Jennifer Brizzi

I found a few things on amigofoods.com out of Miami: carne seca, manioc meal for farofa, malagueta peppers in a jar and Brazilian black beans. Now if it comes in in time, I'm good to go!

Thanks, that's very helpful, especially your list of what you use, like corned beef brisket--great idea! Two hundred bucks is a bit steep for farofa, though! Thanks much.

I'm making a mess of feijoada for a dinner party next week--a nearly lifelong ambition of mine--and I'd love to find an online source for carne seca, corned ribs, manioc meal, malageta peppers or sauce, etc. I live 100 miles north of New York City but a trip there is not feasible before the party. Any advice or help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

My favorite of the ones I have is Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz by Howard Mitcham. It's silly, irreverent, full of character and a real education in Louisiana seafood and jazz music. I just adore this book. My second favorite looks cheesey from the outside but is excellent: The New Cajun-Creole Cooking by Terry Thompson (now Terry Thompson -Anderson). Don't have any Prudhomme ones yet but will keep a lookout. Has anyone read Susan Spicer's Crescent City?

Steve, glad you enjoyed IACP and glad to hear you'll be joining. You will be a great addition to the ranks! I've been a member for about twelve years but this was only my second conference--it surpassed my expectations in many ways. Glad you got a lot out of it, and I really enjoyed your blogging talk on Judith's panel--funny and very informative. Re, the oysters, I agreed with what you said about the ones at the reception--blandish--and I had some charbroiled ones at Drago's that were bland, too (on the inside, anyway, away from the garlic, butter and cheese), and I've heard from some sources that the gulf oysters are watery and lackluster now, and from some that they are especially good. My last night in New Orleans I had a half-dozen at the French Market Cafe on Decatur that were exceptional, so I guess they vary. I did about four blog entries on various aspects of the conference, one while there (dinner for one at Cochon) and three since I got back--namedropping for food writers, post-Katrina for residents, and What I Ate.

I adore lamb and am forever bemoaning that it's not more popular, to drive up the demand and availability and the prices down. Fortunately my spouse is just as mad about it as I am or I'd have to order it every single time I go out to dinner. We eat so much lamb that a lamb-loathing friend used to stop by so often when we were having it she thought we ate it seven nights a week! I don't buy rib chops much as they are too expensive for me, as are whole legs usually. Most often I buy neck meat on the bone to make into Indian, Middle Eastern, Spanish or French stews, or I get round bone shoulder chops (which are usually pretty cheap and not hard to find where I live) to marinate in garlic, cumin, marjoram, mint, red wine and then grill. As I found out when I started this thread a couple years back, there are lots of other lamb lovers out there, so we just have to spread the word.

Yay is right about the goat!! I only have one local store that has it occasionally, frozen, but I'm a big fan. It's milder and leaner than lamb and way underrated in this country, except by some immigrants who know better. I usually just make it Jamaican curry style when I can find it, which is absolutely heavenly, but I'm looking for new ways to cook it. Maybe I need to start a new thread on goat!

I hope it's not against the rules to revive a two-year-old topic that I started. Please let me know if it is. I just wanted to share the latest scrumptious lamb dish I discovered. I researched and cooked some Welsh cawl, a divine lamb, leek, and root veg stew. I put the recipe on my blog here. The whole house smelled so good just when I was doing the simple first step, simmering the lamb shoulder in water and onion. I will just never stop loving this stuff--lamb--and discovering new (to me) ways of cooking it.

I'm loving this thread, as many, many of my many cookbooks look like the ones pictured. (Love that duct tape--will have to try it!) I love spattered, worn cookbooks, well-loved as the Velveteen rabbit, and my problem is that when I replace a worn-out cookbook, I can't bring myself to toss the old one. So I have two copies each of Craig Claiborne's New York Times Cookbook, Fannie Farmer (actually four if you count different year's editions), Moosewood and Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and Jessica Harris's Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa's Gifts to New World Cooking. The prize for homeliest, however, goes to my James Beard's American Cookery (LB 1972)--a delightfully opinionated, encyclopedic, divine classic. If you find any in good condition, buy two and send me one of them. My mother once cooked from it, until I stole it, and I don't cook from it much but use it for research constantly, so that it has lost is spine and threatens to dissolve any minute.

Here's where I get mine, worth every penny and every minute of waiting. Szechuan Peppercorns from Penzeys

I like it a lot. Plenty of short, pithy, really well-written pieces, great way to while away some time when procrastinating work!

Thank you, Shalmanese, for your sensible explanation of the no-cheese-with-seafood rule! I have long pondered the reason and could never find any satisfactory answer. My husband is second generation Italian and insists on the no-cheese thing when we have pasta with shrimp, squid, clams, octopus, or any kind of seafood, but he has never been able to tell me the reason behind the rule. Now it makes sense!--thanks Shalmanese, you've solved an old question for me.

Wow!! Thanks so much for the tips. Abra, I love your pigicide tales, highly entertaining, and they have thoroughly convinced me not to make the blood sausage this time, although I too am entirely nuts. I think I'll do bun bo hue or another Asian dish. I do have a bunch of bun bo hue recipes, plus the two y'all have so kindly given me. My husband says he remembers having soup with pig blood cubes when we were in Vietnam a few years ago, and he didn't like them that much, too livery, he said. I have absolutely no memory of that at all, so will have to make some. Thanks for all the helpful advice!

Thanks, Busboy, I did find a recipe for a simple dish from the Phillippines with pork meat and pork blood (Jeff Smith's Immigrant Ancestors), and I do have some venison on hand...And where is Paula Wolfert's civet recipe? I don't see it in my old Cooking of Southwest France.

I bought 10 ounces of frozen pork blood in my local Southeast Asian store today and the Thai proprietess asked me what I was going to do with it. I said maybe some kind of blood sausage/boudin and she suggested a Vietnamese dish called bun something, which sounds like it has noodles in it. Not surprisingly, none of my half dozen Vietnamese cookbooks have any pig blood recipes. I was so glad to find such an exotic product that I bought before I thought, and now I don't know what to do with it. Any recipes or ideas from anywhere in the world would be most welcome. Thanks!