DickL

Well, there's the palm tree, various varieties of which produce sap strong enough to be fermented into an alcoholic beverage (toddy, among many other names). But the tapping process and the sap are different, from what I read in Wikipedia.

"Hot cakes" are usually the same as pancakes, and are basically flour, baking powder and/or baking soda, usually egg, usually a little sugar, and milk. There are hundreds or thousands of variations. A common one is to use buttermilk (which here in the U.S. is typically slightly sour) or sour milk; with these baking soda is used. Ingredients are just barely mixed so that the cakes will be light, not tough. They are usually fried with a little oil or butter on a griddle or other flat surface. Fruit is often added; blueberries are common, but most fruit can be used (except maybe citrus, but sometimes some citrus juice is used). Spices, particularly cinnamon or nutmeg can be included. Usually white flour ("all purpose flour" in the U.S.) is used, but particularly some older recipes may call for cake flour. Whole grain flours and meals (instead of or mixed with the white flour) are frequent variations. Corn (maize) meal is sometimes used (with some flour). Many people use a prepackaged mix for the dry ingredients. There are also recipes using yeast or sourdough starter. Pancakes/hot cakes are traditionally served with butter and syrup, but some of us prefer fruit preserves. (Yesterday I had pancakes made with whole wheat flour, oat bran cereal, flax seed meal, soy flour, salt, baking powder and soda, and buttermilk, but that is not typical. I ate them with some homemade gooseberry preserves, also not typical.) Look for pancake recipes and you should find many that will use the ingredients you have at hand.

For a couple of decades I had several business trips a year, and often dined on my own. If the restaurant wasn't busy, I'd pull out a book and relax. If there are people waiting for tables, and the restaurant doesn't suggest sharing a table, then IMO the polite thing is to eat promptly and leave the table for someone else (or eat at the counter if that's an option). If there's a line to get in, sometimes it's possible to join forces with another solitary diner and get a table for two-- usually easier for the restaurant than two singles, and will usually get you seated quicker.

Yes, I use tweezers in the kitchen. I've got an ancient tweezers (4.5 inches, nicely chromed) that I think was part of the required kit for a high school biology lab class (or maybe a college course). But HS and college were over 50 years ago for me, so any yuck factor is only in the mind of some terribly squeamish person. It gets used for removing fish bones, and also when I'm sorting things like beans ("Acme beans are a natural product and so should be sorted before use to remove any accidental foreign material", or whatever they say). The tweezers work much better than my admittedly fairly large fingers.

We've had one for about 20 years now. Well, three, actually. All have, IIRC, been Kitchen Aid units, and all electric (I've never heard of one that uses gas, and I'm not sure I'd even want a gas appliance operating in the cabinet under the sink). The first was a gem. Great for warming a cup of cooling tea, warming a coffee mug (my wife makes filter coffee one mug at a time), adding water to something being cooked without cooling it off, scalding the skin of peaches and good tomatoes to make them easily peelable, scalding the skin of a salmon fillet so that it peels off nicely, defrosting a container of whatever just removed from the freezer, rinsing a plastic container that had come from the freezer for refrigerator storage of leftovers, melting the contents of a jar of fat (e.g., the bacon fat I use in some things, but store in the refrigerator), rehydrating Chinese black beans and dried mushrooms, and softening the gunk under the lid of a hard-to-open container. It lasted about 7 years, and was replaced by a like unit; for some reason (faint plasticky off-flavors, I think it was) it wasn't as nice for use in anything to be consumed, particularly tea. When the replacement unit was about three years old we moved, and installed one in the kitchen that we had remodeled in the new place. Somehow the guys working on the plumbing screwed up the installation (I think, or maybe it was a defective unit), but water coming out of it has a definite metallic taste (I think they somehow got some dissimilar metals connected and something is slowly dissolving). But we've still gotten a lot of use out of it for things that don't involve consuming the water (thawing, scalding, rinsing, mug-warming, softening). I'll replace it when I get one of those fabulous round tuits and do a little work in the basement to supply the new one from the house filter. One other thing I use it for. I mix homemade garlic puree and olive oil and brush it on the above-mentioned salmon fillets and other things I'm going to put under the broiler, then use the boiling-hot water and a little dish detergent to clean out the brush. Works like a charm, even if the garlic has sort of dried on the brush.

