racheld

Somebody's gonna steal this for a sig line SOON.

Added clue for #154: The lady came to the hero's place of work in order to watch him. No food was visible at the moment, though the aura of ham was present.

Oh! EW! I got the taste in my mouth just reading this! Not that I'd know what it tastes like to suck on a clean penny, mind you. ← I'll have you know that dirty pennies taste much the same as clean pennies! ← I had no idea there were so many penny-suckers on this board---we'll have to start a club. We can meet at my house. I'll be hostess, and you can all stand and tell of your habit, how it has affected your life, and the steps you're taking to get clean and sober. I've never tasted a penny; the scent on your hands after wrapping a few hundred is enough to put you off copper for life. But I did eat an ant once. It tasted kinda halfway between a flea and a lightning bug.

We're gonna have another someday---they have been my favourite pets of all time. Just found this blog---we've been in the back garden all day, making part of it into a "room" by carving out a big tunnel-dome beneath the trees/honeysuckle/bushes and have just had one minute to see WHO---sigh blissfully, and scroll down past your babies. Will take time to absorb it ALL at leisure, though I can hardly wait. The guess of YOU seemed impossible, and I'm so glad it was true.

I'm so glad this thread has bumped back up---and what SUPER new entries. I have nothing to add---most all of my bad dining experiences are mentioned WAY upthread. Unless I forgot to mention my first SIL's meat-cooking habits. Like DEEP-FRYING slices of steak until they curl up and die. That was her object---she would say, every time, "Nothing ALIVE is going on my table!" Guess that's why we had a hard time telling her cookout burgers from the briquets. She was not yet in her teens when I met her, and the first Sunday dinner at their home was a perfectly LOVELY meal---gorgeous fried chicken, stupendous desserts--but I was taken aback when she and her younger brother took the chicken plate, moved all the chicken around and carefully picked up and ate all the little dropped-off crispin crumbs. They were just kids, but did they HAVE to call them scabs?

I loved the Seventies. Except for some of the music. And the clothes. What WERE we thinking? Like I imagine the Forties were lived in the sepia which colors all the family pictures of the time, the Seventies color was Brown Plaid. Double-knit plaid. With BIG legs. (HEY, I tried for ROLLEYES, and mine's asleep, with a simpery smile on its face) Sorry---we've been gardening for DAYS---too much sun. I'm better now. Carry on.

Oh, My Dear. As a former THAT CHILD myself, accept my empathy and concern---I have no real ideas past perhaps one of those fruitcake concoctions to which you've been adding four-hundred-year old brandy and an almost endangered-species strain of raspberries for the past six months, checking your calendar with fevered frequency for the proper timing. Salad-makings which require stops at nine greengrocers (receipts prominently displayed on your kitchen board, held in with little pushpins), something marinated in a mixture which necessitates alarm-clock setting to wake you every two hours round the clock for turning, and a twelve-step beat-the-whites-by-hand-in-a-freshly-polished-copper-bowl dessert should bring the meal to a properly Sisyphean conclusion. Oh, and if your expiation has not been raised to the required penitent apex, perhaps you could consult the I will never. . . thread for advice on self-inflicted finger-burns and knife-catchings. If you're squeamish, a few strategically-placed bandaids and a half-hidden wince from time to time should carry the idea without actual infliction of pain to yourself. My deepest empathy, rachel PS---do they still sell ortolans? There used to be a market in Samarkand---you could check into that.

What a bright beginning to this rainy morning!!! Remembrances of the seeking, the picking, the gentler-than-baby handling, and my own dear Mammaw's recipe---payound for payound with sugar---lovely to wake up to, and lovely to anticipate a scurry to Borders. Thank you for the wonderful first-read of the day. rachel

I have just LOVED this!!! Stepping clear across the globe every day, to peek into your home and activities---what a lovely family!! Thank you for all the interesting glimpses of your life, your kitchen, your daily comings and goings, and most of all, your charming interaction with your two little ones. This has been like opening a beautiful bento, packed by the most excellent chef---all the pictures and thoughts lying there like exquisite bites to choose and savor. I hope the best of health and the best of fortune for all of you, and I will miss this little journey each day. Thank you.

Is anyone else getting those little red-X boxes in place of "reply," etc.? Even some of the the smilies have vacated and have proxies.

Joe---This is your best one yet---bravo and all the usual. I just noticed you're now in Memphis---take some time soon and go to Leonard's for a slaw-on for me---that's the only bit of the South I still dream of. Wistfully.

We never said "side meat"---it was "salt meat" in all our kitchens. And every cook with a pot of peas, butterbeans, snap beans or collards first laid out the slab, took that big ole butcher knife and sliced off a 1/2 inch piece from the cut end. You'd lay the piece down on the board and cut four little nicks in it, almost all the way up to the hold-it-together skin end, and throw it in the pot. After the required two hours or so of simmering, you'd open the lid, and there it would be, in all its softened, sumptuous porkiness, lying there atop the peas like a little white hand. (Think of the little white chunk afloat on the top of pork 'n' beans when you open the can, only ours was bigger and fancier). That bit always went onto Grandpa's plate---none of the rest of us would touch that greasy stuff, but it sure did season up a good mess of pot likker. My roots are showing. Gotta go get some more coffee before I bust out in a big "YEEEE-Haw!!!"

#154---Not The Notebook.

