racheld

Does anyone else read this thread at 1 a.m.? I'm trying to think what savory item I can go cook without waking the entire household. Yummmmmeeeee.

Red Velvet Cake---cream cheese frosting with chopped PECANS in it. Dear Daughter commissioned a pastry chef friend to make one for our Easter lunch (10 at table). It was a marvel of four layers (2 splits) of moist, deeply red cake with creamy, tangysweet frosting. He had levelcut the layers while still in the pans, crumbled the shavings, made dust of the crumbs, toasted them, then used them to hand-apply lovely scallops up the sides. Eight fluffy rosettes graced the top, almost too high to fit under the cake dome. We cut it early, as some of the friends arrived in town on Friday; after our grilled steaks and portas, many avid glances went toward the gorgeous cake, so we said what the heck, and cut it. After seeing the split layers with frosting as thick as the cake, I served medium-thin slices, which were oh, so rich and filling. Then we offered a choice of red velvet or lemon cheesecake after Easter lunch. NO ONE turned down the red velvet, though several opted for a "little of both," as is usually the case at dessert time. Above DD requested four slices to take to work, as they had seen it in all its pristine glory as it was delivered. After all that slicing and serving, one double-slice was still standing when we all retired for the night; during the late hours, that valiant cake gave up the ghost, and was collapsed into a heap of mingled colors when we rose in the morning. We made espresso, gathered round with small forks, lifted the lid one last time. Three bites each, a few careful scrapes of the icing smears, and we bade farewell to an old southern tradition, beautifully done by a Hoosier from a Mississippi recipe. And do you know what he had said to her when he delivered it? "I've got 17.50 in the ingredients---would $25.00 be too much?" She insisted on at least doubling the ingredient cost, and well worth it, it was...I think we counted 24 servings. Lovely cake.

Lan4Dawg: You took me HOME!!! Throw in the smell of dirt turned by a tractor four fields away, the swish of firstgreen weeping willow sweeps, the jeweled pages of a Burpee catalog, the peepfrog symphonies at sundown, and the morning mist over the miles-away treeline, and you must have lived in Mississippi. Thanks, Fellow Worm-Mover and Bee Watcher

Hmmm. Seems--on this thread at least--time doesn’t heal all wounds after all. Clearly, on their next anniversary you'd better give them the matching neck chain . . . So, will it be the carrot or the stick for those whose sole daily uptake of oxygen lies in being late? The pointy end of the stick, of course. Especially if you plan your next dinner party along the lines of The Amazing Race, Part 8. Prize for the last place couple? Well, they automatically miss the vintage Sauternes and foie en croute, replaced by curling vegetable crudités: carrot as stick! Pair instead with that weak-kneed Chablis left over from your wife’s book club. The one that’s been keeping the fridge light company since last July—with the Saran wrap plug. Other punitive measures? Never, ever appease their guilty, if passive-aggressive, consciences—especially if they bring something expensive or rare. Do not open the wine they waited an hour to show off to the dearly assembled. Do not become their hostage. No, whisk it away, still in its poncy bag, and serve it the next time you go boating, when, of course, they’re still on the dock. Then thank them, vociferously, with a little haiku on your best notepaper come Monday—“loved the Petrus, sure missed you.” If they’re really late to the party, they get the thin end of the roast. The part well past rare. But there are even better punishments for the chronically tardy. Our favourite: Very low toilet paper reserves. Or, for recidivists, we arrange to sit them beside our corporate auditor, a man who could bore for Canada despite his self-professed love for balsa wood modeling. ← I WANNA SUBSCRIPTION to the magazine!!!! Just for your wit and wisdom. Instructions, please. rachel

Baked chicken. Fried chicken. Rice. Candy. Cake. Cheesecake. Steamed or stir-fried vegetables. FUUUUUDDDDGE. Salads. Salad dressings, vinaigrette or creamy. Baked potatoes. Chou pastry, puff pastry. Sauces. Pickles. Pretty food. Pie crust. Italian anything. Curry. (It's never worth one-boy)

My hubby made gorgeous chive-and-gravlax scrambled eggs last week, made creamier by the addition of extra-rich Coffeemate. French Vanilla Coffeemate.