One small restaurant I'd suggest is La Maison des Tartes at 67 rue Mouffetard, in the 5th. Savory quiches and tartes and dessert tartes. I don't know if your little one likes that sort of thing, but would probably find one of the dessert tarts acceptable. It gets busy and has only 18 seats, so you might want to avoid the middle of lunch time, whenever that is. There are many restaurants along that street, but not necessarily many that you would find attractively priced. There are a couple of places that sell crepes/galettes from windows along the street-- the 3yo might enjoy seeing the meal cooked; then you could take things back to the apartment. There are also some Vietnamese and other oriental places that are either eat-in or take-away, and with pretty good prices. Look for the "Traiteur" signs. For good bread there are a couple of Kayser bakeries a block or so south of the Maubert-Mutualite Metro station along rue Monge (one just for plain bread, the other for other bakery products, as I recall). Many would say you can't find any better bread in Paris. I don't know about that, but it's certainly very good. There are lines in the mornings for fresh baguettes. There are some supermarkets tucked around here and there in the 5th. One we used when we had an apartment there for 11 days a couple of years ago is a Franprix at 2 rue Domat (between blvd Saint Germain and the river), but there are other Franprix locations in the 5th and other chains as well. There are also several specialty shops (e.g., cheese, produce, meat) near the Maubert-Mutualite Metro station, but their prices are probably higher. Rue Mouffetard has lots of grocery and specialty shops, and a couple of times a week (I think) there are morning markets set up in Place Monge. Other days there are markets along Mouffetard. Lots of people want to sell you food. We were in Paris recently for several days, this time in an apartment in the 4th, but we got down into the 5th for lunch at La Maison des Tartes one day. You should enjoy Paris.

I made this today for lunch, using the Fuchsia Dunlop recipe, which I had downloaded from the Penguin UK website linked to in the second post of this thread. For those familiar with the recipe, a question: one of the ingredients is shown as "3 tablespoons potato flour mixed with 4 tablespoons cold water"-- is this right? If so, what is meant by "potato flour"? Potato flour is extremely sticky stuff-- 4 tablespoons of water produces a heavy dough (as I had expected, but I try to follow recipes the first time); 4 cups of water would probably still produce too thick a mixture. Is this ingredient what some would call "potato starch" (similar to cornstarch or tapioca starch)? It still seems like a lot for the dish; I used 1 tablespoon of tapioca starch with about half a cup of water, which worked pretty well (I had to add about another 1/4 cup of water to get the thickness of the sauce right). I used pork instead of beef, which is always the way I've had ma po tofu; and instead of using ground pork (I hadn't bought any), I chose to take "minced" literally and minced the 150g of meat with a chef's knife rather than getting the grinder dirty. I liked the texture of the result. (I suspect that "minced" vs. "ground" is a UK:US translation issue, as may be the "potato flour"/"potato starch" distinction.) For the ground chile component I used 1 teaspoon of what is probably a much milder ingredient, some Indian ground Kashmiri chile; that, along with the chile in the chile bean paste produced the right level of heat for my taste. The dish turned out well. My thanks to the various posters for their efforts.

For Nordic, I'd suggest The Great Scandinavian Cook Book, "an Encyclopedia of Domestic Cookery" (Crown, 1967). It's "translated from the Swedish and edited by J. Audrey Ellison, B.Sc., American Consultant Charlotte Turgeon". Editor-in-Chief of the Swedish edition: Karin Fredrickson. It's long out of print, but used copies are still available, and you may be able to find it in a library somewhere to examine before buying. It's encyclopedic in coverage, but is organized in fairly traditional cook book style, with sections on, for example, grains, meats, seafood, and baking. In addition to recipes, it has instructions, photo illustrated, for many kitchen/culinary tasks, such as how to filet fish or how to make short crust pastry. There are a number of pages of full color plates of pictures of things such as fish, vegetables, meats, fruits, etc. It is somewhat dated, but since you're interested in home style dishes, that shouldn't matter much. Getting away from cookbooks a little, but still within the ethnic cuisine area, are you familiar with Joan Peterson's "Eat Smart in (countryname)" series? They're intended for people traveling to the country/region of the title. They start out with some culinary history of the area, some discussion of regions, some sample recipes, information on how to shop and where to get ingredients in the U.S., and some useful phrases, followed by an extensive list of menu items/dishes and an extensive list of "foods and flavors". She has guides for France, Sicily, Mexico, Peru, India, Brazil, Turkey, Morocco, Poland, and Indonesia, and has one coming out for Norway. It's an excellent series.

