JSD

I'm envious. I just planted my tomatoes yesterday. They are about 4 inches tall. I wanted to plant them last Sunday, but fortunately I was too busy: it snowed on Monday! As to sauce, I agree with Balmagory. When you have a deluge of tomatoes, just put them directly in the freezer, in a ziploc bag, and cook them later. As she says, the skins come off without any effort, and they're already in nice little portions. I also cook them, stewing them a little, and then I run them through a food mill to remove the skins. I put these in ziploc bags also, in 4 cup quantities, and lay flat in the freezer. They can stack in the freezer, and when I pull them out, they defrost quickly, especially if you put the bag in a bowl of water. If you season later, you have more options open. I love pulling out one or two of these bags, and making fresh tomato soup in the middle of winter.

this link was fascinating. Last week I heard the following on NPR: Click here for linguistics prof talking about how people east and west of the Rockies pronounce things You may or may not agree with her, but I had never heard of pronunciations migrating south from Canada to the Western U.S. I have often thought difference in pronunciation in different parts of the country to be interesting and charming, not wrong. I thought it was disappearing because of TV, though.

We used to get take out regularly from a Church's that was near our house. Unfortunately, there was a multiple murder there DURING BUSINESS HOURS and we wouldn't go back...

This is what we have. In the summer we use it at least twice a month. It makes the best chicken I've ever had.

I made pizza on our weber once. It was blazing hot (100+) and I didn't want to heat up the house. I used quarry tile and heated them up well. I had the pizza on long enough to cook the top, but the bottom was black like cast iron. I didn't try again, but I think less toppings would have worked better. Even though the house wasn't heated up, I was too warm from hanging around the grill and looking in on the pizza. Re wind, we used to have a problem with wind lowering the temperature, but we just moved the grill to a more secluded location.

We have one like this I can turn it on with my elbow. I do that when my hands are really goopy. Our local plumbers had a hard time installing it, though. I can only imagine how they'd react to a foot pedal!

It's funny you should say this. My town did try to prevent a WalMart, but WalMart sued successfully and forced their way in where they were not welcome. I can't say I've never been to WalMart, but I've never had a pleasant shopping experience. I don't mean that the clerks are rude or studid, but that the merchandise is usually such low quality that I am disgusted and angered that decent quality (not fancy or gourmet) is unavailable. This is just so that the store can sell toasters or whatever at a few cents less than anyone else. Right here on this website people have bragged about how cheap they've bought their toasters. This is the mentality that has made WalMart #1.

I love WMF too. We've had ours for over 20 years, purchased from Crate and Barrel, and now discontinued unfortunately, but I really really love it. Ours has a brushed surface and still looks great. WMF is good quality - it feels good in your hand. It's really important to hold the silverware and feel it. I think C&B sells other brands, but just turn it over and see how it;s marked.

Folex, purchased at Long's Drugs, neutralizes red wine. I rushed out to buy it after witnessing red wine spilled on white carpet. The homeowner was not upset. She simply squirted Folex and blotted it with a rag, and the stain was completely gone. It doesn't work like bleach, but enzymes or something.

The calendar says Autumn, but the thermometer says Summer. We had a brief cool snap, in the upper 30's a night or two, and now we're back to daytime temps in the 90's. The squash was nipped a little, but is still producing, and yesterday we picked over 20 pounds of tomatoes. Our beans look a little bedraggled, but we still picked over 3 pounds of beans. Yesterday I put some tomatoes in the freezer whole, rather than cooking them. Today I'll see how they did. If that really works, it'll save a lot of time upfront. Last night I cooked up a bunch of yellow pear cherry tomatoes, and ran them through the food mill - yellow tomato sauce! It smelled different from other tomatoes, however. I want to make pizza sauce with it. I've been trying to catch a squirrel in the garden for several weeks. It's a ground squirrel and has made a mess everywhere with its burrows. This one is pretty smart, and has eluded us so far. I have a have-a-heart trap, and have used peanut butter, apple, and cantalope for bait. I was told to use potato chips with peanut butter. It's hard to believe, but I don't have any potato chips in the house.

