racheld

Lovely words and pictures, all, and to all a Good Night. rachel

Susan---Please elaborate on that exquisite souffle---though its lack of elaboration was part of its charm...the simplicity of that golden cake, caught at the moment of risen perfection---oh, my. And served on MY pink plate, as well. Small change in our projected Saturday dinner...I opted for another serving of the pasta rustica from our lunch---fresh tomatoes, snipped basil--almost the last of both crops, brought in amidst decidedly chilly breezes and showers, the soggy leaves forbearing to crackle underfoot, but making their way into the house upon damp feet. Chris ate both little lamb racks, with a generous spoonful of an eerie-green mint jelly, the bottom third of the little jar; it emerged from the very cold back of the fridge with a crisp inch of pale-green sugar paste on top. A quick scrape of that into the garbage, and removal of errant sugarcrumbs. I STILL cannot grasp putting a Wrigley's taste onto smoked meat, but our differences just make life ever more interesting. He also made a detour past the simmering pot of pear preserves on his way back to the den, piling the warm little slivers atop his slice of buttery poundcake.

Not a sign exactly, but this was a description on a menu hanging in the WINDOW of a Chinese restaurant: General Tso's Chicken---Tender slices of chicken, breaded and fried, then sauteed in our chef's sweat and sour hot sauce. Yum.

Dammit, Daniel!!! Don't just KEEP on keepin' on!!! I did ok, just a small ladylike salivation til I got to that chocolate whatzit---could be death AND decadence, take your pick. You do beat all. Tonight is little what-would-be racks of lamb, but they came without the fancy bones...just the little chops, still boned together like they grew. Big baked potatoes in the oven, with sour cream, minced chives and grated Colby-jack awaiting. "Blue" slaw---paper-thin-shredded purple cabbage, minced three-color peppers in a sweet-sour vinaigrette. And "the" jar of plain old mint jelly, bought a couple of years ago, and resurrected from the depths of the fridge when Chris brings home lamb--at least HE likes it. It's like eating barbecued toothpaste. And you say the camera? THE camera?---try about four dozen, none of which I can man responsibly. They range from 1940's accordion types to digitals, with all kinds in between, including a big ole 1910 breadbox-sized black one on a stand, complete with the black flappy headcovering thing. But F-stop Fitzgerald out manning the grill will happily snap pics of any and all dishes I put before him.

A First-Really-Chilly night's dinner: Chris started with a cup of leftover shrimp/crab/okra gumbo, made yesterday by Dear Son #2, brought over this a.m. Quick-seared thick pink slices of ham steaks, snugged between sliced croissants made fresh this a.m. by Dear Daughter. A shared baked sweet potato, with brown sugar/vanilla butter smushed in. Snow peas, grape tomatoes and crisp cucumber sticks with dill raita. No dessert yet---a cup of decaf caramel latte for me. Friday Night SciFi lineup. One year ago today I joined eGullet. (And didn't post til January---odd).

My first post was in this thread; today's a year since I joined eG, and for some reason, I didn't chime in until nearly the end of January...but that broke the ice, and I've been very wordy since. This is a FUN place to play!!

But his allegiance to Second Breakfast does the Shire proud. And the Natty peanut butter---that must be the SMOOOOTH kind, in a nice silk suit and a dashing pocket square, spats optional. Loving all the sprouts references and recipes.

Dairy Queen had this on their sign tonight: Dilly Bars. Buy 6, Get 10 Free. I've been meaning to ask: What's a Dilly Bar? Should I have stocked up?

I don't have any New York restaurants to suggest---never been there, hope to go someday. But I love this blog, and would like to ask about that second picture up there---did you make something REALLY good with those, or did you just go the easy route and settle for a box of Dragonfoot Helper? rachel

How did I miss this!!!???!!! I joined eG at exactly this time last year, and never saw a bit of this thread. Just read (and gazed. And drooled) all the way through. Everything looks just wonderful, and I want to climb up on that cakestand and walk right into the dark vastness of that Devil's Food Cake. Wow. rachel

