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I recognized the Geno's pizza pie. The place I worked in St Paul in the 70's sent a guy down to Chicago to learn how to make pizzas. It must have been Geno's! Later they swept the first annual Twin Cities pizza contest run by a local paper. As far as I know, there's one place in Minneapolis still using the original recipe. SB (I even remember those the old ovens) PS: Loved them guys at the ribs joint! PSS: Did I miss something? No Chicago cops in the show?

Next, maybe "Drudge Grub"? SB

You need only to ask ..... cheesecake-of-the-month club SB

There is an X-of-the-month club site. According to them: "Gift of the month clubs started out years ago as a gift for clients and upper-level executives. When a company provided a club to one of their valued clients or hard-working executives, it served as a constant reminder throughout the 12 months of the year that their business and/or hard work was appreciated. " I believe Harry & Davids was the first company to do this. They began marketing the concept in 1934. About this same time ice cream makers began to advertise a flavor-of-the-month, and it's unclear whether or not this usage predates fruit-of-the-month. SB (would subscribe to odd question-of-the-month club )

Here's a link to the Good Eats Fan Page, (tip of the hat to Toliver). It has great search functions on the left. Just hit [Food or Topic] for an alphabetical list, scroll down to Cookies: Three Chips for Sister Marsha, and there is literally everyrhing you want might to know about Alton's Chocolate Chip Cookie episode. SB (This is lots easier than trying to navigate Food Network's site )

Unofficial Notice to eG Foodbloggers, past, present and future: No need for you to thank us. We're the ones coming out ahead on the deal. Your job is hard enough. If you must, a generic "Thanks" at the end of the project will more than suffice. SB

"Soft Water" means water with very little mineral content, mostly calcium and/or magnesium ions. Is your water naturally soft, or is it too hard, and treatment renders it "too soft"? Here's a good site with some technical jargon. Soft water does weaken gluten during mixing and fermentation, although I don't know if the converse is true, ie: that hard water strenghtens it? If that's the case my bread should be great! SB (lives in a VERY hard water area)

Thanks for the heads-up! I'd missed these articles on online.wsj. (A big disadvantage in subscribing to the online version of The Wallstreet Journal is that it's easy to miss running across interesting articles by chance.) I have the original cookbook my Grandmother brought with her from Austria in the early 1900's. My problem is, it's written in Serbo-Croation .... in Cyrillic Script! SB

This will be the second eGullet thread today I've posted this link to! Not so surprising, I guess, since what could be a more appropriate topic for discussion this time of year than the link between food memories and Grandmothers? SB

When Sara Moulton did an eG Spotlight last January we touched upon the topic of Grandmothers, including some wishful thinking about a Food Network or PBS series based on them and their cooking. Of my own grandparents, my Father's mother and father, who lived only four blocks away, were called simply Gramma and Grampa. My Mother's father died when I was 2 1/2, and her mother was known as Gramma Chisholm, distinctly named after the city she lived in, five miles away. Many kids in our neighborhood were of Italian descent, and their grandmothers were Nona. One of my cousins raised her family in The Netherlands, and just last year she became Oma. Due to people living longer, and the increase in non-traditional households, my three-year old ersatz grandson, Zack, (GF's daughter's son), like many of his generation, has so many "grandparents" it's confusing for us, let alone to him. We've dealt with this by having him call all the women "Nana Barbie, JoAnn etc" and the men "Poppa Stevan, Peter etc", regardless of their actual legal or genealogical relationship. SB (Zack, I hope, will always remember "Poppa 'Tevan's" cooking)

I can't claim to have read everything published on eGullet, but that has to rank among the finest paragraphs ever. Concept, context, and construction worthy of MFK Fisher. SB (the highest praise I can bestow)

I suspect fruit-of-the-month clubs are less about fruit and more about months? As a gift, it's supposed to be the thought that counts. To get another gift every month, (or so), adds a little fun to the process. Of course Company A gets its peaches from Company B in August, and reciprocates by selling them pears in December, but it's logistically easier to subscribe to one service than to place four, six or twelve seperate orders. There's also often a nostalgic componen. My Grandfather gave Harry & Davids gifts back in the 1950's. He died in 1964, but Harry & David products still have special meaning in my family. SB (When was the business method and associated term, "-of-the-month club", first used anyway?)

