racheld

I'll lay down twenty bucks this is gonna be somebody's tagline before the year's out.

Where have you BEENNNNNN all this time...these are hilarious!!! But I guess it's a good thing you funny guys parcel out the humor without going overboard all at one time. Between you and some of the regulars, I'm gonna owe Chris a new computer chair for Christmas...I hope this one dries before he needs it tomorrow. PS---how do you ever smuggle White Castle breath past a Grandma?

Mine came from Goodwill, and it's a BEAUT.

I'm SO glad you joined!!! This was a terrific first post, and we're looking forward to many more. Someone needs to start a thread on "furtive eating"---I just read Megan's post in the 3 a.m. thread---it, too, is hilarious. GINGERBRICKS!!!

Oh, ye of the checkered past!!! I love your posts, and this is the funniest thing I've read today. I DO hope you took a beverage (images of you hiding in the bushes, peeking through the shrubbery for hungry intruders, whilst you're all choking down those furtive sandwiches, dance in my head). And how did you divide the odd two?

I have a Red Hat. And the obligatory purple dress. We go to tea, we laugh, we nibble delicately at dainty sandwiches, we regale each other (and very few of the surrounding tables) with tales of our grandchildren, our gardens, what we are reading at the moment. We commiserate over illnesses, mates' doings, drive our fellow members to chemo, cry together when one loses her valiant battle, rejoice when an absent face is again at the table. We lift a glass to the words "remission" and "recovery." We celebrate re-birth days as avidly as sixteen-year-olds enjoy their proms. Lately my conversation has been spiked with references to my dear online "friends" who so charmingly and eruditely speak of all things gustatory and delicious. As a result, I'm sure there have been quite a few visitors to this site, and probably a few of us certain-age crimson-chapeaux have joined in the fun. We celebrate LIFE in every way ladies can do so without embarrassing ourselves or annoying others. Gasps of laughter, giggles behind demure hands, the occasional guffaw at a really funny moment---those are our moments of humor and joy and celebration. And aside from a little girl dressed up as a princess, there's no more imposing sight in this world than a group of women in hats with their purses firmly on their arms. We're a force to be reckoned with, no shrieks necessary.

Tonight Chris sampled all the goodies we made today: His plate had a slice from a mini-loaf of banana bread (made by my late Mother's recipe---we made five regular loaves and eight mini's)---I always take out the yellowing bit of paper, typed and printed by me years ago as she sat at my elbow in our first apartment here. It was the last trip she ever made up here to visit, and I got her to sit with me and tell me verbatim all the recipes I could think of from my childhood. She was famous for going through metal detectors with two loaves of foil-wrapped banana bread in her big old purse, and once arrived at my Sister's house with a huge round pone of cornbread for the Thanksgiving dressing tucked in amongst all her lingerie and clothes in her suitcase...the x-ray people must have thought she was smuggling an alien craft. Every visit, she brought the lovely bread, rich with soft banana and pineapple, studded with those meaty Mississippi pecans and plump raisins, and every time I read the recipe, I remember how she threw back her head and laughed as she read the last line I had printed---"Makes two loaves. And send me one." She carried this copy of the recipe home with her, used it to make scores of loaves which she distributed right and left to friends and family, the celebrating and the bereaved, all across several counties for years. And when Daddy finally sold our family home, and everyone else was wrestling buffets and bedroom suites onto U-Hauls, I scooped the entire contents of her big recipe drawer in the kitchen into a box, taped it shut, and ferried it out to our truck myself. The paper is a bit brittle, with a golden frame of dried stickum from the back of the Scotch tape she had used to stick it on the page in her huge three-ring binder. I keep it safely between the pages of my big favorite cookbook, along with a longago friend's lemon-poppyseed cake recipe, and assorted pressed treasures from the past. Also on today's cooking list (and Chris' plate) were Kahlua fudge, coconut bars, a double recipe of lemon bars, and a thrown-together-by-accident pan of fudge which I was cooking, awaiting his arrival with another bag of chocolate chunks. The pan was simmering away when he called to say he'd be another fifteen minutes. I hurriedly chopped a couple of bitter chocolate squares, threw them in with the marshmallow fluff at the end, stirred til they were melted, then poured the stuff into the buttered pan. As I tasted the warm gooey concoction off the pot-scraping spatula, I realized that with the big glug of Espresso syrup I had added, and the pale chocolate color, it was exactly like a solidified latte. So Latte Fudge it became, and it's DELICIOUS! I poked rows of chocolate-covered coffee beans into the soft fudge about an inch apart, and when it's cut, it will be lovely. Chris loved it, and he won't even touch coffee. I just realized I spent the whole day channeling Ling.

