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Everything posted by chile_peppa
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Is home cooking on the irrevocable decline?
chile_peppa replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
I agree. Plenty of middle- and low-income people resort to eating out, even if it is more expensive than home cooking, simply because there is not enough time and energy left after everything they must deal with during the day. I hesitated to reply to this post because I didn't want to go on a rant about people who see value only in monetary terms. We deal with this fiscal nonsense a lot where I work, and frankly I'm sick of it. Sometimes people do things like real cooking, fine woodworking, and other "lost arts" not because they want to make a career of them (and artisans are often not paid well, I might add), but because these activities are ENJOYABLE! How lovely to have the luxury of time to make something with your hands to share with people you love after a long day at a soulless job! How do you put a price on that? -
College Cafeterias: not your father's dorm food
chile_peppa replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Vassar had decent food when each dorm had its own kitchen. Our dorm had a chef who added his own Italian specialties to the official menu every now and then, and his hot chocolate pudding cake thing helped add to my freshman 15. Sometimes we would dine at Main Building, where the old Vassar china and silverware were used daily. And we had demitasse in the parlor after dinner. But during my junior year, the college shut down the individual kitchens and consolidated food service in the infamous All College Dining Center (ACDC). Quality and variety plummeted -- many of us subsisted on salad after that, and I moved to an apartment for senior year. My sons' experience was different. Both of their schools had dismal food service. My older son moved to a frat house with a kitchen and then to his own apartment, partly so that he could cook for himself. My younger son's university had that food court plan, but his experience was similar to Cusina's. The food was so awful that he lived on the Subway sandwiches he could get in the lobby of his dorm. Now he too has his own apartment where he cooks for himself. My BF's son lives at home and commutes to a local school, so he doesn't have to deal with dorm food. edited for additional comment -
I have a large and multiethnic family, now scattered around the country, but for past Thanksgivings when we all lived in Chicago, we usually stuck with the all-American basics (yup -- that canned green bean cassserole), with perhaps my mom's egg rolls (she's Japanese but loves Chinese food), my sister's arroz con gandules (her husband is Puerto Rican), and my Polish sister-in-law's sausage with sauerkraut. If I visited my father's home, we would always have spaghetti made by my Italian-Filipina stepmother. The one requirement for both factions was turkey with sage dressing, from my Virginia granny's recipe. For the past couple of years, I've attended a harvest feast hosted by Native American friends. It is potluck, but there are a few required foods: something from the four-legged ones (venison), the finned ones (salmon), and the winged ones (turkey); wild rice (manoomin); and corn bread (bannock).
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I remember being shocked, shocked I tell you, when I moved from Chicago to New York for school and was presented with a huge floppy wedge of pizza during a night on the town. How was one to eat this monstrosity? I was accustomed to neat little squares with crisp cracker-like crusts that one could nibble quite daintily or devour in one huge mouth-stuffing bite (I especially like the little corner triangles). Luckily, my friends took pity upon me and showed me how to fold the thing to eat it.
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Glory makes a nice can of green beans with potatoes, too. Here in Chicagoland, a couple of local suppliers provide good canned beans: Dell Alpe and La Preferida. Dell Alpe's canned tomato products are useful, and La Preferida does interesting Mexican-style sauces and chiles, too. My BF likes cold canned peas with mayonnaise, and his son likes only very well-done, practically grey canned green beans. He turns his nose up at nice crisp fresh ones. I like canned corn, the salt-free kind, but hot and with lots of pepper. For dinner a few days ago, I combined a can of cream-style with a can of whole kernel corn to give it a little texture.
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On Highway 26 in Rossville, Indiana, is a large metal sign on a building that says "Sanitary Lunch." It looks like the place was once a little diner, but now it's an antiques and gift shop. I really like the sign, though. In Maywood, Illinois, near the horse race track, there was once a hot dog stand called "Eat It and Beat It" -- not a place you'd want to hang around for too long. And I've learned that any place with "Mom" or "Grandma" or some such feminine relative in its name is a place to avoid.
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Do You Set the Timer or Trust the Internal Clock?
chile_peppa replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
I set a timer for some things, such as baking and pasta, but it's mostly a reminder because I tend to wander off if something doesn't need my full attention. I have a built-in alarm clock in my head, so I usually return to the kitchen just as the timer's about to ding. It works for laundry and getting up in the morning, too. But, I don't like to trust timing alone to let me know when food is ready. I usually set the timer to go off a little before the recommended time, and then I'll bite into the pasta, poke the cake with a tester, stab the broccoli with a fork, in other words, use other tests, to be sure I'm catching the food before it overcooks. -
Thank you, Ammini. I thought that might be the case, but I wasn't sure. I think that could also explain why the small bitter gourds were especially bitter! p.s. What an interesting web site you have!
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Thank you for all your suggestions. I ended up sauteing the sliced bitter gourd in oil with a bit of onion and diced potato. I seasoned it with red chile flakes, cumin, and turmeric and served it with white rice. The potato and rice seemed to balance the bitterness to a degree. One strange thing -- when I opened the largest bitter gourd, it had bright pinkish-red seeds instead of the white seeds I found in the others. Does anyone know why?
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If it's something I've never made before, I search through various sources (cookbooks, database, 'net, whatever), select possible recipes, and then make something up. I just can't follow directions. The BF thinks I have authority issues.