At home I brew with loose tea, but I always have tea bags in my travel kit, along with a couple of plastic cups and a dual-voltage immersion heater, and have experimented a little with brands. Some of those in the amenities tray in hotels will barely make one cup; this is often true of teabags from the common less expensive grocery store brands or the typical brands served in restaurants. Lipton is usually good for a second cup, but I don't like the flavor as well as some other teas. The more upscale bags (either grocery store or restaurant) will often be good for a second cup (particularly if they're "English Breakfast" or similar). My current favorite bag is Brooke Bond "Taj Mahal", which are full 2-gram bags of a fairly dark, flavorful tea. One of those will easily handle two cups, particularly if brewing with near-boiling water. And at 3.99 for 100 bags at a local Indian market, they're a winner on price.

I've microwaved popcorn in paper bags, but it always seems like I'm abusing the microwave-- it's not quite like running it empty, but close. I also began to get concerned about the scorch marks that appeared on the white bags I was using. They never caught on fire, but clearly they were getting too hot, at least too hot for my comfort. (I never found it necessary to staple them; just folding the top 2 or 3 inches over kept them closed thru the popping cycle.) Incidentally, I think popping proceeds better if the bag is collapsed when you start, probably because it concentrates the heat a bit more. Now I use a Presto "poplite" air popper, and really like it. It's quick, gives me the oil-less popcorn that I want, and doesn't need to be cleaned very often (and then it's just to brush off some of the bits of hull that accumulate). My current favorite popcorn is, of all things, Centrella white popcorn. Previously I've used Redenbacker's, but I'm put off by the price, and I didn't think it popped any better or tasted any better than Walgreen's "Deerfield Farms" house brand, which comes in a Redenbacker-style plastic jar at about half the price. That was unavailable for a while and so I started trying other brands. For a while I was using Goya yellow popcorn, which I thought maybe had a little more flavor than some of the others. I tried a bag of the small kernel corn (like that we used to grow at home when I was a kid) from a farmers' market, and it tasted very good and popped well, but was even more expensive than OR. Finally I tried some of the Centrella yellow, and it was okay, but seemed to leave a lot of unpopped kernels. Then I tried the white and found it popped better, with fewer half-popped (tooth-breaker) and unpopped kernels, and I've been using that for a while now. It's somewhat lighter in flavor than the others, but that goes with the no-oil, no salt style the I like. With the poplite, I've found that the heavy yellow kernels stay in the popper well, but the lighter white kernels and the tiny heirloom kernels have a tendency to get blown out of the popper as other kernels pop. But with the simple expedient of propping up the popper at an angle, that is easily controlled.

For self-stick type labels, I've found patience to be an important thing. If I can get a start with a fingernail, and start pulling the label off slooowwwllllyyy, it will often come off with little adhesive left on the container. Pull it too fast, and the label will often start tearing, leaving a layer of paper-covered adhesive on the container. But sometimes the paper is too weak for the adhesive, and tearing can't be avoided. Then I use paint thinner (but many of the other solvents mentioned above would probably work, too). I dip a Q-tip or pipe cleaner in the solvent, and apply that to the edge of the label. Once it get it started, I pull slowly, applying a little solvent from time to time along where the label and the container meet. Again, patience helps. Little bits of adhesive left on the container can usually be rubbed off, or pulled off with tape or the label itself. If it's a glass container (or if you don't mind some abrasion of the container), a light abrasive such as Bon Ami or Lava soap will help in the removal of the last bits. Or sometimes if I've still got the paint thinner open, I'll just apply a little (a few drops is all it takes), let it soften the goo, and then wipe it off with a paper towel. Labels applied with a hard adhesive, like most of those on wine bottles, will often come off after being soaked for a day or so, some much faster. If simple soaking doesn't work, then I add a little ammonia to the soaking water, which will soften some types of glue (but will sometimes bleach the label, which is not good if you're trying to save the label). Very hot water works on some adhesives; I lay a cloth over the label and pour near-boiling water over that. Sometimes the label will slip right off. If all these things fail, then a razor blade scraper will usually do the job, maybe followed up with some Bon Ami or Lava soap or solvent to get the last bits off.