SHOW and TELL, that's us. Please continue to do so. Lovely food, 400 pages worth.

We've served a TON of these. Scrub potatoes, dry well, cut in half, roast cut side down on olive-oil or chicken/duck-fat-coated LIPPED cookie sheet. When done, slide turner under, remove to warm serving plate. Hollow out a divot in round side with melon baller, fill with ANYTHING scrumptious---creme fraiche and caviar, herb butter, caramelized onions, tapenade, old fashioned Pimiento cheese, bocconcini left just to soften, cream cheese/pepper/bacon---anything that you'd enjoy on a baked potato. These probably require a cocktail plate and a fork, but rubbing with oil, sprinkling with seasalt, then roasting them whole, slicing in half, then hollowing, makes a less messy finger food.

Love it, LOVE it!!!! Best imagery since Dave the Cook left the moonprint in the sand. And the hat is an absolute---please say you sleep in it, as well.

CHUFI!! Lovely to see you at last. The beans sound wonderful on a wintry night. I'd love to be at THAT party.

What's the wind chill factor? ← Wind chill: 70---- add bluster: -100.

Ah, the burning question: What to do with all those pesky leftovers? Pale poetry, Moby---just beautiful.

Wow, looks delicious. Cooking for one makes me pretty lazy about cooking 'meals', let alone multi-course dinners. You can infer what comprised my dinner: And desert is ready to go into the oven: A very primitive first attempt at some Russian Wheat, and some as-of-yet unborn Ciabatta (which is in the oven as I speak). ← Ah, that beautiful hands-on bread!! Welcome and please post pics of the newborn, after all that labor and waiting. What a great debut!!

deleted cause I posted twice. And I just said in a previous thread that I've never been inebriated. Couldn't prove it by Y'all. I'm going to bed.

Let's play Read-Alinka's-Chocolate!!! Instead of a hanging plant, I see a person, standing admiringly til the photo's finished, to get a bite. But I didn't see it at all, despite the hundred times I gazed longingly at that biscotti. Not til you mentioned it---couldn't see past that hypnotic glaze. And the shot is terrific, as is the beautiful food. (Oops, I scrolled down, right into Daniel's sundaes...dived right into the left-hand one, in fact. That's the recipe we ALWAYS use for homemade vanilla--Always cooked up a gallon on Saturday afternoon, to chill til after Sunday church to start up the freezer---kid-powered in those days).

I must have meant to post the above in the Drunken Meal, What-to-Eat-When-Inebriated thread which seems to be right near this one. At the moment. And I am not. Inebriated. Never have been. (sigh) I'm goofy enough sober.