You'll look silly as hell, but your feet will stay warm in genuine US Govt Surplus Bunny Boots! Actually, one advantage of dressing for extreme cold weather is that everyone ends up with pretty much the same silhouette, from the amply proportioned like Chris, to the previously referenced otherwise amply proportioned Hooters Girl. SB (so, in the immortal words of Sgt Phil Esterhaus, "Be careful out there.")

Here in Northern MN we consider Green Bay "half way down south", and we're clever enough to have out Vikings play indoors. But try and procure what's known as a snowmobile suit. It's kind of an adult version of the one-piece snow suits traditionally made to bundle up and immobilize small children. SB (and Food Network is nuts if they aren't sending a camera crew with you to record the fun )(and picking up the expenses )

The Alton Brown Good Eats episode on chocolate chip cookies, and Cooks Illustrated articles on the subject, illustrate the slight variations in ingredients and procedures that make the cookies crisp to chewy or anything in between. Both the show and articles have been discussed on several eGullet threads. With this information and a little experimentation, anybody can pretty much tailor a version to meet their own particular specification. SB (likes either very crisp or very chewy better than any "compromise" cookies)

Food Networks web site was one of the first I visited when I got on line back in .....? Through all it's modifications and incarnations its always been poorly designed, quirky, and s...l...o..........w. Just this morning I tried to find the Alton Brown episode on chocolate chip cookies to link to for a question on another eGullett thread, and I notice they've added more video features, rendering the site more poorly designed, quirkier, and even s........l........o................wer! I got tired of hunting and waiting and, as a final insult, had to re-boot my computer to escape from the site. SB (Maybe "someone" could mention this to them? )

Disclaimer: Let me state that I don't consider myself a food writer, or even a real writer for that matter. I'm more like a storyteller who has so many stories that, by default rather than design, a number of them include food. Thanks to this site and a couple others, many of them get written down. Who inspired you most in your decision to write of food? First, my Mother's (late) oldest sister, my Aunt Desa (ne: Desanka). She was a brilliant woman born at least one generation too soon. She had degrees from Carleton College, the University of Minnesota and the University of Chicago in Chemistry and Biology. Today she might have been a reknowed scientist or at least an MD, but nearing the end of the Great Depression she returned home and took a job teaching high school chemistry so that her family could afford to send her five younger siblings to college. My Mother, the youngest in the family, actually had her sister for a chemistry teacher, as did I, twenty-five years later. Aunt Desa was the first person I knew who thought of food as more than just what we eat. She'd traveled to Europe in the early 1950's with some female colleagues, and visited her parents' birthplace in Croatia along with the ancestral homelands of her traveling companions, so she had an early appreciation of ethnic foods. She knew the Latin name of every plant, and loved gardening to the point of trying to grow many edible and food producing plants not accustomed to the harsh climate of Nothern Minnesota. She was also secure enough in her botanical knowledge to pick and eat wild mushrooms. She collected cook books just to read them, (unheard of at the time), and her experiments in the kitchen, although they didn't always produce edible results, proved to have inspired her nieces and nephews, (if not our somewhat skeptical parents), to be adventurous about cooking and eating. Whenever our family gathers, stories about Aunt Desa's cooking still end up dominating the food related conversation. Secondly, Julia Child, in the actual practice of cooking, and MFK Fisher, in the emotional and philosophical aspects of food. Almost needless to say, watching and reading the two of them has always reminded me of my Aunt. What is it particularly that you write of within the wide-varied subject? I just pick out stories that have food in them, either as a principle element or just an aside. When did you take up the pen? I've written stories, and even self-published little folder paper books, for as long as I can remember. Where do you wish to publish your writings? Do you have any specific magazines/journals or publishers that you have an urge to present your work to for acceptance? I've had some work published, but nothing to do with food unless you count letters to the editor of several periodicals. Of these, I'm proudest of my contributions to the discussion of articles published in Gastronomica Magazine. Why do you wish to submit your work to these particular outlets? Submit work to Gastronomica! Yeah, I wish. How do you hope to have your writings affect the world of food and people? I hope to be occasionally instructive or educational, but, more importantly, entertaining or amusing. My favorite compliment in response to something I wrote is to have the reader tell me, "I laughed like hell". SB (Food Eater, Story Writer) PS: Thanks to mizducky for the preformatted format

