MelissaH

To answer a few questions from Smithy and *Deborah*: As far as we know, nothing nasty is hiding. At least, when we tore out the soffit on the other side of the kitchen to make the new fridge fit, we didn't get any nasty surprises. We do have attic above the kitchen, so if anything needs to be relocated we may be able to do it from above. We're also not averse to tearing out the kitchen down to subflooring and studs, if need be. Yes, we will be going from one corner to two. I hadn't thought a whole lot about what goes inside the corner, but I do remember reading about Varmint's Magic Corner and I like the idea. Varmint, if you're reading this, do you still like yours? Whatever we do, it must be better than the current teetery and sticky turntables! We're planning to grab an idea from some friends who remodeled their kitchen a couple of years ago. Right under the countertop, in about the top inch above whatever cabinets or drawers are there, they added a power strip. It lies just about flush with the surface of the cabinetry, hides nicely under the overhang, and gives them an outlet every four inches or so the whole length of their large island. I'm sure you couldn't use them all without tripping a circuit breaker, but it would be so nice to not have where you use your appliances dictated solely by where you can plug them in. Well, for one thing, it rattles. And I'm also perpetually petrified of being in the middle of cooking something, and having hot something splash onto the glass and the glass shatters into whatever I'm making. I don't know if it's tempered glass (did they do that 40 years ago?) but it's certainly not laminated or coated in any way: it's about a sixteenth of an inch thick. I'm also concerned about bashing it with a pan handle, particularly on the right side of the stove where there's no room to work, and doing it in that way. And finally, as I've discovered, it's somehow possible for stuff to get behind the glass, where you can't clean it off! My husband discovered something interesting yesterday as a possible backsplash option: Frigo Design. I'm hoping the company has a showroom, because they're in our neck of the woods. At this point I'm leaning away from stainless appliances, but I don't think I'd mind it or another metal for a backsplash. MelissaH

Here are some photos of the kitchen. This first photo was taken from the dining room area. Check out the faux brick walls and glass backsplash in the stove area! The semicircular shelves are just visible in the lower left corner of this photo. You can also see one of the two main sources of light: the circular fluorescent monstrosity on the ceiling. (Its twin is about where the semicircular shelf is.) What was the last year appliances were made in dark brown? Now, here's the view from the corner by the oven, looking toward the dining room. Here, you can see the two different floors, as well as the sliding glass door and the large window. We didn't choose the floral frilly window treatments. The big wooden thing at the bottom of the fridge is my pastry board, which lives in the space between the tall cabinet and the fridge. That's Lyon, crouched just inside the kitchen by the baseboard heater we'd ideally like to remove. He can also sometimes be found on top of the refrigerator...or curled up in the bathroom sink. Our kitchen sink. It's usually like this, the drainer half and counter to the left loaded with washed dishes in the process of drying. If it's really humid (we live about half a mile from Lake Ontario) we can sometimes accelerate things a bit by putting a box fan where the gigantic roll of plastic wrap usually lives. The fan is the only thing we've ever used that electric outlet for. There's a light hidden behind the wooden trim piece over the sink: one of two pieces that might be considered "task lighting" (the other is the lamp in the hood over the stove). We aren't big soffit people, and we'd like to take it out in favor of cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling. And finally, the work area. It's usually pretty cluttered, as it's really the only counter space in the whole kitchen. My husband made popcorn last night, hence the large bowl and the air popper in this morning's photo. We also put the dishes that have been rinsed but not yet washed in this area, close to the sink, because I'd prefer to do dishes in as few batches as possible. We try not to put anything in front of the microwave, so we can open the door without a problem. (The one exception: the coffeemaker.) When I want to use either the stand mixer or the food processor, I first clean up whatever's in the work area, even if it means doing dishes a second or third time that day. Then I haul the machine out from whatever cabinet it lives in, and move the toaster oven to accommodate my machine, and go about making whatever. Then, when it's time to shape or roll, I put the body of the machine back in its cabinet, stash the bowl in the sink to maximize available counter space, slide the toaster as far left as I can, and bring out the pastry board from its home next to the fridge. In retrospect, it's amazing I bake as much as I do! (Although I admit that I use the mixer far more often than the food processor: it's just easier to wash by hand.) MelissaH

