racheld

Thank you for all the touring and dining---that last lunch was to dream of. I've enjoyed all the pictures and descriptions, and hate for this to end. Loved it all!! I DO love a small town.

I just this morning saw the In Honor Of . . . and was deeply saddened to hear of the loss of this vibrant, brilliant, funny friend. I had noticed her absence from our midst, but amongst the comings and goings of other things, had not taken proper notice. I've loved meandering through Texas with her, entering restaurants and kitchens and markets scented with deep-brown spices. The descriptions of bubbling dishes and funny moments and landscapes are all flavored with a curiousity and an interest far beyond the taste of the moment. She not only told you about the recipe, but the reasons behind adding this or that, or a bit of history on the most arcane items on the menu. I always thought of fifi as a laughing, good-sport gal, with somewhat of a martini-glass aura, or perhaps a shot of good whiskey to go with that smoky voice and the good times she portrayed in her posts. And though I never heard her speak, her voice came through in her words, with never a titter or simper, but a big loud boisterous laugh at herself or life or circumstance. There is a soft gap in our ranks now, with bright observations and witty comebacks and throaty chuckles only memory, but those memories are long and pleasant. I'll miss our sweet, kind, intelligent funny friend, and I think this long afternoon will be spent in a good comfy re-read of her posts. Or perhaps a sunny stroll of the countryside, alert for those lovely bits of lagniappe that we all pass without seeing. It's been wonderful to have such a knowledgeable guide through our own territory; she made quite an impression on me, and I'll miss her. Thank you, fifi, for the lovely, rollicking tours, with all those interesting stopovers; it's been wonderful traveling with you.

I was determined that a cranky knee wouldn't keep us from our usual FOURTH activities---cookout, fireworks in the park, etc. So I took it easy all day, reading in the arbor with my foot on a lawn chair, cooking really easy-to-prepare things like fresh green beans from the garden (I didn't pick 'em) which I sat down to snap. Chris did lovely creamed corn and grilled two chickens, and I just sliced some tomatoes and Vidalias for salad and set out a baguette and some olive oil, as well as a bowl of cherries and a lovely cold Decker melon which we cut for dessert. I made the tea in the downstairs kitchen and took the pitcher with super-strong sweet tea upstairs to add the extra water there and save the stress of carrying it up. One guest drinks unsweetened tea, so I made her a separate glass, half full, which I lugged up the stairs with the pitcher and a baggie of ice. I took it all outside, went back in and added the water to the pitcher, picked up the guest's glass, sloshed it into the sink, rinsed the glass, and set it down before I realized what I'd done. Limped my way downstairs, waited for the kettle to boil, made another glass and limped it back up. Got halfway out the screen with the half-full glass, bumped the doorhandle, and poured half the strong hot tea over my sandals. Had enough left in the glass to dilute to proper strength, add ice, and set it at her place just as she came through the gate. I bet she wondered why I was hosing off my feet, shoes and all. And it misted rain all during fireworks, but they were lovely. ETA correct name of melon---calling a Decker a cantaloupe is like calling the Hope Diamond a rock.

You go for it, Mark!!! I'm still watching the train-wreck of this season, and there is no front-runner to be seen. Rory is sorta growing on me, with her not-quite-aw-shucks acquired Texas informal ways. I think she'd make a great neighbor, for calling across the fence to share a few home-grown tomatoes, or to come over for cookouts on the patio. And maybe a neighbor is who we'd like to see on the next show, not the down-home hokeyness of Paula, nor the frenetic wit of Emeril, but just a nice woman next door who is happy in jeans, grubbing in her garden or cranking up the grill. She's more ME than any of the others, and I can relate to all her simplicity and lack of guile---no Paris schools or military chops. I LIKE her, and wish her well. I was rooting for Adrien, but now that he's gone. . . This show has one thing to recommend it: Gail Simmons and Mrs. Joel are otherwise occupied elsewhere.

Priscilla, Dear, I love your missives, and the thought of that CANYON stirs longings for an early-morning horseback jaunt, just as the sun peeks through, with the scent of campfire coffee beckoning at the end of the trail. I think of that every time I read one of your letters. Loved it. PS Don't knock the Bama Boys---I'm married to one. Torn T-shirts ETA five minutes later---I can hear him right now, out in the back yard, cracking his new whip he bought yesterday. He teaches all that frontier stuff to Boy Scout troops, and I guess soon I'll hear the "thunk" of the tomahawk hitting that big ole slice out of a sawed-down tree.

"What could YOU do? You can't even get one little OLIVE out of the jar!"

Oh, you sneaky bird! Bananas Foster Brooks.

Pretty Baby? Haven't seen it since it first aired in theaters, but the procession bearing in that HUGE silver salver containing a tarted-up pre-teen Brooke Shields made an impression. What WAS her mother thinking??!!

I'm recognizing a printer, am I not---or maybe a plotter? As in architecty stuff. Still haven't a clue, but intrigued.