I'm really looking forward to the L.A. episode! (Shades of your debut on Alton Brown's special) Do you think the "locals" will be treating you any differently now that you're a big television star, or are you the prophet without honor ....? What do the people "at the station" think of your celebrity. I'd have to think the regular cops love it, and even the administrative and political powers that be appreciate the good will you generate? SB (still waiting for the C.C./H.D. T-shirts etc)

What Would Jesus Eat and "what did Jesus eat" are, of course mutually exclusive topics. Historians can tell us what foods were generally available in the times and region Jesus inhabited, but aside from what fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy products were seasonally avialable, the seafood might be the only thing of interest to present day gourmands of any faith. On the other hand, if we inject the historical Jesus in the current context it becomes a different matter altogether. Jesus might very well eat Kosher today, but I suspect (ne: hope) he would respect the dietary customs of other religions, and be nonjudgemental about any food eaten by anybody, anywhere, in the World today? SB (hopes he was able to skirt the prohibitions on religious subject matter by keeping this in historical conjecture mode?) DISCLAIMER: SB was baptized in the Serbian Orthodox Church, (to please one Grandmother), and attended Sunday School in the Methodist Church, (to please the other Grandmother), but has not since then attended formal religious services, (save those associated with weddings and funerals), and trys to adhere to the one tenant common to most all faiths of "Do unto others...."

I loved the picture of the butcher! The Zagreb Chamber of Commerce should use it for advertising. SB (whose Grandparents came from Croatia)

But what if you threw a Humane Society attorney off the roof, or put one in a tank full of piranha? Or, for that matter, sat one in a comfy chair and poured vodka into them? SB (it might loosen them up a little? )

The Focaccia recipe in my copy of Baking With Julia calls for 4 tsp Salt. (2 1/4 -2 1/2 C Water, 2 Tbl Active Dry yeast, 1/4 C Olive Oil and 6 1/2 C Flour) SB (might try Clarified Butter instead of Olive Oil?)

I always liked Cooks Illustrated. Although I don't subscribe anymore, I did save all my back-issues. If your sister is interested in more esoteric and/or academic aspects of food culture she probably would enjoy Gastronomica. SB

The winters can seem pretty long in North Dakota, so about the beginning of March every year my Sister and BIL host a Wild Game Feed to dispell the gloom and tide them over until Spring. The past few years they've made the Feed into an Iron Chef type competition. Pheasant is always included, and I reported on the 2004 event here. SB (If you want to know how to make "Pheasant Escargot" you'll have to scroll down a few posts. )

"Yesterday's suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Albany, represents an unusual turn to the courts by opponents of the foie gras industry.... .... The plaintiffs, who include the state and national humane societies, claim that foie gras should be considered an "adulterated" food product because the ducks grow so unnaturally fat and ill that they qualify as diseased under state agriculture law, according to the complaint." .... "It sounds creative," a professor at Michigan State College of Law who closely follows animal rights litigation, David Favre, said. "This is a new approach."" - Joseph Goldstein, New York Sun It seems that in order to be considered "diseased" the bird's liver would have to be malfunctioning. Does anyone know it this is the case? SB (would use stronger language than "creative" to describe the "approach")