Hello, everyone. At long last, we're able to seriously think about redoing our kitchen. Since I've never had the opportunity to do one myself before, I thought I'd ask the Great Collective Wisdom to add input before it gets much more expensive to do so. In fact, the GCW has already been of tremendous help with some past threads, in particular this one because it's fairly recent. We're hoping to begin this project about a year from now. Why the wait? Because first we'll need to have the electric system in the house upgraded, and that probably won't happen until fall. Then, since we both live in the academic world, we'd prefer not to have massive chaos around us during the school year. But once summer comes, we're able to devote our attention to other places. (Furthermore, this is upstate NY, where we get an average of 120 inches of snow a year. I don't think we could get through this without being able to use the grill.) And the kitchen isn't so bad that I curse it out every day, although should something die in the meantime I may change my tune. The main reason for the upgrading is to modernize. Our house is about 40 years old. Our kitchen is also probably about 40 years old; we don't think anything significant has been done to it since the house was built. We've now lived here for 22 months, which has given us plenty of time to figure out what we like and don't like about the kitchen. First, though, here's a rough drawing of the kitchen (courtesy of the Ikea kitchen software, with a bit of Photoshopping afterwards), as it currently stands: The narrow dimension, measured wall to wall, is 8 feet. The kitchen floor is 16 feet, 3 inches long (and the cabinets add another 2 feet). The dining room adds an additional 7 feet of length to the far wall (with the window). All the dark areas are walls. We plan to leave all walls as they are. The large open area at the left side of the picture is our dining room. The flooring in the dining room is the same yucky off-white carpet (with no padding left) that flows through the opening to the living room and hallway. We would eventually like to put hardwood in the hallway and living room, since that's what we have in the bedrooms AND the closets. (I don't get that myself. Someone who knows, please enlighten me?) The lighting in the dining room is hanging from a ceiling fan over the table. We're planning to keep the fan or a replacement thereof, although I'd probably choose a different lighting fixture. (I'll try to snap a few photos when there's decent light.) The door at the back of the dining room is a heavy sliding glass door that leads to the back deck. There's a floor-to-ceiling window on the other wall of the dining room. The deck is on the back side of the house; it faces south. Between the window and the door, we get a fair amount of light coming in, particularly in the mornings through the window. I should add that our house has baseboard heaters for the hot water heat; there's one baseboard heater running the length of the wall with the window, and another heater that starts just to the right of the sliding door that extends nearly to the edge of the cabinets, behind the semicircle in the drawing. That semicircle in the drawing is a set of three semicircular shelves. They aren't the right size for much of anything, mainly because there's a support pillar right at the outside of the curve that makes it tough to fit anything bigger than a softball inside. We do, however, have a couple of platters for fruit storage resting on the top shelf and some odds and ends on the two lower shelves. We nearly took a Sawzall to the shelves our first winter here, because the heater was clanking and the bleed valve for that heater is at the edge behind the shelf. And then we get to the cabinets themselves. I'm guessing the doors are made of plywood, because the edges of each door have grain wrapping around, and because the entire cabinet unit has matching veneer that seems to be cut from one giant sheet of the stuff. I wouldn't have a problem with the looks, but I have a huge problem with the function or lack thereof. I don't think there's a single door or drawer that actually opens and closes or otherwise works properly. For instance, the base cabinet on the left of the sink can't be opened without also taking the drawer above it. And the drawer refuses to open without also popping the cabinet. (The wall cabinet is mostly fine, although it doesn't latch too well due to deterioration of the little roller-thingie. But the kitchen has a soffit, which doesn't serve any purpose in our minds, and we'd just as soon get rid of that and let the wall cabinets go all the way to the ceiling, using the highest shelves to store the stuff that only gets brought out for big fancy meals, like the gravy boat and the fancy water pitcher.) There's not much counter space. That's another of the huge problems in the kitchen as it currently exists: it's a large space, with very little work area. My grandma refers to it as a "one-butt kitchen." And she's right: my husband and I trip over each other if we both need to be doing things in the kitchen at the same time. Forget about having one person at the stove while the other preps salad at the cutting board! But the good part of having so little of it is that we don't have to look at much of it: sort of marbled yellow laminate that I'm sure was much more "in" 40 years ago. I like the sink's position in front of the window. This is very important, because we spend an inordinate amount of time there doing the dishes. One priority of the remodeling is to put in a dishwasher. (We realize the cabinet on the left of the sink would be perfect to hold a dishwasher. But there's nowhere to plug such a beast in right now, and no room in the breaker box to add a new circuit for the dishwasher until we upgrade the house's electrical system.) I'm not overly fond of the sink itself: it's a stainless double sink, both basins the same size, with a garbage disposal in the right basin and a dish drainer in the left