If it were six and a half quarts, I'd say it was "A Big Hand For. . ." (and so I lent him the money at 6 1/2% interest), but two quarts doesn't ring a bell.

154: Additional info: The hero speaks to an older woman, and her comeback was quite memorable. 171: The Last Detail 172: King of Marvin Gardens 173. I dare not speak its title---it was THAT bad. Suffice to say, I would imagine that Glenn, Jack, Pierce, et al, up to and including the fabulous Slim Whitman, considered throwing Tim Burton himself onto the grill. Please don't nitpick, Toliver---I really WON'T say the title--you don't want me to throw up on my keyboard, do you?

Wendy, those pesky oven-moths have been the downfall of many a great chef. I'm grinning big for you as well---I'm glad you're back up and running. Though you DID stay up for your game with all the top-cooked things---remarkable. And to everyone who's posted in the last couple of weeks: Three words: O. Ver. Load. The pictures and descriptions and occasions are just awesome. All those voluptuous sauces and beautiful vegetables, and the absolutely sumptuous meats---roast, sous vide, fried, grilled, sauced and breaded and wokked and sauteed. Wow. Just wow. I don't post many pictures, but where would any gallery be with ardent admirers? And KIM---your Easter table is dreamy ---I've looked over and over again. We'll be having ours tomorrow, since we were gone last weekend. Good work, everyone!!

May I, as Mother to several excellent cooks of the guy persuasion, discreetly mention one thing? A glass of milk.

How 'bout The Hot Rock?---Not edible, but eaten, so to speak. And YES to 166!!! The look on poor Shirley MacLaine's face under that impossible-to-repair hair is priceless, and only one of the dismayed expressions she emotes in that movie.

I was beginning to think this thread had died a natural death. Now it's having a flicker of resurrection. Charging!!! Clear!!! Thwack!!! Maybe she's not done fer after all---Jack and booze could probably resuscitate Ishtar.

"mmmm---nice" is the second most quoted line in The Shining, after the ever-popular "HEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!!!" And Ole Johnny has gotten around in this thread quite a bit already---Terms of Endearment, with its decapitated chopped-liver chicken (though he didn't do the crime), and eating Carbonara with the unclad Meryl Streep in Heartburn, as well as another unmannerly occasion. Toast and chicken goes without saying, as well.

We got in late from a long trip and woke to all this sunshine. Lovely pictures, everyone!!! This one is a Walk-Right-In: And a definite DIVE!! We always have something with lemon curd for Easter dessert, and ours has been postponed til next Sunday---we traveled SOUTH for a wedding, and will celebrate the Season with family and friends a week late. Probably a good thing---Spring here is 35 degrees today, and will drop lower the rest of the week. It's wonderful to see all the shining colors of the photos, and to hear of all the celebrations. PS:Percy ---Chris was IMPRESSED with all the grilling. You'd do any barbecue proud.

Good Morning!!! Lovely to know it's you. And we'll be along as you fill the shell, arrange your shelves, place all the goodies in their new home, and build your nest as you go. Wonderful. And please take us to work---we LOVE bakeries. CAKE

Thank you, Chufi, ---that was a lovely read. I could not let go til the last bit of the thread, though we're supposed to be on the road by seven. Just those words, from all the kitchens and all the households represented, will sustain my daily requirement of eGullet until we return on Monday. And where we're going, there WILL be dishes.

I go barefoot most of the time at home, and shuck my shoes in most folks' houses, whether they ask or not. Socks or bare, I usually tuck my feet up crosslegged in my chair anyway. I don't care what they wear or don't at my house. Sometimes we "dress" for dinner, but that usually means breaking out a freaky old hat collection we've been adding to for years. And we usually linger at the table through dessert, coffee, maybe liqueurs, more coffee, and enough stories and jokes and fun to leave us all gasping. No time for cleanup before guests leave except grabbing a dozen or so go-boxes and dividing up the leftovers for whoever wants to tote 'em. I like doing the cleaning at my leisure anyway---usually to a Jane Austen or Sue Grafton or Sherlock Holmes on tape. This is the first time ever I haven't had a "view" from the sink, so I let my ears do the entertaining. Busboy, you had a fascinating piece on "cleanup" in another thread---maybe last year? It was really well written and made the whole aftermath sound as fun as the party. You should link it, for those who missed it.

I cook. People come over. And I LIKE cleaning and preparing and all the prep stuff---it's all a part of the enjoyment for me. A leisurely cleanup after---that's another enjoyable adventure, discussing the evening, neatening the rooms, seeing each item clean and shining and back into its own place. Leftovers are NEVER a problem; I practically own STOCK in the Gladbox enterprise, and they go out of the house, laden with the guests' tomorrow lunches. When we used to cater a lot of parties and weddings, some of our best and most memorable next-day meals consisted of party leftovers, a tart that didn't QUITE measure up, a quiche that didn't fulfill the expected golden glory of the others, a bowl of fruit that found its calling in the blender, with a shot or two of rum; that extra container of chicken-salad sandwiches, cold and tender and perfect, and CAKE---all the level-off trimmings and the extra "just in case" layer, and all that leftover buttercream, extra delicious and creamy from two days in a Tupperware. Now when we have party nibbles, I STILL crave wedding cake on the plate. And when Chris cooks, people from three townships away follow their noses and wind up in our backyard. Some of our best friends were once hungry strangers.