Our first picking of our little bush beans---tiny little things, some less than a foot high---yielded about two gallons of small-to-medium, very tender young beans. I sorted as I topped---didn't tail this time. The teensiest ones went into a separate bowl, to be blanched for a couple of minutes in salted water, shocked, and then put into a rice vinegar/salt/bit of crushed garlic/brown mustard seed dressing with some paper-thin Vidalia, slivers of roasted red pepper, and the rings of the one little bell pepper I found dropped from the plant. I added a drained can of garbanzos, just for Caro, cause she likes them that way, and I can easily avoid them. It looked pretty, even in the Tupperware. The larger size beans were snapped and put into the Le Creuset where a big hunka ham had been sizzling for a while, along with a lot of chopped onion getting caramelly in the bottom. Some salt and garlic, a couple of cups of water, and the lid went on. An hour and a half, some tiny red potatoes shorn of one little strip around, dropped in and salted a bit, and another twenty minutes til supper. That was one gallon---the other Ziploc went to DS#2, who tilled, planted, and hoes the garden. He'll be making stir-fried whole beans with garlic and soy at his house tonight, for my DDIL, who is expecting our little one in September, and who is CRAVING those beans.

It all looks absolutely delicious---perhaps it was the heat of the ramekin on the plate which melted the ice cream? Is it beyond what you wanted to set the quenelle on TOP of the souffle? Ice cream melting on a plate and running TOWARD another component is not quite as lusciously, voluptuously tempting as would be the softly melting runnels flowing gently over the sides of the chocolate.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Caro will be inconsolable. She (and we all at our house) is a devoted fan and follower, turning out those heavenly-scented and delectably delicious dishes over and over, with the wonderful tutorials and pictures that make every step easy to follow. We all hope that your circumstances will improve heartily soon, and you will take your place again as our own favorite Teacher and Helper, as we wend our way through all those lovely dishes. Thank you, thank you. We'll think of you every time the enticing scent of sizzling ginger and garlic wafts through the house. Ma Po Tofu is now one of our favorite breakfasts. All our best, rachel

Today seems the right Time to disclose the answer: On June 27, 1912, Richard Collier checked in at the hotel, met Elise McKenna, and became a part of a veritable Mobius strip of timeline. A lovely older woman walked up to the young playwright backstage at rehearsal, tenderly tucked a gold pocketwatch into his hand, and whispered, "Come back to me." Richard traveled Time to be with her, and at their first evening together, he was thrown out of the dining room by her pompous, jealous manager. At their last meal, a happy, just-in-love candlelight picnic of roast chicken, eaten on the floor of the hotel room amidst their disheveled bedclothes, a penny from the future catapulted him back to his own time. And today would be the 95th anniversary of their meeting. A bit of arcanity useful only in Trivial Pursuit or to sappy-hearted bloops like me. I give this movie Over to you, Roger.

Can't hope to equal that rich red chorizo butter, but right now I've got a little bowl of butter melting in the microwave, awaiting the addition of a little salt, a squeeze of half a lime, and tossing with that beautiful bright-green broccoli I just steamed.

. . . a visual trace of an ephemeral sonic past. What a lovely line, and that was the COOLEST site!! Glad to see you blogging---I love your "ninety dinners for forty in three days" approach, and your meals are always terrific. And that was SOME gorgeous china---I always want to know HOW MANY pieces it took to serve all those folks all those courses. And of course, who did the dishes?

We're off for the weekend, and don't know your "close" moment, so I wanna say thanks for all the lovely visits, the cooking, the tours. I love where you live, your kitchen, your enthusiam, and I can't wait to try huckleberries someday!! Thank you!!

That's the La Boheme version, if you please. Perhaps the strains of Parce que tu croissant wafting softly in the background, along with the crisp, oveny scent of bread turning golden and warm. My very best to your Mom and Dad, Maggie. And to you, Dear---take care of YOU, as well. Wish I were there to help tend, to make tea and toast, and to give you a respite in your busy days.

This was the first thing I scrolled to as I sat down, groggy with miles of highway since eight a.m.---494 of them, to be exact---nine hundred of them spent at snail-crawl, watching the seasons turn and the world turn gray with the fumes of CO, between Chicago's Skyway and the Arlington Road? exit. I wished several times to call you for lunch, but realized each time with a wince of missing, that you were still in Canada, still holding on, still caring and tending and (now) toastmaking. But with the upward outlook that a renewed appetite and a familiar, comforting taste can bring, you're all coping beautifully and all improving. I have lots of tales of toast, all to be rendered at a better time. It's late and as soon as this chair quits moving, I'm for bed. PS---I'll never understand this eG clock---It's 2:15 here!!