Macaroni and cheese was the first thing that came to mind: elbow macaroni and yellow domestic cheddar cheese or it just doesn't seem right. My next item is yogurt: milk, starter. No gums, pectin, sugar etc. And someone mentioned cornbread. I really don't like the sweet cakey style (e.g., Jiffy corn muffin mix). The recipe I have evolved to is based on the Crescent Dragonwagon skillet cornbread recipe from the Dairy Hollow House Cookbook, but with a little more cornmeal, a little less flour, and less fat, made with whole grain cornmeal, baked in a skillet, cut in wedges. (It would be fine baked in an old fashioned cast iron corn ear pan, too.)

If you simmer a ham bone until the meat and other stuff falls off, you can get a rich broth. My mother used to do this, picking out any little shreds of meat, straining out the rest, and then making a sort of polenta with the broth and meat. If you make this as a firm polenta, you can cool it, slice it, and fry it up for breakfast (like scrapple, but much better, IMO). You don't even need a bone-- just a small chunk of ham cooked into submission and then used for polenta works just fine. I'll make a loaf pan full of this once or twice a year, slice it into chunks that are enough for one meal for myself (my wife didn't grow up on this stuff and doesn't really care for any sort of polenta), and freeze all but one chunk. Dick

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I'd guess the "premium" in "premium black angus" refers to the price.

I frequently use a half-pint Mason freezer jar on the blender. The freezer jars are quite a bit stronger than the regular jars. But sometimes I'm doing a little more than will fit into a half-pint, and use a heavy pint. We've got some that are "Ball Perfect" Mason jars, which are quite a bit heavier than a mayonnaise jar or the like. Some things come in plastic jars that have a Mason thread; those are probably safer than the lightweight glass jars, too. And a FWIW: they sell plastic storage caps that screw onto a standard Mason jar; they're nice for the refrigerator or cupboard storage in canning jars. (Amazon has a better picture of them.) But I go to the stick blender when doing anything warmer than room temperature.

There are at least three different kinds of disposers, which I don't know the proper names for, but which have either blades (think of a blender), a cast iron plate with bumps/vanes on it, and a flat plate with swinging "hammers" attached to it. I believe the blade type is obsolete, but there still could be some around. They definitely do not handle bones. In our previous residence, we had the type with the cast iron plate with protrusions on the top. It ground up stuff by batting it against the inside of the chamber and was pretty effective on most things, but it gagged consistently on onion peels. In our current place we have the flat plate plus hammer type (Kitchen Aid by brand), which is quite effective against pretty much any organic material. It handles peelings of all types, including onion, small bones, peach pits, whatever. Hard stuff like peach pits create a lot of noise, but eventually get ground down. (The Wikipedia article on disposers has a picture of the plate/hammer assembly, a diagram, and a pretty good description of this type.) On another topic, I think maybe "Disposal" is/was a brand name which got made generic, and "disposer" is the general term for any brand.

I've got four varieties started for this year: White Wonder (my most dependable variety, my favorite for preserves), Jubilee (with luck lots of beautiful, large, meaty yellow/orange fruit with excellent flavor), Brandywine (first tried last year, and in a terrible year for tomatoes seemed promising in my area), and one new one, Giant Belgium Pink. I'm basically in zone 5, but not far from 6. Wish me luck.