Friday night dinner: chicken on bbq rotiserie - with rosemary tucked under the skin; corn on the cob; green beans with lemon and garlic dressing; tomato salad with vinagrette, oregano and feta; Sierra Nevada pale ale. Wow! was this ever good

It was a fantastic end of the season supper: Pesto pasta - homegrown basil Tomato salad with oregano and feta - homegrown tomatoes and oregano one single extra dark LU ecolier

OK, so I've tried SEVERAL types of cookies I've never tried before, and the extra dark LU ecoliers ARE a little bit too much. On the good side, though, one is enough. SO liked them, the kid didn't (another plus). Tomorrow we'll be trying the orange Pim's (we've already tried the milk chocolate Pim's which were VERY good) Up til now, I hadn't tried many types of cookies, and Mother's cookies do not seem special to me. I really like Archer's Dutch Chocolate cookies. I like dark chocolate, but the LU extra dark are too dark for me, which surprised me. Oreos are yucky and not worth the calories, IMO.

It wasn't a tomato or a sombrero, it was a Giant Orange, and served freshly squeezed orange juice. It's been in its present location for at least 35 years. It used to be located in Dixon, near the RR tracks, before the the interstate was built. I know it was in operation in the early 1940's, maybe earlier.

We have one of these: It works pretty well as long as you don't have a lot of squirrels. We've caught several and then let them go in a park miles from our house. Another solution is to plant enough tomatoes so there's enough for you AND for them.

My bumper crop of zucchini crop hit the same time as my bumper crop of tomatoes. I think we picked over 25 pounds of tomatoes yesterday. One way I get rid of excess zucchini is to offer something like Brandywine tomatoes or rhubarb, but then do a variation on the bait and switch, and tell them they can't have the tomatoes unless they take a zucchini. So far it's worked. I like zucchini fritters with feta and fresh basil, and also stir fried with mushrooms and fresh corn kernels. Both ways with zucchini that has been grated, salted and drained. I think that makes a huge difference in the flavor and texture. My mother used to cut it in chunks and bake it in foil in the oven with butter, and it was so watery and disgusting that I couldn't stand it.

I'm all for better safe than sorry, but this doesn't pass the reality test:

New Jersey IS the garden state, is it not? If you have access to good tomatoes, my other favorite dish is Deborah Madison's Summer Tomato soup. It so simple: only butter, shallots, lots of really ripe and juicy tomatoes, and salt and pepper, cooked and run through a food mill. It is the essence of summer. I haven't been deluged with tomatoes yet, so it'll be a few weeks before I make this.

SethG, that salad sounds like mine, only mine came from my garden: Brandywine tomatoes and fresh basil along with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Also: steamed yellow stringbeans (homegrown) raw carrot sticks (homegrown) the main event: Wild salmon filets (from the Oregon coast), grilled in a basket with oil. pepper and lemon slices. And a loaf of ciabatta. This meal was wonderful and all the better because it was the first tomato salad of the season for us.

When I had my wisdom teeth out I lost a lot of weight. Which was good. However, the things I liked best were pasta with cheese on it, and really soft scrambled eggs.

After reading this thread I had to go to the fridge and eat a couple sweet midget pickles. I just popped them in my mouth whole. They were delicious, and are also quite good in tuna salad.

It's risky to generalize about Texas since it's so large and varied. It's like the blind men and the elephant. Part of Texas is definitely in the South. The dividing line runs somewhere between Houston and Beaumont. I lived in that part of Texas and it's very Southern in character. This area includes Jasper. The thingie is a "wink" meaning "it's a joke." But, since you brought it up, if people are going to argue about what "real cobbler" is topped with, why not argue about what's "really the South" too? After all, one person's cobbler is another person's pieclafoutipandowdybucklegruntslurpcrispcrunch etc. Just wait a month when we start talking about football. Well, I wasn't arguing about what's "real" cobbler, anyway, only what's really the South. I'm not from the South, I only lived there. I don't have a strong opinion about cobbler, other than I like to eat it. Is football only a month away? Oh joy.

It's risky to generalize about Texas since it's so large and varied. It's like the blind men and the elephant. Part of Texas is definitely in the South. The dividing line runs somewhere between Houston and Beaumont. I lived in that part of Texas and it's very Southern in character. This area includes Jasper.

That's not bad, but I bought a Chinese cleaver at an estate sale for ten cents. I haven't seen it mentioned, but garage sales are the absolutely best place to buy good stuff cheaply.

I bought some tiles at Home Depot for about 40 cents each. They are unglazed and I put them directly on the rack. My oven turns on the broiler to heat up faster, so I do a timed bake to avoid cracking the tiles. I don't know if that would happen, but I thought it might. I have a pizza stone, but it is too small for loaves of bread (ciabatta), and the big stones at the kitchen specialty stores are really expensive. In Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking she shows this and suggests these tiles. The book came out 40 years ago and maybe baking tiles weren't commonly available then.