YESSS!! She's a beloved 40's/50's Franklin behemoth which turned out big hot lunches for the elementary school my oldest attended, feeding several generations of loud, elbows-and-knees hungry children the meat and potatoes and beans and cornbread they were accustomed to at home. When she reached retirement age in the early 90's, she was relegated to a storage area with a much larger model, an eight-burner, double-oven Garland in once-shiny steel, vs. the more humble six-burner, WIDE-oven dumpy black, steel-handled version that became mine, with her shiny red handles and big warming shelf above. My Dad was a local treasure, able to measure and make any and all shelves, walls, doors, and the furniture to fill them. He gladly donated a lot of time and talent to the several schools, and they called on him quite often. One day, he was there doing some work, spied the two stoves and asked a price. The lady said she didn't have a price, couldn't sell them, didn't even have a FORM with which to record the transaction if she COULD do so. Then a couple of days later, she called, said she'd talked it over with the Board, and they asked that he haul them to his workshop, call and give them an estimate of what it would take to get them in topnotch working order, and they would say, "Oh, that's too much---would you be so kind as to dispose of them for us?" And so he did, and they did, and here we have ours---Sis got the big guy, nestling its broad shoulders into a custom-made (by Dad, of course) brick alcove at the end of her huge new kitchen, with a great swooping archway above, and a vent hood you could upend and roast an ox in. Mine must have been set upon a raised platform, because in its natural state, it's almost munchkin-height, much wider than tall, so #1 Son, a welder by trade, made a lovely black metal platform which could support an elephant, should I ever wake and wander sleepily into the kitchen and find one scavenging peanut butter. And it gets hot. The three big individual plates on top, each of which holds two burners, is cast iron, enameled to a shiny gleam, and with the pilot lights on, kept a steady glow in the kitchen that spread into the rest of the downstairs to an uncomfortable level. So now, I use one of those clever clicker thingies, but the oven pilot is something else---requires removing racks and bottom cover, kneeling in a grotesque position, lighting the little blue flame with one hand and keeping your other thumb on an oddly-located button for a count of 45, or entire paralysis of that arm, whichever comes first. Lighting the thing is like playing twister in an Iron Maiden. It does get hot, so it's just now been put to use for the first time this summer. We had a lovely many-pepper shreds, fresh mozza, basil, and no sauce pizza the other night, and it officially ushered in Autumn. Soon the ranks of casseroles and breads and coffeecakes and homemade rolls will make their way through this old oven, with its memories of schoolchildren and their days of youth. Just smelling the great bounty that emerges from that wide creaky door brings back lovely memories. If it weren't so late in the morning, I'd go put in a big old black skillet of cathead biscuits.

Okay, Daniel. You're the youngest of the pack, the adventurous traveler, a terrific photographer, and you found a dead-on recipe for collards that I've never heard of? Too much of a good thing. PLEASE post the gratin recipe SOMEWHERE. Miss Martha would kill for that gorgeous salad, the marrow course is sublime, the coffee-marinated steak looks divine, but the COLLARDS, Daniel, the Collards!! By the way, what is the age limit for adoption in your state? If you're interested, that is...Older couple in search of another son---haven't mentioned it to my photographer Hubby, but when he sees that Witches' Brew Garlic Soup pic, he'll be thrilled. My, My, Young Man. How you do go on.

Second recipe: "...using a round can, cut thin, round wedges of the cake." Something is amiss in Gotham. How does one accomplish that odd shape, exactly? And in the cheesecake directions---press a can or round cutter into the center of cheesecake. Then pile on a tablespoon of fruit. Does one leave the old Minute Maid tin just sticking there like an errant piebird? Do you cut out pieces like cookies and serve them forth? Cut out the center to resemble a tube cake and fill THAT with the mingy tablespoon of fruit? I'd hate to work in that kitchen if those were the only directions toward the finished product. Take this as from someone who's not above buying a nice Eli's and gussying it up with fresh strawberries and loopings of whipped cream, then setting it out there on Mammaw's best cutglass cakestand like manna from Heaven. But if the chef is aspiring to author a cookbook, I'd gently advise: DQYDJ.

That's so interesting to me--all here in the same country--such a diversity in Ways as well as Means. Wish you could just spell out a day, where your searches take you, etc. Hey!!! Powers That Be!!! Give Blovi a Blog!!!

