JSD

That's funny - we had a family birthday last week and the requested "birthday cake" was rhubarb pie! I'll make whatever the birthday boy or girl requests, and it's almost always pie. The filling depends on the season.

My son made Luther Vandross burgers for his Friday Hamburger Club. They make a different type of hamburger each Friday on a teacher's George Foreman grill. Another student said the only way to make this one better would have been to deep fry it. Well, they are teenage boys, after all.

This would be similar to the Monte Cristo sandwich: My teenage son recently made a Luther Vandross sandwich at his weekly hamburger club at school. A Luther Vandross is basically a bacon cheeseburger in between a glazed doughnut rather than a regular bun. One of his friends suggested that the only way it could have been better would be to deep fry it.

I wish I could do pictures. We had sourdough pancakes with dark maple syrup (grade B). My starter is very sour right now, and so it was an interesting sweet and sour. I used a recipe from Alaska Sourdough by Ruth Allman. Directions call to cook to seal brown. I had to guess the color of a seal, but they were wonderful anyway.

Raley's does this, but it is not widely advertised. I've gotten a number of things free. If I don't specifically mention the policy, however, the checker won't give it to me.

My personal worst was not at a grocery store or restaurant, but at a college bookstore in Wisconsin. I was buying a sweatshirt for my son (go badgers) and the clerk told me it came to $62,000. I looked at her and just said, I've changed my mind, I think that's too much for a sweatshirt. Only then did she realize how ludicrous it was! She had entered the bar code number as the price.

We'd make gorp - cocktail peanuts, raisins, and m&ms - if we were going camping, hiking, or skiing. I found I didn't like the m&ms, only the peanuts and raisins. I love peanuts and raisins. I love salt on the raisins.

We have one of the higher end KitchenAid dishwashers. I tried to look it up, but since we got it 5 years ago, they seem to have changed. It's very quiet. Our kitchen and family room are one room, and we can watch tv with the dishwasher running. It's much quieter than the fan that vents the cooktop. It does have a lot of insulation, and it has a stainless steel interior (not exterior). It does vent out the front though, and just recently I noticed the vents were gunky looking, but I cleaned them with a q tip and they looked fine now. It has an adjustable top rack which I don't like. I never adjust it, and it seems like it's wobbly all the time. It doesn't have the tower that comes up from the base, which I like because it saves lots of space.

When my son was in second grade we moved and he started at a new school. He was uncomfortable and soothed himself by eating. He never got really obese, but he was much fatter than just having a tummy. My husband and I both have obese relatives and so I was very concerned about him becoming obese too. I took him to a nutritionist for help. While she was very knowledgeable, it wasn’t much help because my son didn’t care. Now, ten years later, he is tall and slim. He was fat, but was slowly slimming down through junior high school. What helped him? He cares about his appearance (girls, you know), he grew a lot, he made friends. Now he eats because he’s hungry. Someone mentioned this above, but it really does seem like kids put on weight right before they have a growth spurt. I think one of the most important things to do, besides having well balanced meals, is to limit junk food and sodas. For those of you attached to drinking sodas, are you happy with your weight? I had a relative who drank two Cokes a day, and wanted to lose 40 pounds, but couldn’t figure out how to do that. If she stopped drinking the Cokes, she would have lost a pound every ten days without making any other changes.

My pumpkin pies from Julia Child were delicious. I made a couple of changes from her recipe: 1. I followed Steven Blaski's suggestions in cooking the pumpkin and spices and then processing in food processor. 2. The recipe calls for some cream and some milk, and I used all cream instead, because the only milk I had was nonfat. The recipe called for starting the pies at 450 for 15 minutes then lowering the temp to 375. According to the recipe, if the crust shows any color then lower it more. Well, the crust and filling were scorched after 15 minutes. I was very disappointed. However, it tasted great.

Thanks! I'll try your suggestions.

I'm planning on using a pumpkin pie recipe from Julia Child's The Way to Cook which calls for either bourbon or rum. Generally, when I'm trying a recipe for the first time I like to follow it pretty closely. However, we have no bourbon, some rum which is pretty old and has almost no smell, and some Jack Daniel's which smells very, very, very good, but is not bourbon. Should I use the Jack Daniel's, the weak smelling rum, or go buy either bourbon or a new bottle of rum? If you think I should buy more rum or some bourbon, what kind would you recommend?

I had fried turkey last year. It was ok, but not better than this, and it was a little scary, what with the hot oil, propane burner and all, and way more expensive. Plus, someone had to stay there and make sure nothing bad happened, such as something or someone catching on fire, whereas I was relatively free while my turkey cooked. Smoked turkey sounds really good, though.

Actually, I cooked a turkey this way about a month ago. I read the recipe in Julia Child's The Way to Cook (p 169) I had a 13 or 14 pound turkey which cooked in about 2 hours. The key, I guess is that after 30 minutes at 500, reduce the temp to 450, add a bunch of chopped vegetables, and two cups of water, which keeps the drippings from burning. It turned out great. I was surprised that it was as good as it was.

