ratgirlny

I sometimes shop at the Eastchester TJs (we are walking distance from it, and they stock the yogurt that my kid likes). There is very little to recommend it. I think our horrible Eastchester Stop n Shop is better. But then, I'm not much of a processed food person. They do give out balloons to the kids, which my 4 year old loves. Bonnie

I have two comfort foods that my DH hates : 1. brocolli raab sauteed in olive oil and loads of garlic, over linguine, with a little Parmesan on top 2. Chickpeas and tuna in olive oil and lemon Since we had kids though, I rarely get to eat on my own...

Was it expensive to put in the cabinetry for the wall ovens? Bonnie

Yes, I think that is the only one out there. Does anyone have any opinions on it? thanks, Bonnie

Yes, that Thermador looks pretty nice, and is about what I am considering. I also have looked at the Kitchenaid models http://www.kitchenaid.com/catalog/product....&productId=1079 Any thoughts on those? thanks, Bonnie

We are diving into a kitchen renovation. Currently, we have a 1950's era, 36 inch Kenmore gas stove, which I love for various reasons (solid construction, 36 inch wide, stylish) and hate for others (nonfunctional broiler, eccentric pilot lights). I am considering whether to get it rehabbed or to replace it. If we decide to replace it, I want another 36 inch gas stove, hopefully with at least 5 burners. I have 2 kids and another coming, and I need the stove real estate. I also find the wider stove works better with my bigger pans. To me, 30 inch stoves seem so cramped. The problem is that it seems that the only 36 inch ranges out there are the true pro style ranges, like Vikings and their ilk. I can't really afford these, and I am not sure I really need that kind of stove, even though I do like to cook. Some people have suggested to me that I could instead get a 36 inch cooktop, with a wall oven. I remember really liking wall ovens when I lived in France. When I add up the simple cost of the equipment, this combination is cheaper than the 36 inch pro ranges, but I realize that cabinetry for the oven is going to jack up the price. On the other hand, a pro range is going to drive costs up too, for the ventilation and probably other things. My questions are : is there an advantage to a range over the cooktop/wall oven combination? Does one need a second ventilation system for a wall oven? What cooktop models do people like? And are there any 36 inch ranges out there aimed at "normal" people? Bonnie

No, not in our store. The shrinkwrapped veggies are things like whole green peppers, tomatos, and broccoli, on styro trays with shrinkwrapping. i have never seen prepped vegetables in our TJs, which is interesting because even the local supermarkets have prepped vegetables. The produce section in our TJs is really miniscule.

Am I the only odd person around who really dislikes Trader joe's? Maybe it is just our local branch that is bad, but it seems to me to be just a purveyor of processed food. Everything is in a jar or frozen. They do have a produce section, but it is sad. They shrinkwrap all the veggies! And the bread is stale and yucky. The cheese is mostly weird lowfat stuff. I go in there occassionally because their frozen artichoke hearts are cheaper than the ones at the supermarket. My 3 year old likes their frozen taquitos, but then, he likes Taco Bell too. I just don't get it. Whole Foods may be expensive and smarmy, but at least they have good produce, and a cheese section that is stocked with good cheese. It seems to me that TJs is for people who mainly like to nuke something from the freezer section when they make dinner.

My 5 year old will eat nothing but the strained Total yogurt (drizzled with honey). He won't eat the yogurt at school because he says it is "some yucky brand like Dannon". He won't even eat the super sugared kid friendly squeezable yogurt any more.

I'm with you on this one. I am up in lower Westchester, and our normal grocery shopping experience is pretty much the same as in Manhattan. Dirty, cramped stores, everything out of stock, rude cashiers... even our local Trader Joes is like that (plus they have the nastiest produce around). But I love to shop at the Whole Foods in White Plains because they have lots of produce, and the cashiers are actually knowedgeable and friendly, and my kids can eat there when I shop. People in the rest of the country are used to amenities like this in their supermarkets, but for me, it is simply amazing. The cashiers SMILE - it is kind of like being in the Midwest or something.

Places that bill themselves as a "vegetarian restaurant" (as opposed to ethnic places that happen to serve vegetarian dishes) tend to follow a certain style of cuisine which is boring and bland. The ones I have eaten in tend to do a mix n' match thing : plate of stirfried vegetables with your choice of a)tofu b)seitan c)soy cheese, accompanied by your choice of a)brown rice b)lentils c)quinoa. Seasonings tend to be soy based (the ubiquitous tamari sauce) and sparse. The menus rarely mention anything about the actual taste of the food. So yeah, I have a dislike for "vegetarian cuisine" as served in this kind of restaurant.

My father's lowfat lasagna, made with lowfat cheese and ground turkey. Utterly tasteless, like eating soggy cardboard.

I have some kind of Black & Decker toaster oven. The only thing I ever use it for is making tuna melts, and charring red peppers. The broiler in my big oven doesn't work right, and I don't have the patience for charring peppers over the burner flame (plus, it makes a mess). I've never been much of a broiled food fan, which is probably why I have never bothered to get the broiler in the main oven fixed.