Where on Earth did you find those where you live? And was the price above rubies? Lucky you---I try to imagine sometimes where New Yorkers who live in the midst of all that hustle-bustle and the great buildings and all that bounty of things-to-do laid out like a banquet actually SHOP for groceries. My imagination conjures a small oasis in which a Kroger or even an A&P sits smiling on a little block all its own, shaded by the shadows of towering Wall Street and all the business giants, beckoning with plenty of parking and friendly hometown faces and weekly specials on Sirloin and canned peas. The logistics of buying and carting home all the groceries we are accustomed to casually picking up at our local markets must be boggling in a land of skyscrapers and so much paved land. My smalltown mind just wanders to a rooftop laid out with a market laden with all manner of foodstuffs, soaring above all the hurry below, awaiting any and all who care to ascend and buy. I see the small stores depicted in movies and television, in which customers drape a small plastic basket over an arm and pick bottles of olive oil and wine from shelves not laden, but offering small room to each variety of their wares. Where are the wide aisles, the two-baskets-passing room, the pyramids of produce, the hairnet ladies proffering new tastes in fluty cups? Those images and realities are so much a part of my own life in the market and the kitchen and cooking for my family and friends, my experience colors my ideas of city food-gathering. The cliche one-paper-bag with carrot tops limply draped over the top, held in one elbow-crook, hand grasping the crinkle-papered sheaf of flowers, whilst the apartment-dweller fishes in purse for doorkey to home has been thrust upon the movie-going public for far too long. Whichever of the above applies to your own grocery-buying, could you elaborate? I've always wondered. Sorry for the hijack---peanuts in Manhattan, and plants as well---now that's an image worth saving.

That banana dish is just BEYOND. Could you elaborate on the recipe, please? And what is in the mortar? My old-family-tradition mind wants it to be loaf sugar, being crushed in the old way, to snow down upon the spices and other good things. And the bananas just melt into that smooth mauve layer, easy to remove from the pan in those lovely perfect slices? Amazing. Tell more.

I wonder what Paradise tastes like. But they're right to use only grains; large quantities--say a teaspoon--would be too overwhelming for a novice. But we all need to try some. Here's our chance.

I've been meaning to ask what everyone WOULD recommend in lieu of Olive Garden? Without living in or constantly visiting each others' cities, how would you KNOW where to find good Italian? OG seems to be the top of the food chain (so to speak) in the list of what's everywhere, so I guess I'm asking how do you tell WHERE to go, and what might be delightful or authentic or even just acceptable? Is the idea to shun OG on principle, on experience, on what-will-everyone-think grounds? I've been twice since we've lived here---my dear Daughter-In-Law likes it and chooses it for her birthday dinner on occasion, so we all go and have a wonderful time. And I was venturing to think we had a pretty good meal, until the great outcry showed me the error of my ways. (But I copied that tangy-tart vinaigrette and make it all the time). Not every city has a Mario or a Lydia, and mere mention of Fazzoli's would bring on a Klingon discommodation ritual, so WHERE DO YOU ALL EAT??? Sheesh---you'd think we were going to Sandra Lee's for dinner.

I don't know how I missed this thread when it started, but I just turn my back for one second and you kids start up the naughty talk again. My My. A few weeks after Chris and I first met, he called and said he'd be in the area one night that week, and why didn't we drive into Memphis and have dinner. It was REALLY cold, and mid-afternoon of our date day, it started to snow---not just little old pee-diddly snow like we were accustomed to every couple of years, but a real live snowstorm, with flakes flying sideways and covering the cars in the parking lot at my office. This was a couple of years before cell phones, and knowing that he'd be on the road, I called his answering service and left the message that it was too snowy to drive all that way, and would he just settle for fried chicken by the fire. The perky little voice on the phone said, "Where ARE you??? I WILL!!!!" He came to visit, and we had the delicious chicken and mashed potatoes, then slices of lemon icebox pie. So, quite a few years later, he finally learned that I'd gotten one of those fancy double-wide electric skillets for Christmas, had never used it yet, and my daughter had fried the chicken whilst I had a bubble bath and got all primped up for the evening. So would this be considered fraudulent enticement? We were married five months later, and he still LOVES fried chicken.