Funny, my dad was part owner of Superior Farms in Dixon. I spent a fair amount of time there even though we lived in Seattle. ← I bought some lamb riblets from Supior Farms today. I parboiled them and then we grilled them - absolutely delicious! The package said Davis instead of Dixon, though. I wonder why?

Love it! Love it! Love it! I grew up eating it because my mother's from here: Lambtown USA When I see it on a menu I always order it. My husband works with a guy who's from the middle of nowhere (a rural Nevada cattle ranch) and if I eat lamb near him, he looks like he's going to faint. I love lamb with lots of garlic.

I cooked a turkey last weekend, using Julia Child's recipe from the Way to Cook. Basically, you cook the turkey at 500 degrees F for half an hour, then put a bunch of cut up vegetable (I used carrots, celery and onions) and 2 cups of water in the bottom of the pan to keep the juices from burning, turn the oven down to 450 and cook for another 1 1/2 hours. The turkey was not huge by Thanksgiving standards, only 13 pounds, but it turned out beautifully, and was juicy. I always use a rack. Once I used Julia Child's recipe for cooking a chicken where you rotate it a quarter turn every 15 minutes or so. It was hard to do with a chicken, so I wouldn't try with a turkey, plus it was a nuisance. But the skin was nice all the way around. If that's your goal, then I recommend using a rotisserie on the barbeque. It's lots easier. Using bacon on a turkey looked pretty good, too.

This hurricane has taken me on a trip down memory lane. I lived south of I-10 in SE Texas for five years - less than 100 yards from the intercoastal canal, and later about ten blocks from the Texas Louisiana state line, both at elevation 3'. It was there that I had crawfish, boudin, gumbo, and etoufee for the first time. That part of Texas is closer to Louisiana culturally than it is to the rest of Texas, mainly because so many of the people there are Cajun. Moving there was like moving to a foreign country. It was amazing and fun. Best of luck to you and everyone.

I have an Ott desk lamp that I bought at a garage sale . The full spectrum Ott bulbs are $25, but I bought a full spectrum light at Bulbman (of course) for a lot less, and use the lamp for sewing, etc. The light it puts out is hard to describe. It's more intense, maybe. But for looking at small stitches, color, etc, it is excellent. I found out that you don't need an Ott lamp, you just need a fluorescent lamp. So you could use a full spectrum in an undercabinet fluorescent light, which I never thought about before. I might buy some and experiment a little.

We have very hot summer temperatures and a friend had halogen lights and had warned me about the heat they put out. We have fluorescent undercabinet lights. I like them, and buy replacement bulbs from Bulbman where prices are good. I just take a burned out bulb in with me and they find a replacement. It turns out they're a chain and do mail order too. Their website is here. Only once have they not been able to find a replacement bulb, for a lamp I bought at a rummage sale. The lights are installed at the back of the cabinet, and are covered with a plastic screen. We don't have any unsightly wires. The lights stretch the length of the cabinet, and look fine to me. If I knew how to upload a picture, I would.

I bought a box of JBz 20 flavors at the grocery store today and tried them. I thought they were pretty good. They were more interesting than regular m&ms, and because the light wasn't very good, I didn't know in advance what I was eating. I don't think I got every flavor. The coffee was especially good. I thought the grape flavor was bad, though.

A good friend of mine, in her mid 40s, has type 1 diabetes and also uses an insulin pump, which is covered by her insurance. She does check her blood sugar level, but she has a good knowledge of food, and knows from experience how much insulin she needs given what she's eaten. She has a very full life, is married, has 2 children, and works full time in the health field. She has more energy and accomplishes twice as much as most people I know.

Your kitchen really is adorable. Had you thought about enclosing your back porch and turning it into a sort of pantry and storage area? Then your refrigerator could go in there, and you could even remove the door between it and the kitchen, making the fridge fairly accessible, but not the hulking presence it is now.

I bought some fresh beans at the farmer's market this morning. I was told they were cranberry beans. From the above discussion, I guess I bought some "red tomato" beans. We shelled them and they taste ok raw, but would probably improve with cooking. My son helped shell them, and asked what it was called what we were doing so he could tell his friends! My question is how long do I cook them? I've only ever cooked dried beans, so I have no idea how long these will take. I'd like them to be ready more or less at the same time as the rest of our meal. Do they take 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour?

I'm not planning on getting rid of it, I just wasn't sure what to do with it because of the ridges. I've made panini on a Le Creuset griddle (a square one with a handle, and no ridges). Coincidentally, I bought a panini press (on sale for $10) just the other day. I was using a cast iron frying pan as a weight, but it had a tendency to stick. I'd heat it up on another burner and then weigh down the sandwiches.