Two of the fastest-to-go items at all the military teas I remember are the cinnamon cigarettes, a soft, creamy confection, easy to make in great quantities, layer and freeze, and the lemon poppyseed loaves, made in the smallest loaf pans and sliced into perhaps four portions. The loaves are the moistest, lemony-est cake I've ever tasted. These are easily made in mini-cupcake tins. And we always store our Christmas "wedding" cookies in large cannisters of powdered sugar. Just before serving, we shake them gently in a colander set over another cannister. Beautifully fresh, and they never develop sugar-loss spots. The neatest mini-cheesecakes are made by dropping one vanilla wafer or lime wafer flatside down into mini-cupcake papers (I use the foil ones). Fill with your favorite batter and bake. Old-fashioned lace cookies rolled around a wooden spoon, then filled with buttercream frosting. Puff pastry spread with a mixture of almond paste, egg white and powdered sugar, topped with another sheet of pastry, cut into strips, then twisted twice to make bows before baking. Palmiers with colored sugar instead of plain. And chocolate-dipped strawberries; dip, let harden, then dip tip or one side into pastel-colored white chocolate.

can I have some of what you've been ingesting, please? ← Saadi.

Does ambience (lack of) or welcome (hardly any) count? Perhaps this would be "Worst TIME you ever had in someone's home." Several years ago, a man who worked with my husband in a government office still owned his home here, though his family lived in DC, where he worked for most of the year. His contract with the people who rented his house here entitled him to a room there whenever he was in town. Being a bachelor of sorts, he was invited to our home to dinner countless times over a couple of years; he ate and drank and thoroughly enjoyed all his meals here, and was certainly a complimentary guest. Then, perhaps feeling the one-sidedness of the situation, he invited us to his home for dinner one Summer evening. Our college-age daughter was here at the time, so he included her in the invitation. We arrived at the appointed time, to be greeted by our "host" and the male occupant of the home---a burly, hairy man in a vest-no-shirt ensemble with enough bling to make glad the heart of Mr. T. We sat on the patio and were entertained by Blingman with tales of his jewelry purchases, his Cadillac shopping and how much money he had flung at the cable people to obtain the upcoming Tyson fight. Finally a meek young woman came out with seven small children in tow. They surrounded us, talking and playing; our daughter engaged them in several games and rhymes, while the woman fired up the grill, then started cooking a platter of hamburger patties. Neither of the "men of the house" made any effort to assist her, even when she had to change the gas tank. My husband jumped up to help, got her all squared away, and she called the children and they all disappeared inside. I had asked if I could do anything to help; she invited me into the kitchen, and handed me a knife, an onion and two tomatoes to slice. While I was slicing, she mentioned that only the oldest child was hers, the rest were her day-care group. Since most of their mothers were strippers at a bar near their house, she had children for twenty-four hours a day, with pickups at all hours of the night. She was so tired, and so obviously did NOT want us there, I could not imagine what we should do to alleviate her stress---take our leave and thus give her insult as well as the injury our "friend" had inflicted on her? My heart just broke for that mousy creature, living with that loud, greedy braggart who used her hard-earned money to buy all that useless trappery. When I finished my slicing chores, she said to just go on back out and she'd call us when it was ready. She came back out to retrieve the burgers and went back into the house. After about a fifteen minute interval, she sent the oldest child out to say, "She says you can come eat if you want to." We five trooped into the kitchen; the table had one empty space amongst all the children eating their dinner. The gracious host took that one. The woman took her plate to the only clear counter space; there were four buns left, plus four patties, three tomato slices, and no onion. A jar of mayonnaise with a handle-smeared knife protruding was the only condiment. Since our plates were the strength and consistency of notepaper, we scooched all the way into the next room to find a place to put them down. First time we ever ate dinner off a washing machine.

SNOWANGEL: How was lunch? Probably more importantly, how's the plumbing? rachel

The BEAN BUNDLES!!! I had totally forgotten the bean bundles!!! The reference to the 1890 French dressing brought back the whole redneck debacle, the era of fifteen casserole dishes, lined up in regiments at every church supper for the entire decade, each holding prim little shocks of whole canned green beans, marinated in the "eighteen NINE-y French." They were distinguished only by the doneness of the bacon wrapped around the bundles, and the sauce, greedily spooned up and over mashed potatoes, rice, etc., by the congregants, was a slightly-reduced residue of the dressing with great floatings of bacon grease. I do confess my allegiance to and descent from that group of hardy, plain cooks whose repertoires were enhanced by any new use for mushroom soup or Kool Whip. Were I to include that recipe in the worst meal, etc., of my dining-out history, I could blather on all night, including also cheesy potatoes, four-layer deelight and sawdust salad--they all were bits and pieces of culinary evolution where I come from, and were staples on the feed-the-preacher circuit. Those cooks had at least the excuse of lack of exposure, of a sort. These people you're writing about profess experience, taste and knowledge unheard of in the cooking of my roots. I just bless 'em all, those alchemists of Campbell's mushroom, and am glad to be of and from the clan. But those BEAN BUNDLES!!! rachel