I don't know how I missed this line on first reading---I have a family recipe---foolproof---for making this far-from-perfect concoction into a slithery, smoomy mess that even the two dogs present ran from. Directions: Bring two cans of FRENCH cut green beans, a can of mushroom soup, a can of cheese soup, and a can of onion rings to the church hall wherein your parents' 50th anniversary is being celebrated for the afternoon. It's a great party, with a nice family pitch-in, potluck, bring-a-dish dinner scheduled for six p.m. Wear your tightest white dress and your most teetering stilettos. Saunter into the kitchen just as the party cleanup is getting into full swing, with all your sisters-in-law carting in massive trays to wash, punchbowls to empty, vast amounts of napkin litter and empty glasses and plates. Ignore all that work...it's not about YOU. Plunk down your groceries and set up your mise en place in the middle of the dishwashing area, elbowing everyone out of the way and demanding a can opener---after all, it's THEIR church, not yours. Ask for a bowl. Open every drawer to find a spoon, ditto with the elbows to the unwary. Open your cans; drain the beans by opening them halfway, tipping them upside down, and banging the can against the side of the sink. Dump all cans into the bowl and stir. Remember with a shocked gasp that SOME of the onions should be saved to garnish the top. Use that nice manicure to fish out as many pieces as have not been entirely drowned in the soup/bean mixture. Stir some more---the dish depends entirely upon the amalgamation of all the ingredients. Ignore the fact that the mushy, tender bean shreds are falling into a gloppy mass amidst that gray/brown/goldish soup and clots of onion. Stir til the net result is a greenish-gray algae-like mass, heaving little "puh" sounds from the bottom of the bowl. Ask somebody else where they keep the Pam. Spray a wide-sweeping spray all across and into your little flat flimsy disposable pan. Pour in the green stuff and scatter the bedraggled onion bits across the top. Ask how to turn on the oven. Slide the pan in to the very center of the center rack (never mind anyone else who needs to heat a casserole or bake anything), set the timer, wipe your fevered, exhausted brow and leave that hot kitchen for a breath of fresh air. Leave your bowl, spoon, scraper, the Pam and its lid, and all four cans beside the yukky-bladed can opener on the counter, marooned in an oily sea of mis-sprayed Pam. They've got all that cleaning in progress---a little more won't be noticed. When it's time for dinner, the tables are set and everything is on the buffet, tear yourself away from your conversation and retrieve your pan from the oven. Put a BIG mitt on each hand and gingerly pick up the steaming, jiggling pan; shoulder your way out the kitchen door into the dining room, carrying your prize with a grip on each side. See the pan start to bend in the middle, beginning to form a sort of fireman's helmet effect, with the contents threatening to breach the shrinking dam. Run in haltery little steps, as best you can in pencil-skirt and impossible heels, skittering along with the pan held farther and farther in front of you, keeping it away from your dress, racing for the setting-down place as it sags, then collapses as it strikes the table, to pour out a pool of vomitous green goo onto the Battenburg. Angels do watch over cooks. But dishwashers' prayers are answered, as well.

Magical words. A haunting, hysterically funny piece---Lagerfeld's muffinbutt will be the stuff of uneasy dreams for many. This guy nails preposterone to the wall. I'm not Rakoff's type--I'm female and married---but I think I've got a crush.

Exquisitely phrased, Margaret. C'est vrai, in most circumstances, and especially in this case. I totally agree.

