foodie52

Sweet potatoes with maple syrup. Can you get sweet potatoes? Yams? Pork tenderloin, brushed with a mixture of maple syrup and wasabi. Or pork chops.

...I just got home from working in retail hell and I'm going to have Tequila shot(s)

On Festivus, I'll be watching Seinfeld reruns.

Ortelans Fugu The menu from Babette's Feast Varmint's pig

You need a crock pot to keep these hot. Little Smokeys: saute a bunch in a pan til they get just a little charred. Throw in some grape jelly and yellow mustard and stir until the mess simmers. Take off the burner and throw into the crock pot. Serve with toothpicks....

Chris: you are my type of guy! You're welcome at my dinner table ANY time!!

Sounds perfectly wonderful and very easy. I'm going to serve this New Year's Eve.

Gin. Used to drink gin and blackcurrant in college until one evening I too overindulged. The smell of it makes me ill . As to the topic of "dirty" fruits: I've attended food safety classes and the ONE thing I remember more than anything else is the instructor saying: "WASH YOUR STINKY PRODUCE"! In the fields, produce is often peed on by the pickers. (Sorry if I offend anyone with that word.) In the stores, vermin run across the produce at night. There have been ultraviolet light tests on produce that actually show urine trails of rats and mice. I shudder when I see customers "sampling" grapes and berries and giving them to their children to snack on as they wander the produce aisles. So wash the rinds of your melons, rinse lemons before slicing them, etc...

I guess you folks have never heard of the Puffy Taco. Flour tortillas puff up beautifully when put on the grill: perfect for filling!

Ellen: thank you so much. This is such a treat.

I remember coming home from school in the winter. grabbing half a dozen mikans and 2 chocolate chip cookies and rushing upstairs into my bedroom to eat and read a book! Perfect 12-year old bliss! Now I'm in the USA and satsumas are in season. We even get the tiny, tiny ones that are simply exquisite, both in looks and in flavor. I still eat half a dozen at a time, as does my daughter who is equally excited about them.

Brisket: you can cook it a couple of days before and then reheat. Mashed potatoes. Green beans or carrots. Get a few big bags of field greens from your produce manager and a couple bottles of vinaigrette. Of acorn squash halves, twice baked: bake once, fill with some kind of streusel and rebake when you reheat.

I was enjoying the sophistication of this blog and then suddenly......it was So Monty Python!

Look: people who write recipes aren't any smarter than you are. You can do anything you want to the chicken. It's poultry and actually tastes better than turkey anyway! Just pretend!! How long you cook it depends on its weight. Invest in a thermometer. After an hour or so, stick it in between the leg and thigh and wait for the readout. If it's around 165, take it out. If you don't want to get a thermometer, the leg needs to wiggle really easily and , when pierced, the juices should run clear. If you are stuffing it, I am sure there is a thread somewhere about that.

Depending on what you need it for....you can always buy Nutella (if it's available to you) and substitute it. Or you can tweak the recipe and do almond paste which seems to be more available.

Medaglia D'Oro is the brand that we sell. It's a great favorite for tiramisu. Having said that, I agree: get some good coffee, grind it before your trip and buy #1 filters and a filter basket. Problem solved.

Don't forget to let us know how it turned out!

Sinfully delicious , this is my favorite locally made product. Miles of Chocolate is concocted by my friend, Miles. It's a cross between a brownie and a truffle. It's indescribably delicious. And it's now in the Nieman Marcus catalogue! GO MILES!!! Edited to ask....How did I get into this thread???? Oops!

So Hardee's made TV news here. And the newspaper. So finally I understood what it is all about (I'm evidently a slow learner). Isn't there a saying along the lines of "Any press is better than no press at all"? Hardee's (a company that I've never even thought about in my life), is now front and center in the news. Brilliant .

Even the name is vaguely pornographic and off-putting. I'd be embarrassed to order it. A Monster THICKBURGER? Ewww.....

Wow.... And I was gonna just suggest sticking some sparklers in them.....

I won the Austin Spamarama in ... I think....1978 with my Spam Chaudfroid. Won a T shirt. Won a TV Christmas cooking contest with Poached Pears with Two Sauces. Got to demo it on TV...and won an apron and $50. Won a local gumbo contest two years in a row. $100 both times. You should talk to Claire 767: she was one of the 100 finalists in the Pillsbury Bakeoff THIS YEAR. She's won a bunch of contests....

Wow: this is a tough one. Christmas pudding is so traditional that I'd be disappointed and a little miffed if I were served one that didn't satisfy my expectations of the Dickensian factor. I suppose you could play around with the hard sauce presentation? Or add candied walnuts to the plate? Steam the the puddings in individual molds? Just don't mess with the recipe!!

I'm really enjoying this topic. I'd like to throw in a quick observation as well. I'm not a Southerner: actually, it doesn't matter where I'm from to make my point. I've raised two kids, both of whom watched me cook most nights while growing up. We had sit-down dinners most nights. They love my cooking. I guess they acquired a love of food through osmosis. So my daughter is in college, living in a tiny garage apartment. Last night she called ....four times..... while making chicken soup with matzoh balls for herself and her boyfriend, both of whom were feeling under the weather. She called to find out if she needed eggs for the matzoh balls, how much garlic she could put in the soup, how long it needed to cook, etc. Four phone calls. The point is, she remembers my soup and wants to replicate it. Now she knows how to make it. I anticipate lots of phone calls over the next 20 years! I really do think that there's more "passing down" of food traditions than we think out there. Thanks to cell phones......