We don't eat swans because they're not bread, but hyacinths. rachel

Dreamy descriptions---would that I could taste and enjoy. I had previously asked the question, "did you like your first sip?" and then said (bemoaned) that I have no "palate" and all vintages are lost on me, to my great regret. When friends are enjoying a bottle or two, speaking of tastes and aromas and cedars and grasses, dusty hillsides warm with sun, I often think of a short story I read many years ago---in a magic kingdom, all but the visitor could hear the music. He COULD, however, have a spell cast so that he could enjoy the melodies just ONCE, then forevermore be deaf to the glorious strains. His dismay and laments and great sense of longing and loss after his short moment of hearing were just heart-wrenching. I have not, yet, had my TASTE; I do hope for that moment in which I raise a glass and experience the bliss of which you so eloquently speak. Orange peel---vinyl---custard. What a tempting array awaiting you with every sip. I suppose I'll just have to settle for chocolate.

And I have a recipe for a GORGEOUS woven basket made of those breadsticks-in-a-can. It makes a spectacular bowl (with or without lid) for a salad of baby lettuces, strawberries and citrus vinaigrette.

I was about to suggest the Litterbox cake---someone brought one to a WEDDING SHOWER with a TACKY theme. It was hilarious, especially the bit casually draped over the edge. I've also seen a cake stacked and frosted as a cheeseburger, complete with lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, pickles and an ooze of mustard. It was delicious. And chocolate.

Is your grocery store for real, or an inside foodtrade joke? Anyway, it was my laugh for the day. Along with zucchini handles---I keep imagining the little extra flab around the middles. I made a lovely chicken pot pie last night, with just chicken, baby peas and creamy-soft red-skinned yukon golds, under an egg-washed soft crust. Sides of baby carrots glazed with sugar, butter and Buttershot; tiny green limas which were gobbled by the handful by our youngest grandchild. Salad of iceberg and grape tomatoes with dilljuice ranch, and fruit kebabs with ricotta/turbinado dip. Sunday was tender, juicy country ribs from the grill (hubby's contribution), baby red potato salad, crusty brown-sugar baked beans with about a cup of shredded pastrami---I went looking in the fridge for an extra ingredient, and why not? And sweet onion sandwiches on Wonder Bread with Blue Plate mayo and salt. Tonight is fried catfish at the only place within 200 miles that makes it the real Southern way. rachel

Several years ago, I catered a dinner party for a group which had reserved a hall, with kitchen; everything else was to be delivered, cooked, and served by my staff. We arrived the agreed-upon three hours-before-cocktail-hour, set up everything, got the hors d's in place for a nice tableau to greet the arriving guests on the stroke of the hour. Staff was sharp, immaculate, ready to serve. Nobody arrived. Not for thirty minutes, then an hour, then the HOSTS drove up exactly an hour and forty minutes past the time we were supposed to start serving. We had spent that time looking out of windows, trying the phone number I had been given, checking our watches, and watching the shrimp mousse for signs of wiltage. I had put the trays into the freezer from time to time, just for safety's sake. THEN it was another fifteen minutes before the next couple, and folks started drifting in. FINALLY, after totally replacing ice, fruit, etc., we began serving the cocktail hour at a time far past that agreed upon for dinner seating. Fortunately, my husband had waited to put the tenderloins onto the outdoor grills until cocktails were being served, but the whole evening seemed one step behind. The guests thoroughly enjoyed themselves, ate a leisurely dinner and embarked on dessert more than three hours late. Dancing was beginning at midnight, as we finished clearing the dinner tables. I checked back onto our contract to see if I had signed on with the local chapter of Procrastinators, Inc. How all these chronically late people gravitated toward each other is a mystery past my solving. The host's explanation: "You just have to KNOW these people."

While expecting Son #1, my tastebuds found nothing better than the combination of Fritos---the ORIGINALS, those petrified salty ribbons--scooped first into Cheez Whiz, then into orange marmalade. I carried around a huge brandy snifter of ice water, parking it where it would be handy...but it's a wonder I didn't dessicate from the inside out. And coincidentally, several years ago, a popular wedding reception/party recipe consisted of grated cheese, garlic, mayo, formed in a ring mold and centered with a jar of strawberry jam. But more genteely served with dainty crackers.