We had wondeful family meals when I was growing up. We usually ate around 7, and dinner always took a good hour, with all of us discussing what was going on. I want very much to have the same for my kids. But nowadays it is so hard. Employers pretty much expect people to stay late. I get home at 6:30, after having picked up both kids from two different programs, and my husband straggles in around 7. By the time we get the mail sorted, the phone messages, and the school papers sorted, it is 7:30. We end up never eating before 8:30! and the poor kids have to get to bed at some decent time in order to get up for school the next day. Parenting books and articles all insist that kids should be in bed by 8, and still somehow have "quality time" with both parents. I would love to know how that happens in real families. Does anyone nowadays still have a job and commute that gets them home by 5pm?

I need ideas too! My 5 year old is off to kindergarten in 3 weeks. They can't buy lunches from the cafeteria for the first semester, which is fine with me given that the cafeteria serves nothing but processed poultry (chicken nuggets, turkey bacon, turkey bologna, chicken nachos, ick). But my little guy is a foodie-in-training, so don't think PB&J sandwiches are going to cut it. I think he would prefer sushi and smoked salmon. I know about the raw veggies and hummus thing, and I can send him sopressata sandwiches, but I need more ideas!

I worked at both Wendys and McDonalds in the same summer (after my freshman year in college). I was able to do a side-by-side comparison. Wendys definitely won. Back in those days, the onions at McDonalds were dehydrated, and there was no fresh lettuce or tomatos. At least there were some fresh ingredients at Wendys. The McDonalds was a lot dirtier too. But this was many years ago. For a while after that, I would eat at Wendys but not McDonalds. Now I won't eat at either one.

I don't like washing salad greens, but I dislike the bagged salads even more. The lettuce never seems very fresh to me. So many times, I have opened a bag of "mesclun" only to find slimy half rotted bits of leaves inside. There is one brand around here in which the lettuce comes in a plastic tub rather than a bag, and it seems a little better, but I still have to watch the sell-by date really carefully.

I once had a friend who would eat no vegetable matter of any kind. She was so bad about it that if she saw a fleck of green herb in a restaurant dish, she would send the whole thing back. Because she was so terrified of being served a vegetable, she would only eat plain meat and plain starch with no sauce - so the restaurant couldn't hide a vegetable in the dish. I knew her for about 5 years, and she never got any better in that time. I personally think food pickiness at this extreme level veers over into mental illness. Obsessive compulsive disorder perhaps?

Chopped salads. To me, a salad is about pure, pristine ingredients. I want the ingredients to be big enough that I can tell what they are! Rather than a confused mishmash of little bits of lettuce, little bits of egg yolk, little bits of indeterminate veggies/fruit, sunflower seeds, mushroom fragments, and so on. Plus, I have always had a stereotype that chopping up lettuce into tiny bits is just a way to hide yucky unfresh lettuce. Stupid martinis. They have become as trite as frozen Margaritas. Tasting flights of ANYTHING other than beer. The whole concept originated in the 80's at microbrew bars - when I see it in any other context, I still feel like I am back in college, standing at the bar at the Sunset in Brighton MA, knocking back microbrew pale ales.

I don't normally eat at fast food places. But I often find myself up in Yorktown Hgts NY in the evening with my two small kids and need to feed them dinner quickly. Although we often bring sandwiches, I have taken them to the nearby Taco Bell a number of times, because both kids like the rice and the beans, which are sold individually as "side items". A couple of times, I made the mistake of getting real entrees. Ugh. The ground meat they use tastes just like salty dog food. In fact, I could not discern any flavor other than salt in anything. I've also noticed that my kids wake up desperately thirsty in the middle of the night after they have eaten at Taco Bell. The food must have mega amounts of salt in it.

I bought a microplane recently, and I have to say, I don't get it. This particular microplane is skinny, and the ginger gets all glommed on the underside and I can't get it out. Same for garlic. I use a minichop to mince ginger, or else my knife.

The medication is called GCSF (there are some brand names in addition) and if he is getting it, he is indeed neutropenic. It is true that there are many different chemo protocols. Only the high dose ones produce true neutropenia (defined as ANC < .5). Other protocols may produce lowered counts, but not neutropenia. Different hospitals may have different rules for neutropenic patients too. Sloan-Kettering is very strict, because well, they are Sloan-Kettering.

I hate spinach, but I love other greens like collards, kale, etc. I also hate most fruit - grapes, apples, bananas (ick, the smell) and other common fruits. I despise the trend of cooking fruit with meat. I like mayonnaise in most cases, but can't abide it on sandwiches. Which means that I won't eat BLTs under any circumstance. Ketchup on hot dogs is also really gross. It actually took me years to start eating hot dogs at all - as a kid I was horrified by them. I like cheesecake, and chocolate, but I dislike most other desserts. I dislike them for the same reason I dislike fruit - too sweet for me.

My sister and I always fought over the last Brussels sprouts in the pan. Also, we would always complain when we went to dinner at other family's houses, and we were forced to eat the dumbed down kiddie food (or worse yet, McDonalds) while the adults were getting steak or some 60's style "gourmet" dish.

You do need to check ahead before bringing fresh fruit for a patient undergoing chemo. My son was not allowed to have fresh fruit whenever he was neutropenic (low white blood cell count), which for him was 2 out of every 3 weeks while he was doing treatment. He had a long list of foods he was not allowed, but fresh fruit was very high on the list. Which was too bad because fresh fruit and tomatoes were some of the few things we could get him to eat. This was on the pediatric floor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, by the way. We also were not allowed to have fresh flowers in his room.