basin. Because this isn't large enough to hold everything we'd like it to hold, we have a secondary drainer on the counter next to it. The disposal functions, but is an older model with a wimpy engine. Whoever did the plumbing decided that both basins needed traps, so there's not much room underneath the sink for anything other than the garbage can. I wish the sink basins were large enough to hold even one cookie sheet flat, much less my roaster! The stretch of countertop is our main...no, make that our only prep area. That's also where the toaster oven lives, since that's the only place it would go and still be able to plug in. (The other option would have been in the corner, at the other outlet, but we put the microwave there, on a diagonal, and periodically pull it to one side or the other to rescue whatever's fallen behind. In the new kitchen, I want enough electrical outlets that my power does not determine where I can work, AND enough counter space to leave both the mixer and the food processor out but still have room to work. If I'm shaping bread dough or rolling out pie crust, I shove the toaster oven to the side so I have room to slide my wooden pastry board onto the counter. The stove isn't bad for an electric stove, from a temperature-responsiveness point. But it's 40 years old, horribly designed from a usefulness point of view, and placed such that the right edge of the stove is bumping up against the oven cabinet. As long as you don't have anything in the oven, or don't want to saute anything in a large pan, it works. There are cabinets up above the stove. This is bad, because it means that the hood under the cabinets doesn't vent anywhere other than back into the kitchen. The hood is dark brown ugly, and useless for anything except as a light bulb holder. (More on the lighting later.) The backsplash is (get this!) GLASS. Not plexiglass, but the real thing, held in place with little clips like the ones that hold mirrors up. The glass protects the faux brick that runs all the way to the end of the cabinets on the left of the sink. As I alluded, to the right of the stove is the oven. It's nominally a double oven, but they're tiny (24 inches wide on the outside) and horrendously uneven (hot spot in the back left corner of the main oven that's only partially corrected by leaving the quarry tiles in all the time). There's a clock that's stopped at half past 6, so anything timed is out of the question. And I wish there were some kind of indicator when the oven is up to temperature! The tiny bottom oven does broil decently, though. I suspect there might have been a third oven rack at one time, now long lost. There is a cabinet above the oven and another below the oven, but since the oven's insulation is notably lacking we don't put anything too delicate there. On the other side of the doorway (open doorway; hall on the other side) is a tall cabinet with no soffit above because we took it out. That happened when we were given the generous gift of a new refrigerator by my grandfather last year about this time. The new fridge (Amana freezer drawer on the bottom; whatever name they call off-white or bisque or almond or whatever it is) was about half an inch too tall to fit under the over-the-refrigerator cabinets. So we took them out, but to do so we had to remove the soffit on that side as well. The biggest problem this has created is that one of our cats has decided that the cabinet top is a great place to sit and watch the world. This in itself isn't a problem; the real issue is that he can't get up there without making intermediate landings of places he's not supposed to go! This refrigerator is the one thing that is likely to remain of the old kitchen after the remodel. In the big empty space, we put a small table gleaned from a yard sale. The cats are not permitted on tables, but this one's apparently irresistable as a stepping stone to the top of the fridge and beyond. And the lighting? The entire lighting in the kitchen consists of two fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling, each of which takes a large and a small circular tube; a 60 watt bulb over the sink; and the light in the otherwise useless hood. Seeing what you're doing? Forget that! So what will we do? Here's a first approximation, also roughed out with Ikea software and then cleaned up a touch in Photoshop: The dishwasher will go just to the left of the sink. The sink will ideally be an undermount, although if countertops that permit undermounting are prohibitively expensive, that may need to wait a few years. The cooktop will be gas, 36 inches wide, 6 burners with continuous grates, and the hood will take advantage of that outside wall and vent such that my husband can make mole indoors without smoking me out for the next few hours. We're debating the oven still (one or two? dual-fuel range or separate wall oven and cooktop?), other than it/they will be electric and convection, and large enough that I can bake two 9-inch round cake layers at the same time on the same shelf. The fridge will stay about where it is now, but there will be counter and underneath storage where we now have empty space and table. I'd prefer to have no wall cabinets between the window and the sliding door, I think. And if we can remove the baseboard heater between the sliding door and the cylindrical shelves, we'll extend the counter all the way there. Flooring is a question mark still. One big point of debate is whether to make the dining area part of the kitchen floor, or part of the living room floor. I'll post more details of what we're thinking, how we tend to use our kitchen, and potential questions or options, along with some photos tomorrow. (We haven't even begun to think about budget yet; we figured we would wait and see how much our realistic-dream kitchen would cost and then work from there.) In the meantime, let me know what you think. (But be aware that I, like some others who have done renovation threads, am apparently not known well for my ability to take criticism well. ) MelissaH

