too. At least with peas. We wore our hair up on top of our heads like small pyramids and we wore our dresses very low cut. I was there. Can you imagine what happens at a formal dinner with Talleyrand when your pea falls off your fork down the front of your dress? My dears. I will let your thoughts dwell on this atrocity.

It does not seem to me that it would be "natural" for the English Muffin bread to have as many holes, really, because a real English Muffin is a griddle cake and the holes are made partially by the quick heat of the pan forcing air through the batter.

The only idea that came to me when I read this earlier was to possibly replace all or part of the liquids asked for in the recipe with some good beer. Don't have the slightest idea if it really would *work*, though. But then there's always the advantage that you could finish off the rest of the bottle of beer that you don't use in the recipe, anyway.

So quickly now I'll tell of the results of last night's plan for this weekly food thing. It was Halloween last night. A fearsome night. Not for the goblins, but for the candy. The candy that follows one everywhere. It starts with the buying of tons of it to shove into the addled little chocolate-smeared faces that come to the door with huge sacks gaping for the stuff. (Most children need to be taught to say "Trick or Treat" still, it seems. I insist on it. I want to hear the sing-song phrase. I am selfish in this way. Most of them just hold out their sacks. How dull.) The candy is in the bowl. It awaits the trick-or-treaters but also beckons the household to continually nab a piece of this or that. This year was better than last year with the candy bowl scene though, for last year I grabbed a round lollipop that had a bubblegum filling and was seized with a passionate maddness to get to the bubblegum IMMEDIATELY and biting into it, I broke a tooth which actually required different sorts of dentists and lots of money to fix. This year I only ate softer sorts of candies and therefore only added unneeded calories to my diet. More candy comes into the house later in one's own children's sacks, after you've spent the night walking around with them in the cold sticking pieces of their costumes back onto them as they endlessly trip in the dark over the curbs and bits or turfgrass in the neighbor's yards. Then of course the candy wrappers haunt one for a month or so, turning up in trails that follow the children through the house. Ah! Halloween. I do love it so. Anyway. So *if* the children are going to eat dinner, it must be done quickly before trick-or-treat time which happens at 6PM or the entire evening's food *will* be candy candy candy. I grilled the chicken breasts on the griddle on the stove - microwaved the cous-cous. Put the sugar snaps out to nibble raw. It worked pretty good except that the boneless chicken breasts *should* have been cut into thin cutlets rather than being left whole - they took about 25 minutes to cook (and that could have been cut down to about ten minutes). No fuss, though. The meal was ready and mostly eaten. Leftover chicken today for curried chicken salad sandwiches. So that worked. Quick, easy, no-brainer. Heh. We'll see what happens tonight.

Pah. I give up on the formatting thing. It surely is my fingers and even eating a slice of microwaved leftover pizza for breakfast has not helped. My willingness to work on Saturdays is only equalled by my willingness to be selfish on weeknights. How else would I find time to keep popping onto eGullet and do the other silly tasks that need doing??? Your children will be hungrier the older they get, Tepee, I bet. The approach to the teenage years seems to turn children into eating machines from what I hear. And see. The thing about cooking "at the time of eating" rather than ahead is sort of like my feelings about freezers and crockpots. Odd things that may not seem to make sense to anyone else, but they sure make sense to "us". For whatever reason. I love donkeys. And someday we should trade kids and living places. I am not so sure you would like our version of the Ramadan street food fair, though. There isn't one. There is only. . . .. McDonalds. Everywhere.

Oh no. Please don't, Kristin! Our lives would be made immeasureably smaller by the loss. I've actually been hungrier for Japanese food *now* than I have been in some time. I like those little fishes all over the place. They really do have a sort of artistic merit all on their own. Now I do have to admit that each time I see a food photo with a fish in it posted *elsewhere* that has any sort of liveliness to it, my immediate thought is: "Why didn't they post that in the Regrettable Foods thread?" It's taken all my willpower to not PM these people with "invitations to join".