Disgusting menu. Charming vignette. I came back and read it again---it was that good. I cannot claim the senseless groping for sustenance evinced in some of the above threads, as I was (am) alas, the Designated Driver in every instance of my participation in youthful/idiotic revelry, due to my dislike of almost everything alcoholic. In addition to the taste part, two sips of Christmas champagne and I can't find the kitchen to finish up dinner. So, on all the evenings in which my friends and colleagues could let down their hair and tie one on (insert various drunken cliches here) I was the sober one, even to the extent of carrying my own very strong tea once in a Crown bottle, enclosed in its snug little purple bag, to a BYOB joint which provided only ice, mixers and enough smoke to blanket a city. I sat, enjoying the music and dancing and shouted conversation, pouring glass after glass of tea over my ice, until a gentleman who had claimed me for several dances remarked that I had an astounding tolerance for booze. He had watched me drink it straight, an entire bottle of it, and their table was probably making book on the time I would slide under the table. I remember the disappointment on his face as I laughed and told him it was plain old Lipton's. he probably had a twenty down on 11:30. We had a wonderful after-hours little hole in the wall---a "caffay" attached to a little grimy hotel, a 24-hours on Saturday joint, with two fry cooks, a couple of take-no-prisoners waitresses in nylon dresses, and the best coffee and grits in the area. An aura of bacon and coffee and smoke enveloped us as we strolled through the sticker-encrusted door. Thin men embracing coffecups squinted up through their hazes and flickered us with a glance. Tiny women in Chic jeans and hairdos wider than their skinny hips trailed clouds of Shalimar as their stilettos toddled them on a staggering path toward the rest room near the kitchen. We recognized faces, night-wanderers---the price of a cup their ticket to warmth and a seat, the grudging companionship of a lighted place their haven from whatever demons and cold they were escaping for a time. Those big old brown coffee mugs would thump onto the table as soon as our fannies hit the turquoise vinyl---the brew black and scalding and perfect, the healing steam rising. Fat tumblers of ice water followed, with the sticky syrup pitcher, a big bowl of yellow butter, and a quick swipe at the gunky ketchup lid. A forlorn Tabasco bottle and another of A-1 stood beside the big glass sugar dispenser, and the obligatory one-on-every-table ashtray, a tarnished brassy dish with the grays of a thousand grindouts branded into the bottom. We looked at the grimy menu, for politeness' sake. The little flappy insert announcing Thursday's Liver Special might have been from a Thursday decades in the past, and the liver equally ancient. Waitress waited. Snap of gum, quick grab of pencil from behind ear---poised over pad; an almost audible tap of impatient Dr. Scholl's. We ordered: Steak and eggs for the hearty contingent, a Denver for me, a simple bowl of grits for Mary, whose ulcers were profound and burps legendary---she was a size 2, but could bellow forth eructations to blanch the faint of heart. We'd sit and wind down the evening, breathing shallow breaths of the smoke-laden air, wondering whyever we came back to this dingy place. The omelet was magnificent, a golden pillow laden with perfectly-cooked peppers and bits of still-crisp sweet onion, little dices of ham and great strings of good hearty cheese. The biscuits were high and brown and fluffy; grits were velvety, and the coffee, as above, perfect. There are hangover cures and there are munchies and there are midnight forays into the depths of an uncertain fridge. But what you want is Breakfast.

I remember well the little toy food and dishes provided by airlines in the 70's---the dessert-plate-sized dinner plate, most often a rectangular, lip-sided tray, with real silverware and glass, and the only bow to assembly-line food perhaps the sugar packet or the little cup of butter or salad dressing (yes, salad, with a separate china dish and a fork of its own). And it did take major contortion (woe to the middle-seater) to eat, drink, maintain a bit of decorum, and leave a blot on neither manners nor blouse. I've been collecting airline silver for a while now, and served Thanksgiving parfait with tiny round-bowled, still-gleaming TWA spoons. Several small Braniff forks graced pickle dishes, and a couple of the big silver serving spoons from TWA stood proudly with Grandma's own passed-down stuff. (Did the stewardesses walk down the aisle dipping up vegetables to order, or did they stand respectfully proffering the bowl like butlers at dinner parties?) After most airlines ceased meal service for a lot of flights, I always made my Dad a "go-home" box which he looked forward to carrying on the plane. In one of those pie-plate sized Tupperwares with the triangular divisions, I included several cubed cheeses, cubes of smoked turkey and nice juicy ham, the meats homemade and the cheeses chosen with care. Two colors of grapes, washed and dried and taken off the stems, filled another section, and put-back-together-and-wrapped-in-Saran wedged apples were in another. Several dozen nice crackers or a few bread-and-butter finger sandwiches in another little box served as a nice foil to all the rich fare. A baggie of handwipes, a couple of folded paper towels, a container of those ornate little fake "ivory" plastic picks would serve to invite traveling companions, and he always did. He'd strike up conversations with people from all over, finding common subjects, sometimes common acquaintances or friends (we always said he could parachute out over Borneo and land next to the beach chair of an old Army buddy). He'd call after he got home---telling about who he'd met and how they shared his lunch and how they wished their children took care of them that way, etc. It was nice to hear, very easy to do, and it gave him a good feeling to share. And I imagine he stood a round or two of drinks for the group, as well. He's been gone from us for two years now, and it's a nice remembrance of his good heart and friendly personality, those lunches-on-a-pick that he shared with people he passed a bit of time with, learning about them, and passing on something of himself in turn. We're all richer for it.