Re: Salt over the shoulder: The Bad Boopies that hang around to do mischief cannot resist counting things---anything. The salt grains keep them occupied and they forget about YOU. You can borrow anything from a neighbor, but you NEVER pay back salt. A dime in the pot of New Year's Blackeye Peas brings good luck. In our family, each person at the table gives one pea to each other person, to share the luck. What's with the Bread-and-Butter thing when people separate to walk around an object?

That Trolley, by Golly, is a COOKING MACHINE!!! Who'd-a thought!? Just like the lovely breakfasts of our last trip---one of those down-to-the-restaurant for immense fortifications of sausages and beans and grilled tomatoes before hitting the bus for Yorkshire. And all from a piece of BATHROOM furniture? You're a genius. And now the pan of cinnamon rolls in my oven doesn't seem quite so interesting. rachel

A couple of weeks ago, we were attending an anniversary party at a hotel; our table of ten was "treated" to wine ordered and paid for by one of the other guests at the table. He shared it, he described it, and seemed happy for others to partake of his selection. BUT---it seemed a slap at the hosts, who had served their own selections to their whole roomful of guests. It seemed, if only by inference, that their choices were not good enough, or were not quite worthy of his own educated palate. Is this a new thing I just haven't noticed? And would you do it? rachel

Peanut butter, mashed banana, a dash of Aunt Jemima syrup...beaten together and spread on Wonder bread. And our school had an immense bowl of peanut butter/honey mixture right at the end of the food line, next to the split-open bags of Wonder Bread. I remember seeing some of the "country" children making five or six sandwiches of this. Could have been their only meal of the day. And WHERE in literature is the little vignette about the schoolchild who mentioned that the teacher brought her OWN lunch of a baguette with bits of chocolate scattered inside. It was wrapped in waxed paper and placed in the teacher's chair, where she sat on it until lunchtime, when it was eaten warm, squashed, and melty. Kind of a primitive panini, I suppose. The juxtaposition of that staid, dignified woman, clad in sensible suits and ladylike shoes, sitting all morning on a sandwich which she later consumed, fascinated both me AND the storyteller. ANYONE remember this?

You know how great a nice big honey/brown sugar-rubbed baked ham is? And how delicious smoked turkey becomes when honey butter is rubbed over it, and melted honey/butter is injected into the meat before smoking for several hours? Great ideas, right? Do not, on your life, try this with a turkey you intend to deep-fry. My husband is the world's greatest outdoor cook. He can grill anything, smoke it, pit barbecue it, deepfry it on all burners, but his talent fell prey to an error in judgement several years ago when he figured one is good and a combination will be even better. He melted the butter and honey, added spices and herbs and inoculated that turkey like it was traveling to a third-world country. And if you've hit every muscle once, and STILL have some of the liquid left, better use it up. That turkey went into that hot oil with a rumble not heard since Pompeii. It roiled up and almost out of the pot, subsiding just enough to lull him into a false security which lasted about ten minutes. That thing cooked FAST. The scent of burning cookies wafted into the house, and I opened the back door just in time to see a Cajun-blackened bird emerge magically from a pot which should have produced a golden, honey-fried one. Great clumps of char littered the surface; big black pocks sank into the flesh all over that bird---it looked like Tim Burton's Thanksgiving. As it started to cool just a teensy bit, the blackened drumsticks crumbled with little tik-tik sounds, falling like hunks of coal onto the plate. The wingtips, which had not been injected but were somehow contaminated by heat or transfer, fell into crisp ashes at the touch of a finger. At least I think that's what it sounded like. I was laughing too hard to hear it. The salvageable flesh was delicious---reminded me of that esoteric recipe for baking a whole truffle inside a potato buried in hot coals...then you throw away the charred potato and eat the truffle. One of those never-again experiments, an expensive, too-much-work venture for ten ounces of meat. And five years of teasing. rachel