Also worth noting here is the chapter of Mimi Sheraton's memoir Eating My Words about her attempt to improve hospital food. That chapter alone is worth the purchase price of the book. MelissaH

I watched about the first half-hour of the show last night, and then had to leave to finish washing the dishes because I couldn't take any more. (I did come back for the voting-out, though.) I wholeheartedly agree with previous comments that some of the gimmicks are stolen from other reality shows solely for the sake of adding extra drama---which wouldn't be needed if the rest of the show had decent content. In particular, if the show really is "all about the team" as Gordon Ramsay claimed, then why are the producers having one team member choose two others to be on the chopping block, thereby hijacking any teamwork that may exist? My husband also commented that there was a lot of ego in that restaurant, even before Mr. Ramsay set foot inside. I think the big differences between this and Jamie's Kitchen are that the egos are definitely getting in the contestants' way here, and that Jamie's teens realized that they didn't know anything AND were willing to learn. Most of these contestants already know everything, and don't need anyone telling them anything, especially about life in a kitchen. And I think it was this attitude that bothered me most of all. MelissaH

Bananas. I must be the only cyclist on the face of the earth who doesn't like bananas. Oook: the taste, the texture, and most of all the smell. If my husband wants them, he needs to bring them in to work and eat them there. However, fried plantains are fine! MelissaH