These are great ideas except for my own wierdnesses about freezers and crock-pots. Why did you have to write that word "spaghetti" so close to the word "breakfast" TPO? I must go make some spaghetti for breakfast now. Yum.

Heh. You are making me giggle when you ask me that about my crock-pot, Sandy. It * would* be good to hear from more miso-people about their recipes. I don't use it "enough" and it is very good stuff. Finally - did you know that Rogov says that journalists are really all monkeys? Someone else made the original claim. He is an excellent researcher so I have no reason at all to doubt him. I am now enjoying this picture in my mind of millions of monkeys at their desks in the newspaper offices, all writing our histories for us endlessly as we run out to read it and then immediately to forget it so that we can read the monkeys writings again tomorrow. Sigh. What a life.

I guess you have teenagers. Well. . .as long as they are eating them and not taking them to the mall to trade them for yet another new pair of jeans and a couple more CD's, that's a good thing, no?

I read the article and to me it was talking about how to get laid. The photo of Maureen camped out as she was seemed to support that idea, also.

Genny, Megan, and Pontormo - I loved your menu suggestions! Will check back in on them if this week works out -they are great ideas to fit in! Pontormo - leftovers usually disappear through snacking and lunches around here pretty quickly. . . I am always astounded at the amounts of food that kids can consume.

Isn't this the traditional dish served in a Kabuki production when one character has to kill off another? I think there is something about the uh. . .vitality. . . of Japanese food that definitely gives it an edge in this thread.

Yes, the "time" thing is something strange to me. It rather seems as if we are on some huge ship headed straight for a massive dock where we'll break our prow. Or something like that. Seems to me that the time thing is hugely significant in so many ways - and that it is equal to the other "movements" that have shaped our histories in the past in enormous ways, such as the rise of industrialization. But this time thing does not have a name yet as far as I know. But it effects everyone I know. In many ways and most particularly in food ways. Speaking of that, must run off! Children must be collected from school then we'll see how this project continues.

I love the idea of the kids being responsible for cooking a meal with all that it entails. That is actually on my List. I have a List, you see, that if all goes well (Hmm. Lists. How often *do* they actually work?! ) will have the children doing this probably in the next year. But first, in my evil plan, they must prove their worth to be equal to this fine task of being in the kitchen. How? Why, by doing the other things that need doing in the house of course. Keeping their rooms tidy and doing their very own laundry. Heh. So far, so good, actually. Each of them does tidy their rooms daily (don't say it too loud, it might get hexed ) and the older one takes full responsibility for her clothes. Lots of clothes. So this is good. The entry into cooking dinner one night each week will be a sort of rite of passage, and I hope a very fun and interesting one, for each of them - both boy and girl. They already *do* know how to cook. As Megan said in another thread, one learns a lot from just being around and doing a tiny bit of this and that and by a sort of osmosis. But *listening*? Now you tell me I'm supposed to *listen* to them? Oh dear. This *will* be a task. Let me consider whether I am up to it. I rather doubt it.

*Do* I spoil them, Jack? Perhaps so. I should note that they do "grab from the fridge" and the cupboards - Mommy is not waiting on them hand and foot, believe me. And they do have some good basic cooking skills. During the week even *they* have time eaten up in some mysterious way, though. After school activities, homework (these bookbags weigh approximately 35 lbs. with the texts and papers they drag home every afternoon - it is actually an item that is discussed at school board meetings as to "why" so much homework and the effects of heavy bookbags on the spine . . .) But. I did not have this thing of being "spoiled" by lovely food being made each night while growing up - but I have seen this in other families. The warmth and love that can be expressed by someone in the kitchen at home (yes, usually it has been "the mother") is something that seems to me to be ultimately rather magical. It transforms the moment. . .alters the mundane into something almost magnificent, almost something technicolor . So if this is "spoiling" - then it is something that I feel should be done if at all possible. (Who wouldn't like to be a little spoiled, I ask you )