Welcome, Morgan_Weber, and well said!! I can't wait to show this post to Chris---he's a purist, a Weber collecter and curator (if you're ever in the Heartland, you can tour our museum --er---backyard of all shapes and sizes---I'm slowly weeding them out, surreptitiously sending an odd one now and then to the city compactor in the interest of my sanity and so the neighbors won't think we're total Snopes). And I'm from BARBEQUE country, raised just south of Memphis, and nurtured on real pit ribs, along with 12-hour shoulders put sizzly on the pitrungs at daylight every Saturday, commissioned by the first thirty folks to get in line for the manna, with one brown, fragrant hunk brought home to our family in the same little white pan each week, with that one special small soft muscle pulled from just inside the steaming, fall-apart mass, just for me. The creamy-tender smoke-taste of the rich pork is a never-ending childhood memory, and one of the criteria for any barbecue I've tasted since. (Still grimacing from an episode of Barefoot Contessa, in which she marinated spatchcocked, boned chickens, wrapped them in foil for transporting, and sent them off to the beach party to be started on the grill whilst she finished up the salads at home. She arrived expecting to smell the above-the-coals sizzle of grilling meat, and instead confronted the disappointment of slightly-opened foil packages lying on the grill, steaming the contents like a covered saucepan). And poor Clay---I hoped a Mississippi chef would show us something, but that pitiful APPLE!! Looks like he learned that one in Cub Scouts.

I think your tupperware lids are up there in tupperware heaven having a party with all the lids that have gone missing in my house over the years. ← If anyone's interested, I have all the bottoms ever made---some quite odd-shaped, as in "ham" and "bread" and "pickles." About fifty pieces are missing the lids, some by natural attrition, and about forty by the disaster of catering a picnic for a client. She wanted everything in Tupperware, all packed into several of my ancient Red Man picnic baskets. I told her just to set all the empty items on the porch and I'd pick them up in a couple of days; when I arrived, her young daughter and Grandma searched high and low, finally calling client at work, and she affirmed that she put them out. Daughter came in from porch with an "Uh-Oh!" look on her face, hesitantly waving a knob-flapper, on which was the local DAV logo, with a hearty thanks for the donation. We scurried to the local outlet, told them our predicament, and they made us welcome to search the shelves. Two baskets out of three found, plus almost all the Tup-bottoms, but no lids. They said they'd keep an eye out for them, but the hundreds of lift-'em-with-a-forklift boxes in the workroom, each spilling forth assorted clothing, books, toys and other unnameable esoterica, gave us little hope. So I have lots of things to use for bird-waterers, flowerpot bottoms, warm dinners for ShedKitty through the long cold of Winter, and just the right size if we ever have a roofleak, and that has to do.

I see that a lot of the clues are just drifting, drifting out there in space. If no one gets #154 by Thursday, June 27, I will reveal the name of the movie and explain the clues.

I like most everything from the deli counter (save souse---an unfortunate leaving-out-overnight in a warm grocery store, with the melted result cascading over the slicer, the counter, the floor is still a vivid trauma), but my favorite "lunchmeat" of all time has to be the five-pound CAN of a Spammish mystery meat given GIFT-WRAPPED by the janitress at my office to DS#2 upon the occasion of his high-school graduation. It looked vaguely like a 40's Army ammo-case, and could, indeed, have housed all manner of weaponry and ordnance, the great heft of that long can requiring carrying clasped to your chest like a baby with a shiny little key attached. The turning of that key took muscles cultivated by years on the farm, and went on for a long time. As the squarish pinky-gray log was coaxed from the more-than-a-foot-long tin, it fell with a decided smock onto the platter, lying there with little flecks of aspic clinging to its slick sides. We cut it into approximate pound bits, bagged four and froze them, and gave the remaining one its deserved pomp and splendor by cutting it into cubes and skewering it on those fluffy-panties toothpicks with cherry tomatoes, pineapple bits, or cocktail onions. Several strong mustards on the side served to counteract the rich, not-quite-Spammy flavor of each bite. We took pictures of the platter in all its glory, and Queen Ethel almost wept with delight at the image, as well as at her lovely little Tupperware of the goodies that I carried to work. I REALLY wanted to ask to read that Thank You note. That STILL goes down as #1 on the list of "Strangest Gifts I Have Known." Right up there with the set of Odor-Eaters received by a neighbor, folded into a birthday card from his mother. And he was a VERY clean person.

No matter the geography, a man with a black skillet, a bottle of Beau Monde and a breakfast nook has well earned his G.R.I.T.S. Guy credentials. Add a pull-out rack of orphaned Tupperware, and you merit a Ribbon of Honor. As the resident Southun-er (or perhaps just the loudest), I'm glad to get acquainted with your area and those beautiful huckleberries. To tell the truth, I had always imagined them to be jewelly little knobbed berries, like blackberries, only huckle-flavored. Now go cook something in that black skillet!

YAAAAAYY!!!! Someone resurrected our prototype, our zenith, the heights to which we can all aspire (but not without a stomach pump). It's too good to stay mustering away in the archives; it should be read annually, at least. (Though that eel part gives me the squicks). Go, Katherine. And where've you BEEN?

[Host's note: To minimise the load on our servers, this topic has been split. This discussion continues from here.] So----how was it? Anything memorable, unpleasantly or otherwise? I've eaten WITH vegans, but never when the entire meal was so strictly concocted.