Oh, that bowl of everything beautiful and luscious!!! The greens and the russets and golden broth, punctuated by those perfect noodles. I've been known to stand at one particular buffet and pick out the crisp, garlicky slices of bok choy from the Moo Goo...all the textures and flavors. Lovely soup. But do I spy sunshine through the screen off to the right??? It's blizzardy here and I NEED PORCH!!!!

We've been wrapping presents and doing the usual holiday stuff, so my kitchen efforts have been a bit sporadic. Last night's dinner was panko-fried butterflied shrimp, tartar sauce made with minced sweet onion, homemade dill pickles, chopped dill and Duke's mayo. Two dishes from the oven: crusty bacon-topped brown-sugar baked beans and a pan of corn/scallion spoonbread. Lots of sweet iced tea. (which I'll miss tonight; today was ice-machine cleaning day, and its parts had a Clorox soak and drying and just now were reassembled, to start humming cheerfully and dumping that wonderful crunchy ice). Tonight's dinner will be a quick ground-beef "Stroganoff" with mushrooms, thickened beef stock, sour cream and wide noodles. Orange/red onion salad. All those dishes above are awesome. Even the quick-snap ones and the video-cam ones are just wonderful. I'm so glad you're back, Chufi, and am glad to see the new names and dishes. And everytime I scroll down to "bite" on Daniel's posts---my tongue hurts in advance---word indeed. (and I don't even LIKE fish). And PERCY!!! Those mushrooms, at first glance and without seeing the script, could have been rustic bread from ancient ovens, shaped by calloused hands from wheat gathered and threshed and ground at home. Or great hunks of smoked meat from some hunted-down creature, brought home to the cave to last the Winter. Ditto Word.

'Twas a glorious, rompin' stompin' ride, and the dining car accommodations and cuisine were par excellence. I'm glad to have been aboard for this trip, and hope you put on your conductor hat again soon. Thanks for the tour!!! rachel

I got to thinking you might have one of every color---that should take up at least six or eight, if you include Concords, "muskydines," etc. And you could freeze a couple, do a sugar-gilding of one, do Miss Marthy's cheese coating for another---maybe stuff one of the larger ones. That should account for a dozen, and you could give a meaning for each---I'm good at making up "old" stories if you need help. And with your plating and garnish wizardry---that would be a knockout. Outa da park.

Lovely idea, Daniel. I'd never heard of that, but it sounds charming and meaningful. Our New Year's Day custom is that each person at the table takes a spoonful of black-eyed peas from the dish, we all hold hands as we have the Blessing, and then each person slowly and solemnly puts one pea onto the plate of each other person. It's a little sharing ceremony that we've been doing since way before Chris was part of our family---when the children were little, each would carefully coax a pea onto his spoon, then gravely offer it to the next person in turn, all around the table, til we all had shared our wealth and health and all the joys and travails of being a big loving family. And sometimes, when we have extra visitors on Christmas Eve for our customary Pinto-Beans-and-Cornbread supper, we also swap beans, just for the idea of sharing, though the custom is not quite so enchanting. And perhaps my clock chimes faster than your own, but I smile at the idea of people in costume or formal dress, downing all those grapes in rapid succession. Brings back a lovely memory of a day at the Zoo; after our lawn picnic, we strolled with some of the leftovers in a big net market bag. One of the most delightful experiences of my life was sitting on the grass, holding grape after grape on my outstretched palm, as a peacock in full regalia swallowed them one by one in the Summer sunlight. And I repeat: Lovely idea. Please keep us up-to-date on the plans and the feat.

There's been a lot of talk about TRADITIONS with all the holidays going on, and the food on the table is as integral a part of celebration in most families as the gathering, the music, the decor, the ritual of celebration and the participants. Would it not be feasible to ask the people who are going to eat the feast? Most people would be delighted to have a lovely Chinese dinner or Mexican fiesta, but not necessarily in PLACE of their regular, expected Christmas dinner. And they might dislike/resent/be unpleasantly surprised and disappointed by having to go along with the unexpected, and by the loss of something they have come to count on. So it can't hurt to ask.