I've made all our usual salad dressings for many years...don't think we've purchased a bottle since we got married. Honey French is made in the blender, to attain the proper alignment and amalgamation of oil, honey, vinegar, and paprika. All others are stirred up with a whisk and stored away in those cute pop-top Glad disposables. Even the lids sometimes match the color of the dressing. Chris' favorite is a very sweet 1000, beginning with a vinegar/sugar/spices mixture which began life in the 40's as the juice that our family's sweet pickles were canned in. I still make the odd case or two of lime pickles now and again, depending upon the supply of those little fat cukes, but occasionally just put on a quart of the mixture by itself, a simple syrup, almost, with just the merest THOUGHT of the fragrance of allspice and clove. It boils away for a few minutes before decanting into the jar, filling the house with the scent of summer cannings. This, too is stored in the fridge, in a nice glass jar, and is pulled out every couple of weeks when the supply of "pink dressing" runs low. It's a simple stirring together of the juice, a squirt of ketchup, a crushed/minced clove of garlic or two, and a hearty glop of Hellman's--just enough to make a lovely satiny pourable dressing. It can segue into "Oriental' with the drop of a bit of dark sesame oil stirred in, and perhaps a disc or two of ginger, to lend its exotic air to chicken salads with water chestnuts and those crispy little noodles, or to duplicate but improve those Benihana salads with the ultra-crisp lettuce and pool of pink water in the bottom. Dill dressing is made ditto with the salty, vinegary tang of the brine poured from dill pickles, with added garlic, mayo to the proper consistency, and a great shower of fresh snipped dill. We've even been known to add a good handful of Maytag crumbs to this mixture, for dip or for dressing a nice romaine or even a plebeian old iceberg wedge. Regular blue cheese dressing is salt, pepper, lemon juice, a bit of vinegar, the ubiquitous Hellman's, thickened to taste with as much cheese as desired. Lovely with celery sticks, snow peas, grape tomatoes for dipping on a summer evening porch. Vinaigrette is vinaigrette, with as many recipes are there are cooks---we keep several, with more grainy mustard, or less oil, or balsamic, or a teensy drib of maple syrup or orange zest. There must be ten containers in the fridge at this moment, each homemade, each somebody's favorite. They will disappear over the next few weeks, to be replenished with a fresh box of whatever strikes our fancy. It may be poppyseed, with a nice cut of onion, some oil, sugar and vinegar, whirled an extravagantly long time in the blender, its whirlpool thickening into a humming, slurping syrup, a smooth, unforgettable dressing with its little punctuation marks of tiny dark seeds. Or Italian, with blender-whizzed roasted red peppers, garlic bits, and cracked pepper, heavy on the vinegar. There's even a sour cream or cream cheese recipe or two (one calling for minced shrimp and horseradish); another starts with finely chopped hard-boiled egg yolks, into which lemon juice and oil are beaten until it's thick and falling in ribbons from the whisk, or your arm wears out, whichever comes first. (I suspect that this one came from the same woman whose cook was expected to beat a particular pound cake batter for four hours. I'm sure she saw the error of her ways---cake is just cake; a good cook is beyond price). We are all salad people--some of us like just a glisten on the leaves; others are of the glop-it-on persuasion. There is an onion-in-everything camp and a no-cukes- in-mine, please, contingent. We like vegetables raw, steamed or roasted, served cold or room temperature or warm, dressed with whatever dressing serves them best. We like meat salads and egg salads, fruits and fish; handfuls of herbs and great tearings of greens. In the South, there's ALWAYS something green or crisp or tartly pickled or brined on the table, even if it's just a bowl of cold cucumbers in a little splash of vinegar. Uh-huh. Toss it or not---I like salad.

I stand in awe. I practically genuflect. Wow and WOW!!! All of Y'all have just outdone yourselves. EVERYBODY take a bow. One hearty applau from the Heartland!! Susanna, your courses could draw in the jaded French Laundry devotees in droves, tingling their tastebuds and kick-starting their ennui-blunted appetites. Just marvelous. Not to mention beautiful and amazingly presented. Daniel---you ain't just a good driver in search of a sandwich. I've been meaning to comment on the chocolate cake---I call those "sloopy" cakes, sort of a cross between loopy swirls and a generous hand with the sloppy application that just goes way beyond artfully-applied fondant or preciously-presented perfection. It pointed up the accessibility of it, the touch-a-finger-and-lick temptation that brings memories of my Mammaw's best cake and my favorite birthday and the candy bar that I shared on the porch with that cute guy in sixth grade. Just beautiful. And all your other dishes...you have a great gift. And Megan of the glorious salads---I love looking forward to what you're doing next. And so with Rooftop and chufi and LMF and all the rest of you photo-mavens and wonderfully cuisinically-talented people...You've MADE my MONDAY. I've gotta learn to use some of these cameras Chris is acquiring. I coulda had a Mercedes by now. Great work, everyone!!! rachel