This thread reminds me of my graduate school days. Some of my fellow students were vegetarians of various flavors; I'd sometimes call myself a "financial vegetarian." I was also somewhat limited in my shopping capability, since my only modes of transportation were the bus (not a great option since they quit running at 6:30 PM) and my bicycle. This limited my capability to roam for less expensive products, and it also limited my capability to bring home more than I could eat. It was always interesting when I needed to get more T.P. My general rule was that I'd never get any more than would fit in a handbasket, because I wouldn't be able to get it home otherwise. I always got kind of a strange look when I asked if I could bag my own groceries, and proceeded to stuff them tightly into my panniers (and backpack, if need be). I'd always be very careful to "pre-bag" anything potentially spillable or cold in a plastic grocery bag before it went into a pannier, both to protect my panniers from spills and condensation, but also so I'd be sure to have a steady supply of plastic grocery bags to use in my kitchen garbage can. The T.P. was something I'd plan ahead for, and only bring home on nice days because it could only get home if I bungeed it to the top of my rack, over the panniers. One thing I did that helped on both cost and transportation fronts was to have my milk delivered. I very quickly learned that milk is (a) heavy, (b) bulky, © spillable, and (d) perishable. Because it was heavy, it had to be carried in my backpack rather than in one of the panniers I'd hook to my rear rack because it would unbalance me. But that didn't leave much room in the backpack for the other things that also traveled better in the backpack, like eggs (too big to fit in the top of a pannier, where I knew they wouldn't be crushed). After a few incidents with © and finally realizing that plastic jugs leak when their sides are compressed, I got sick of having to wash my leather-bottomed backpack after every shopping trip. And the backpack, pressed against my hot sweaty back on the hot summer days after work, when it would be 100+ degrees F, always made me nervous about (d). So finally I called the local dairy, and they came out and brought me a milkbox to go next to my front door. Every Monday and Thursday, a half gallon of fine moo juice would appear in the box, usually arriving between 3 and 4 AM. Much to my surprise, the price of milk delivery wasn't much different than the grocery store milk price. They delivered twice a week, so I always had plenty of milk (and occasionally had to call and ask them to not bring me any more for a week or so, until I had caught up.) I didn't have to haul milk home from the store, so I'd have more room in my backpack on my other shopping trips for the fragile things like fruits and vegetables in season. And I discovered that my food cost went down, because I no longer went to the grocery store for milk and came out with a bunch of other stuff that I didn't really need. I liked to shop at the co-op for some of my food, not so much because it was organic but because I could get stuff in bulk and get only the amount I needed. Also, it would pack smaller that way because the only packaging was a bag. Grad school was when I first learned about the joys of oatmeal. And then, there was the farmers market. I always knew that summer was about to end when the chile roasters came. They'd bring a big truck with a drum roaster mounted on the back. You'd tell them what you wanted, and they would either have them ready to go or they'd tell you when to come back. My favorites were the Anaheims and the poblanos. In either case, I'd get a big bag of roasted chiles. The chiles would come out of the roaster and get scooped into large plastic bags, then twist-tied shut. The plastic bag would then be put into a paper grocery bag. Despite the insulation, I'd always feel the heat against my back. The chiles would always be the first place I'd stop at the market (to place my order) and the last place I'd stop (to pick up my chiles). In between, I'd roam through the tables and pick up other goodies. I don't remember getting fresh lettuce by the time the chile roasters came (too hot) but we'd get peppers, tomatoes, Olathe sweet corn, and other yummies. They always went into the panniers, so they wouldn't get roasted by my chiles before I got them home. Then, when I got home, I'd first thing line a baking sheet with foil, pull on a pair of latex gloves I swiped from lab (after destroying a brand-new pair of contact lenses the first time I tried it) and skin and otherwise clean my roasted chiles while they were still warm. I'd lay the cleaned chiles on the baking sheet in a single layer and freeze them, then bag them to use while they lasted into winter. Sometimes I'd even make a second trip to the market for another round of chiles. My biggest summer treat was an ice cream cone from the shop downtown. I lived a little more than a mile away, and on a hot summer night I'd walk there, get a cone, and enjoy it as I walked back home. Getting a container at the store was out of the question in summer, because on the days when it would have tasted really good, it was too hot for me to get it home still frozen. Sometimes when I went shopping after work, especially if I didn't have stuff that needed to be kept cold, I'd get a roasted chicken from the store. That first night I'd eat some of the chicken, and pick the rest of the meat off the bone. The next day, I'd simmer the bones and skin in a pot of water and veggies for a few hours (sometimes in a crockpot while I was at work all day). Then, all I needed to do for dinner was strain out the bones, skin, and spent veggies, skim off as much of the fat as I could, and add back the meat, some more veggies (sometimes frozen ones from a bag), and pasta or rice, and let it cook a little bit longer. Voilà! Chicken soup for the next two or three days. I'm glad I don't need to bring home pizza on a bicycle any more. MelissaH

I don't know the status of the non-familiar parts of the pig. By the time we got there, the pig was completely cooked. All I saw was two big foil-wrapped flattish chunks, the two halves of the pig. I don't know where the innards went. The head had already been lopped off, although I later found a thickly carbonized hunk in the firepit that was sort of recognizable as having ears and a snout. To be honest, that was my first inkling that something was wrong and we might be dealing with inexperienced amateurs, because I would have thought that the head would have been useful for something. At the very least, I would have thought the dogs might enjoy gnawing on a smoked pig ear like the ones you see in the pet stores. I come from an academic environment. On campus, academic freedom is prized more than just about anything else. And because I'm surrounded by this attitude, I hesitate to speak to children about their behavior when the parents are within earshot. My students' parents can't tell me how to teach, but I also don't tell them how to parent. I myself am not a parent, and I certainly don't feel any right to tell other people how to raise their kids. I also was so angered in this case that I wasn't sure I could be reasonable around these kids, so I decided it was better to just leave the scene. Is youth any excuse for behavior like this? Not in my book. Next time will I speak up? If I'm not again shocked into sickness, you bet I will!