I don't make brown rice very often because my wife doesn't like it, but I do keep some from Trader Joe's on hand for when I get hungry for some. Currently I've got some Brown Basmati (from India), which I haven't tried yet. I've also had another, I think it was called something like "Fragrant Brown Rice" (and I think it was from California) which was good, much better than the Riceland that I used to keep on hand. I've had and liked Lundberg's "Black Japonica" rice ("A field blend of black and mahogany"), which I'd put more in the category of "exotic". I usually use it in my own adaptation of a recipe for Anandamayi Kitchuri which I found on Dolphyn.com, which was adapted from a recipe from Simply Heavenly! The Monastery Vegetarian Cookbook.

Nothing to forgive-- you've got it right. I like the Rodney Strong Cab that someone mentioned (it's currently my wife's favorite), and also good Petite Sirahs and Zins. Recently I opened a bottle of 2008 Line 39 Petite Sirah and found it very much to my liking-- intense, good fruit, some oak, and nicely balanced (important since it's 14.5%). And also much to my liking, it was 9.99. (Last year we had some of the 2007 vintage, and I think it was even better, although a dollar or two more expensive.) Lots of good bottles out of Australia and South America, full of flavor and reasonably priced. Also quite a few good ones from Washington.

I think the grand prize for shrinkage has to go to the show polish manufacturers. At one time in the past, a can of wax polish was about 3 ounces, with a lid that fit down over the base; the polish pretty much filled the base. Then they came up with a new can design; the base now had a rim embossed all the way around and was shallower, but the lid fit down over the base and rested against the rim, so that the total height of the container was the same (just lots more air space between the top of the polish and the lid). Then they came up with a new form for the base that elevated the bottom of the can a little (in some it was domed, others a flat bottom except for a small space around the circumference) and reduced the volume further. The last can I got was 1 1/8 oz., but they may have found a way to reduce that further. They're still the same height and diameter, though. I notice that the old 8 ounce yogurt has now often morphed into a 6 ounce and in some cases even into a 4 ounce. Great for people who really don't like yogurt, I guess.

I've used it and it works fine. I slide the pizza on foil onto the stone. Then a few minutes later I remove the foil so the pizza is directly on the stone. But while the release foil works, so did regular foil (although occasionally a bit would stick to the pizza, and it would tear more easily when I was separating the pizza from the foil; the superiority of the release foil may be due in part to it being more the weight of heavy duty foil).

IMX with ordinary long grain rice, stirring it while cooking tends to make it stickier. I've also noticed that long grain cooked with more water tends to be a bit more sticky. I'm sure there are limits to how sticky or not a given type of rice can be made, but I think there are at least some variables to play with. So I'd say if you're interested in getting sticky rice, it's at least worth experimenting.

I use a recipe for "Red Beans and Rice" that calls for "smoked pork jowl". I've never had that available , but maybe I should buy a whole head and smoke the cheeks. (Although I'd rather just get the cheeks.)

Has anyone tried the "heirloom" tomatoes out of season? I saw some last week (around March 19) in the Northbrook, IL, Sunset market. They looked okay, but they were expensive (I forget exactly, but I think 3.49 or 3.99/pound).

Yesterday I started my 2011 garden-- tomato seeds indoors. I live in northern Illinois, so I won't be able to set out soft plants until sometime in May (with any confidence they won't succumb to frost). My main garden is small-- four tomato plants in two EarthBox containers on a second-floor balcony (the only sunny spot available to me), supplemented by two or three pots of herbs and occasionally two or three pole bean plants in another pot. I usually plant some peas (snow peas and SugarSnaps) in the EarthBoxes Tomatoes this year are White Wonder and Giant Belgium Pink (from Everwilde Farms, the first time I've gotten seed from them). White Wonder over many years has been my most dependable variety, producing at least a small crop every year. It's good fresh and makes very good tomato preserves. The Belgium Pink is an experiment, one I haven't tried before. The other two are Jubilee (a large yellow/orange tomato-- probably my favorite for eating fresh) and Brandywine Red, both from Victory Seed Co. I tried the Brandywine for the first time last year, and the few I got were very good. (Last year was a terrible one for my tomato patch-- nothing did really well.)