Southern contingent checking in here--------iceberg was a store-bought lettuce, the only kind available for more than half the year. But oh, our gardens put out salad greens of the best kinds: baby lettuces and chicory and the tenderest little emerald ears of spinach; tiny leaves of mustard and chard and even collards, when picked at their smallest (a feat which had to be snuck past Papa, our own Mr. McGregor, on guard against all marauders, even those who set his own dinnertable). I look at the arrays of mache and endive and all the tiniest greens displayed in our supermarkets, languishing midst the exotic fruits and vegetables, the cactus ears and the shining hands of ginger, as foreign to most of the shoppers as betel nut and taro. But these small-picked leaves of lettuce and spinach, the spiky pale chicories, the crisp spears of romaine hearts, these were the salads of my raising. Even the bitter little mustard leaves were grabbed five minutes before noon dinner, swished through three cool rinses, spun wildly in a windmill motion in a clean cotton pillowcase by whatever kid happened by at the moment, then placed in the big wooden salad bowl, to be tossed with crisp bacon, golden shards of boiled egg, some rounds of just-slivered green onions, whites and all, and the heated bacon fat, swirled with a dash of salt, a few grinds of pepper, and a good glug of red wine vinegar. The hot dressing was sizzled on at the last moment, the top layer of leaves and onion shriveling from the crisping blast, and the whole thing tossed into a warmish, salty, dark green mass with pings of gold and a good vinegary tang. It qualified as a mess of greens and a salad, all at once---all your vitamins and iron and good fortifying onion breath in one bowl. The half-cup or so of drippings left in the bottom of the bowl were so delectable that someone would crumble a piece or two of cornbread into the bowl, tossing the crumbs, and passing the bowl around again for everyone to retrieve a luscious spoonful of the dregs. Lovely. And from somewhere in there, I remember a Good Seasons called Exotic Herbs. Though it was made from a packet of powder, in the little glass "cruet" provided in the special box, and one of the main ingredients was water carefully measured "up to the line," I STILL wish they made that wonderful flavor combination in their present market. I CRRRRRRave to taste that dressing again. Iceberg wedges with homemade blue cheese dressing, layered iceberg with bacon and water chestnuts and celery and scallions, with little punctuating lines of golden egg yolk and bright thawed green peas in the layers---all this crowned with a mixture of mayonnaise and sharp cheddar shreds, to be displayed to an admiring audience before tossing at table---that was for special occasions. And cafeteria-line "combination salad" with the requisite hunk of cucumber, tomato, red onion ring, and the daring addition of perhaps a black olive or two, with a little fluty cup of thousand or French enclosed under the clear wrap---those were as expected as the stuffed peppers and green beans with onion rings farther down the line. Show of hands---Wooden salad bowl and set of six/eight mini-clones---with the caveat that the big one should be rubbed with a clove of garlic before dressing was made in the bottom, and NEVER wash the big bowl. Anybody get in on that bit of rural legend? And it's not a tossed salad, but one neighbor who ate with us from time to time had the habit of surveying the diners, asking if everyone were finished. He would then pull the tomato platter toward him, with its leavings of tomato slices or quarters, onion crescents, perhaps a few cucumber rounds or pickles or olives. He would move his plate out of the way, set to with his knife and fork in the manner of a Daddy cutting up his child's dinner, and neatly cut every remainder on that platter in bite-size pieces. He salted it well, clopped on a big scoop of Blue Plate mayo (always in a little cut-glass dish on our summer table), and even if we'd had rolls or spoonbread or cornbread, he'd get up and go get the crackly-wrappered loaf of Wonder Bread. He'd stir that vegetable/mayo mixture, letting the juices run pinkly all onto the platter, then lay down a precise tiling of bread slices, sometimes five or six, pressing them down well, then cut them in the same manner, making a great gooey pile of pink-coated bread with little bits of tomato and green and white all through. He was a small, slender man, but even after a big dinner of fried chicken and peas and cornbread and vegetables, he would eat every bite of his special afterdinner concoction. We would go ahead and clear, serve dessert and coffee, and he would still be munching his way through that mass of pink and red. And I tasted it once. It was wonderful. Then he'd have pie.