Ivan: Hubby used to make a lot of wine and beer, studied a lot, etc., including accumulating all sorts of corks, labels, corking machines, bottle-cap smasher-on things...like that. The most memorable was a VERY hot day in June. We were at our Alabama house, way down on the coast, when he decided it was a perfect Sunday afternoon to begin the "Christmas Champagne." All the literature had promised that the six months would be a perfect aging span to achieve a wonderful bubble-to-bottle ratio. (Our library of brewing/winemaking books had reached epic proportions by then---when he takes up a hobby, he STUDIES!!!). We had a huge guest bathroom at the end of a long hall; cool, dark, quiet, it was seldom used except for extra guests, so he appropriated it as the perfect wineresting room. Even the labels, done in our daughter's perfect calligraphy, read, "Bainzimmer." So, after Sunday lunch, I finished up the dishes while he measured, sterilized, stirred. He filled the 7-gallon bottle to the appropriate line, carefully wiped and dried the surface of the bottle, and started down that LOOONNNNGGG hall. I had offered to help, but there's no way two people could have grasped that huge glass heaviness and walked together. I watched from the kitchen as his little short legs started to bend and bow, as he got lower and lower, then turned the corner into the door. I heard CLUNK!!! "S**t!!!!" Sploosh!!! and ran down the hallway to find the glass in several pieces, the floor flooded with several gallons of sugary, sticky syrup, and poor dear Hubby, standing regretfully, saying a fond farewell to the rest of the Christmas treat as it gurgled down the toilet. He had swung too wide as he entered the door, whacked the bottle on the side of the (lid-up) toilet, and sent quite a few dollars' investment to a watery grave. I ran for towels, he for the shop-vac. We got barefoot and waded into that sticky swamp; we slurped up two tanks full and stomped for hours. Pour on fresh water, vacuum that up; repeat. It lasted way on toward suppertime, and we kept at it til we thought maybe we'd cleaned it enough. The next morning, the carpet was stiffening like those weird flower-baskets our Moms used to crochet, then "starch" into shape with simple syrup (My sister's episode of gnawing one into a shapeless, hideous heap just before the WMU arrived for an afternoon social is another story altogether). By Tuesday, there was a decided "crunch" underfoot as you entered the door, and heretofore unseen splips and splashes of white crystalline flocking upon the wallpaper. The splatters succumbed to a thumbnail scrape, easy enough to remove, but there were THOUSANDS of them. And then the ants came. They attacked that nylon carpeting like Orks on Rohan, climbing the stiff shocks of it, gnawing and sucking and taking away their winter rations. There would be lines of them on the wallpaper, each crunching up and carrying off great crumbs of grapey sugar. Since the room was so far removed from the rest of the house, we just closed up and let them have at it---and they CLEANED THAT ROOM. The wallpaper was restored to its pristine smoothness, needing just a washdown with Fantastic. The rug regained its former soft texture, needing only a shampooing to remove my aversion to walking on antspit. And we had to BUY the Christmas champagne. rachel

I missed this thread, til today. I pulled out my "Cooking at Ballymaloe House" and it evoked memories of glorious cheeses, fresher-than-fresh vegetables that you could watch the cooks' helper bringing in one door, while another course was being put on the table. Heavy meats, but wonderful, I remember, and the lamb WAS, indeed, a sprouty little topiary of rosemary sprigs. No one ever heard of calories or carbs, as attested by one dish of "Champ" or Champit potatoes, which are a lovely mash with great lashings of sauteed green onions, heavy stand-a-spoon-in cream, all served with a great hole in the middle, into which goes about a cup of butter to melt and run all down through the dish with each subsequent dip of the spoon. The dessert cart was a marvel, with very dainty offerings, as well as good heavy cakes and more of that marvelous cream on everything. I chose a slice of orange torte, and it was the essence, the distillation, of all great oranges and their sun-heavy juices and zests--orange mousse and orange layers and whipped cream rosettes with candied peel. The server whacked into that beautiful cake like beheading an escaping fish, wedging off a great slice worthy of any king's table. The quivering chocolate mousse-cake was so tempting, and what the heck, we were only there once, so we shared a slice of that, as well. And the breads were all heavy, moist, buttery-delicious. One loaf was like an immense scone, filled with currants and sultanas and peel, sliced in half like a big shortcake, to be filled with another half-pound of butter and .......thick cream. Other pub-meals were meat-bread-potatoes, save for one incongruous "special" which was a panini filled with roasted peppers and sliced potatoes. Really good; and after several days of beef and lamb, one lunch of pad thai in ANOTHER pub was quite a change. Sorry---I'm straying, and remembering. Very few salad offerings; dressings in the book are made with sieved yolks and cream instead of vinegar and oil. Yesterday was a very busy workday, so we jumped the gun and had corned beef and rye takeout from our fave deli last night. Maybe one of those lovely Irish panini tonight........... And happy St. Pat's to everyone!! rachel