Oooh, I like that idea. Is it the same when the sauce hasn't been lacquerized by the heat of the grill? I think that's the part I like best. (What happens if you just try cooking the sauce a little bit more? Do you just wind up with a pot that's impossible to get clean again?) MelissaH edited to fix minor grammatical issue

Not sure if this is exactly the right place to put it, but I guess it counts as an adventure, of sorts, so here goes. Yesterday we attended a pig roast, to celebrate the end of the school year. The guest of honor had been brought home six weeks ago and fed up to ensure a good meal for all. A few people had camped out the night before, to supervise the fire and the roasting, which took place in a firepit in the woods. (I should probably add here that this is not really my sort of thing to begin with. I was raised Jewish, and still feel like a lightning bolt will descend upon my head every time I put a bite of pig in my mouth. I'm also a world-class mosquito magnet, as my pig-loving pig-deprived husband will attest.) Everyone who came brought a dish to accompany said pig. Our pot of barbecue beans were slurped up in a hurry, and we had some most excellent dutch oven cornbread as well. One of the attendees brought a couple of fresh pike. Fresh, as in just pulled out of the boat's live well. So far, so good. Among the attendees were several children, including probably four boys under the age of 10. And these boys were hanging around the person with the pike as he cleaned and fileted his catch. While he worked on the first fish, the second was hanging from a tree branch. This I'm also OK with. But the part that I'm definitely not OK with: these boys grabbed biggish twigs, and started poking the fish that was hanging from the tree. This fish had not yet been knocked on the head or otherwise dispatched, and although it had ceased to actively struggle, it was not yet dead. (Fresh, as in not yet dead.) The boys were poking the fish in the eyes, pulling up its gill covers with the sticks, and even in one case puncturing its skin with the stick so it bled a bit. And another part that I'm definitely not OK with: the parents of these kids didn't have anything to say other than "Danny, don't poke Billy" (or the equivalent). Not a word about leaving the fish alone. Now, I clearly knew this fish was doomed. And I normally have no problem with eating meat, fowl, or fish. But it bothered me immensely that neither these boys nor their parents respected this fish that was about to become their dinner. In fact, this nearly made me hurl, to the point where I took our empty bean pot back to the car, ostensibly to make room on the tables for more food that others were bringing out but really so I didn't need to watch the fish be abused. And then when I came back, I had to hear another story that I didn't really need to hear: this was a first try at raising a pig for the family that did so, and when the time came to slaughter the pig, it took four shots to do the job. By this point I'd really had it, and I practically grabbed my husband and ran out of there. Now: this pig made a lot of people very happy. Being eaten was its entire raison d'être, and I have no problem with it being eaten. I assume the fish also made people very happy, although we weren't there to see it and presumably this fish was raised in a hatchery to be both food and part of the lake ecosystem. But would I have been acting totally beyond good manners if I had pulled these kids and their sticks away from the fish, even if I had restrained myself and not followed through on my impulse to poke them in the eyes with sticks and flap open their gill covers? Do we all need to go back to the farm to learn where food comes from? Or have I just somehow exposed myself as a closet radical and shown that I need to go buy a farm and kill myself anything that I eat?