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There may also be a regional element. The kind of place I know as a "coffee shop" in Chicago was called a "diner" where I lived in New York. We don't have those former diner cars here. Chicago coffee shops often have a huge menu, encompassing "breakfast all day" to sandwiches to dinner specials. I've often wondered how the cook can have such a wide variety of food ready to serve within a moment's notice.
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Jewish cooking .. ever want to try making?
chile_peppa replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
There's not a drop of Jewish ancestry in my United Nations of a family, but I like Jewish food a lot (well, ok, there's not much I don't eat). I make a pretty good latke and a brisket like the one in the article, and I haul myself down to Manny's now and then for a matzoh ball. I'd like to learn how to make those, but I don't have a Jewish grandma who could help me learn how to gauge the correct lightness of hand needed. I like the idea of rent-a-grandma for adults. What better way to learn how to cook than in your grandma's kitchen? -
The BF received a bag of these green vegetables from one of his customers, a woman from India who grows them in her backyard. He said she told him they were good for diabetes, and they should be cooked with tomatoes. Does anyone have more instructions on how to cook these? Thanks for your help!
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Cute's ok, but I'm "haafu," and let me tell ya, it's been an interesting ride. I'm not sure parents of mixed children can truly understand the experience. The last time I visited the town where I was born (tiny place high in the mountains of Virginia), I got some stares from people. I felt like saying that my (European and Native) ancestors had been there long before they came along! I've also had odd things happen here in the Big City (Chicago) with all kinds of people. If nothing else, being mixed helps one to be tolerant and open to new experiences (very useful in eating and cooking!). A sense of humor doesn't hurt, either.
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My mother loves natto and raw egg on gohan, but I've never been able to handle the egg. I like beni shoga, Tokyo-Zuke, gomashio, or furikake on mine, maybe some takuan or kimchee if it's not too strong (well, not all together), but my favorite is sekihan (with red beans). And I eat every single grain, with pointy Japanese ohashi. I just love gohan, and here I am, stuck with a Lean Cuisine frozen lunch today!
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I'm half-Japanese and was married to a Caucasian man for awhile. He seemed to enjoy some of the foods I introduced him to, but his preference was for the meat-and-potatoes fare that he was accustomed to (he grew up on a farm in Iowa). He would eat "safe" things like teriyaki or stir-fry, and he didn't mind if I went for more exotic things. We split up, but not really for food-related issues. There's an interesting scene in the book Eating Chinese Food Naked in which the protagonist realizes she can't stay with her Caucasian boyfriend because he has no sense of etiquette and snags all the best bits for himself when he is invited to dinner. Edited for typo
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Here's my serious suggestion (I was just joking about the bodybuilding!): Hold the recalitrant lid under the hottest running water you can stand, then have at it with one of those rubber thingies or a handy dish towel. Someone told me that the heat from the water causes the metal molecules in the lid to move a little farther from each other and thus loosens the lid.
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Well, you can always take up weight training to build up that upper arm strength! Seriously, a few years ago, Parade magazine ran a profile of a woman who became a champion body builder in her seventies after taking some basic strengthening exercises after becoming a widow. Her reasoning: she did not want to become dependent on others to open her jars! I want to be just like her when I grow up...
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How about quiche? Those can be frozen, too.
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Food Fright: today's pregnant women are afraid
chile_peppa replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
I remember scare stories in the press, especially women's magazines, 20 years ago when I was pregnant (a single glass of wine will deform your child, insecticides in fruit will deform your child, etc....!!!) It seems to me that writers (and other advice-givers) sometimes prey on the insecurities of mothers-to-be and sensationalize such "information" to sell their stories. And the drivel presented as scientific fact regarding nursing and feeding of infants and toddlers -- yeesh, a little common sense and trust in your own instincts go a long way! -
I had never had liverwurst until I started going out with the current BF. He likes liverwurst on squishy white bread with mayonnaise -- not my favorite. A liverwurst sandwich is on the menu at a local pub Palmer Place, but he hasn't tried it yet.
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As parental unit to three young men, now 22, 21, and 19, as well as partner to a male head of household, I buy meat, meat, and more meat. Sam's Club is my friend. About once a month or so, several huge packages of ground beef turn into hamburger patties, sloppy joe mix, taco mix, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, meatballs with sauce, and chili in a marathon weekend cooking spree. I sneak vegetables like grated carrots into the various mixes -- no one has complained yet. All these things go into the freezer so the Voracious Ones can heat 'n' eat according to their various schedules. Those individual-serving freezer-to-microwave plastic containers are great. The other kind of food that seems to disappear in a hurry is sweets. Though homemade brownies and cookies are the hands-down favorites, granola bars, cereal bars, and energy bars keep the guys from gnawing on my arms while I'm cooking dinner. And I keep pushing fruit at them, and though they claim it's wussy stuff, it does seem to disappear. NO SODA -- lots and lots of water, milk, green tea, and 100% fruit juice! And then there's always indivudal frozen pizzas, canned soup, grilled cheese...
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I like the Joy of Soup by the Soup Lady.
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I used to create very detailed lists, one for each store, organized by store layout and food group, sale and coupon items highlighted, quantity and brand duly noted. But I kept leaving them on the kitchen table, so I gave it up.
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I don't like cake or doughnuts or coffee cake, actually most sweets. Most of the time, it's no trouble, but it becomes embarassing when someone at work takes a notion to bring a treat or celebrate a birthday or a guest brings a very sweet dessert. I enjoy the festivities but not the sweets. I feel very ungracious. Edited to add: I'm not much of a wine or beer drinker either. The sulfites and yeast get to me. But scotch, well, that's another story.