I looked up my recipe. It did, in fact, come from a Weber cookbook, but the newer Art of the Grill book. The technique is pretty much as I described above. The ingredients are: 1 Tbsp. brown sugar 1 tsp. honey 2 tsp. unsalted butter 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard 1 Tbsp. soy sauce 1 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. grated fresh ginger You melt the first three together, whisk in the rest, and let it cool before applying to the fish. This amount was sufficient for 2.5 lbs of salmon filet (the recipe says 0.75 to 1 inch thick). Now, if I could only find big pieces of salmon filet in town.... Come to think of it, this might be interesting in combination with Pam's granola idea. MelissaH

I'm not a huge salmon fan. In fact, I didn't eat salmon at all until about three years ago, when our local market had skin-on salmon filets on sale that week. I'm still not totally sure what possessed me on that fateful day, but I marched up to the fish counter, asked when the salmon had arrived (that morning), and had them hold out a piece of it so I could have a sniff. They complied, happily, and I buried my nose and inhaled. Deeply. And I smelled---nothing. I took this as a good sign, and brought a filet home. And then I had to figure out what to do with it. My husband thought I'd gone off the deep end when I told him we'd be eating fish that night, since he knew exactly what fish was on sale that week. At the time I only had about 284 cookbooks, but since it was summer I decided to start with the grill-specific and fish-specific ones. The recipe I eventually went with came from the Weber Fish & Seafood cookbook, I think. I don't have the details here, but I remember it being vaguely teriyaki-ish, with soy sauce, sugar, and green onions. It may have also had miso and citrus. I can look up the recipe at home tonight, at any rate. More or less following the recipe, I made the seasoning mixture into a sort of paste, and rubbed and patted it onto the fish. Then I took a piece of heavy-duty Al foil, cut it down to about the same shape and size as the fish, and put the fish on the foil, skin side down. Fish and foil went onto the grill together and cooked without turning until it was done. (I'm a little hazy on that part, because I left the actual grilling to my husband.) Once it was cooked, the meat was easy to separate from the skin, which stayed stuck to the foil. Under the lid of the grill, the seasoning had merged into a sort of glaze, so you got some in every bite. Cleanup was a snap. And nothing smelled remotely like fish the whole evening. I know this because the cats never noticed a thing. Since then, I've eaten salmon semi-regularly. MelissaH

I, too, will add my vote for Primanti's in the Strip District (18th St. just off Penn Avenue). No matter when you get there, Primanti's will be open. (Did someone say that the trains are always on time? ) Furthermore, it's going to be much easier to get there than, say, the South Side on foot. And the sandwich will be big enough that you'll be fine until you get to Cleveland. However, you'll probably have to go elsewhere to get that drink. I am unable to help on that front, largely because I moved away to go to college, well before I came of age. MelissaH

I saw that this thread had been bumped up. I lived in Kent, about an hour south and east of Cleveland, for five years. For about a year and a half of that time, I worked on the West Side of Cleveland. My absolutely favorite place to eat was Phnom Penh, both for the food and for the drinks. And if you're going to be there on the appropriate days of the week, don't forget about browsing at West Side Market, if not buying enough to get you through a month or two. Oh, how I miss that place! MelissaH

Our "secret" seasoning mix: onion soup mix, a chopped-up onion, and apricot nectar. (I prefer nectar from a jar rather than a can, if I can find it.) Put it all in with the meat and cook low and slow until it's so tender you could cut it with a spoon. I usually use my crockpot. When it's not Passover, we serve with egg noodles. Yummy! Anyone else out there do meat with fruit? MelissaH

Won't walnut oil go rancid eventually? ← There's also an allergy issue with walnut oil: anything that touches the butcher block would then be capable of setting off a reaction in those allergic to nuts. Safer for many reasons to go with the mineral oil. MelissaH

Upstate NY: We're just now getting to the point where the braver souls are cleaning out their flowerbeds. The low temp last night was about 35 degrees...and I live about ten minutes' walk from Lake Ontario. Our farmer's market starts in May, but the good stuff doesn't show up for another month. Last year we picked strawberries at one local farm in June, and blueberries in July at another farm. MelissaH

I'm planning to try the madeleines this weekend, since my husband is enamored with the chocolate-lemon combination. I've even arranged to borrow a friend's madeleine pans, since I don't own any. My question: these pans are silicone. Do I need to butter them, or are they non-stick enough that I don't need to worry about it? Did they stick in a normal pan at all? MelissaH

How about TIVOing it and watching when you have some time .. seems incredibly worthwhile ... ← Our local PBS station is running it at 5 AM on Friday mornings. I'm curious if they expect those of us without TIVOs to watch it at all, or just give them $$$ (in exchange for a DVD) when they come begging. MelissaH

Or a method that I learned from Shirley Corriher a couple of years ago, when she spoke at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in NYC: Rub the pork shoulder with worcestershire sauce. Coat with brown sugar. Put in a slow cooker, and drizzle a juice box of apple juice down the side (don't get the meat wet). Cover and cook on low for a long time (at least all day or all night). (At least, I've always done it in my slow cooker. She mentioned that you could do it in the oven also, but my oven's pretty miserable.) I usually add a bay leaf when I make this. I also usually make it at least the day before, for easy defatting. MelissaH

Well, some physicist friends and I just made some ice cream here in lab. The base was made from cream, half and half, sugar, natural cocoa, and chocolate syrup. I can't give you proportions because the only ingredients that were actually measured were the dairy products, since they came in and were used in increments of their specific-volume containers. Anyway, we mixed up the stuff in a big metal bowl with a wooden spoon, tasting along the way and adding more chocolate syrup and cocoa along the way until we got something that tasted chocolatey enough but a little too sweet. Then, one person stirred the mix while another poured the liquid nitrogen in, a little bit at a time. As it went in, it bubbled like mad (as you'd expect) and steam obscured the surface. The volume of mixture increased noticeably over the process. We'd also get some lumpiness, which would subside as the rest of the liquid transferred its heat into the frozen lumps. After a good bit of stirring (and liquid nitrogen) the ice cream thickened to about the texture of soft-serve. We kept on going, and eventually got a homogeneous mixture too thick to stir with our wooden spoon. At this point we waited a little bit for it to warm up, scooped it into our bowls, waited a little bit longer, and then ate. My verdict: Very smooth and creamy. The most even-textured ice cream I've eaten in a while: no large crystals of anything anywhere. Could have used some more chocolate flavor. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to do it again, unless I were trying to impress someone or I had extra liquid nitrogen to blow. But it was yummy! MelissaH

I haven't tried making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. But if you want to try something else with food and liquid nitrogen that kids always go wild for: get yourself a bit of the cold stuff in a dewar with fairly low sides, and a bag of cheez puffs. (Not the ones like crunchy cheetos, for this you need the ones that are very puffy...as far as I'm concerned, the only good use for the puffy kind. ) Dip a cheez puff into the liquid nitrogen, and hold it there just until it gets good and cold. Use a big cheez puff, so you have something left to hold! Then pull the cheez puff out, and put it into your mouth. Hold it there, maybe chew on it a little bit. Voila: you've become a steam-breathing dragon! The puffy cheez puffs are mostly air, which warms up pretty fast, so you're in no danger of freezing your mouth. If you chew on it, it feels about like chewing ice cream: definitely cold, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable. It's a great trick, especially for Halloween costume parties. MelissaH

What goes in your wing sauce? Ours is about equal parts Frank's and melted butter, which is definitely out this year. MelissaH

We put all sorts of stuff on our back porch when it's cold out. I restrict myself to only squirrel-safe foods, though: I can't even keep a suet block for the woodpeckers longer than a couple of hours if I don't stand right by the door to shoo them away. Right now, it's a whopping 10 degrees F out, about the warmest it's been in three days, but the wind chill is still about -15. Fortunately for us, it doesn't stay super-cold for very long, so you don't need to worry too much about things freezing quickly. Something else that usually works well in Oswego, if we need a little extra "fridge" space, is to gather some snow and use that instead of ice in one of our coolers. We've never had any trouble with wildlife molesting a closed cooler on our deck, and this time of year you don't have to recharge the snow often. MelissaH

I'm starting to think about food for the Super Bowl, when we usually have a few friends over. However, one of our friends is scheduled to have his gall bladder removed shortly after the game, and until then he's trying to eat as little fat as possible. I've been trying to come up with munchie-type food that he might be able to eat without paying a steep price, and so far that list consists of: *Pretzels *Veggies *Salsa *Baguette Anyone got some other suggestions? Thanks, MelissaH