kalypso

Interesting little link about what it would cost to make one simple change in a school lunch program

It's also one of the reasons I whole-heartedly support his efforts. The show is being discussed on various e-groups and some of them are nothing short of mean-spirited and grossly cynical. The lack of knowledge and understanding about Child Nutrition programs does surprise me, what did surprise me was the absolute arrogance, snobbiness and downright ignorance some people displayed. This has been one of the more thoughtful threads I've read on the topic. I've read a lot of comments over the last couple of weeks about how much money Jamie and Ryan Seacrest stand to make, that it's too commercial, it's all staged, and so forth. I don't really care if he makes money from the show, I don't care if it is commercial. The point for me is that it's raising awareness of what we're eating and what it's doing to our bodies. There's been a definite disconnect along the line in the last 30-35 years for the American consumer in understanding how food production from farm to table (to use a rather overworked phrase). As much as I actually like and admire Alice Waters and her efforts, Jamie is a better vehicle for pushing the change than she is. He lacks the elitist label she's acquired, plus his show is happening in an average, middle class city that almost everyone can relate to, not a wealth, very liberal, overly educated college town. People loved to bash Emeril Lagasse, but if nothing else he got people interested in different foods and into the kitchen to try cooking. Sometimes the hokey message (BAM, dressing up as a pea ) actually works. There was a tiny little blurb in our local paper yesterday about the show. When they went back to the elementary school recently most of the kids admitted that they didn't actually like Jamie's food, that they still perferred the processed food and fries. Participation dropped while the show was being filmed. The kids didn't like the food, so they quit buying lunch. Lower participation means lower reimbursement and less money coming into the school to cover costs. On the positive side, he did introduce the kids to many new foods and got them to try them. Probably not the success he was hoping for, but you gotta start somewhere.

David, the Free/Reduced Price lunch has always been available. In fact, one of the requirments of the program is that there can be no "overt identification" of any child receiving a Free or Reduced meal. It wasn't well advertised or well known that meal were subsidized back when you were in grade school. Also, I think there was a lot more sensitivity to being perceived as "poor" that doesn't exist much any more. This would have been in the pre-"Great Society" and public assistance days. I was in elementary school 40+ years ago too (yikes!); I rarely bought lunch in the cafeteria...mostly because the lunch ladies were a pretty scary bunch. I brought lunch most of the time as did most of my peers, classmates and friends. And, we all pretty much had the same thing, a sandwich, a little bag of chips, a piece of fruit and a sweet of some sort, anything from a cookie to a Twinkie (which no one considered "bad for you" back then.) There were a number of studies done in the late 80s to mid-90s comparing a Free/Reduced lunch to a home-packed lunch. What the studies showed was that home packed lunches were no more nutritious than those purchased at school; in many cases the school lunch contained less fat, sodium and sugar. Most home packed lunches were high in carbs and sguar (think Capri Sun and juice boxes) and light on the protein and fruit/veg. I think given the increase in nutrition awareness over the last 15 years and the continued deterioration of the school lunch programs this result has probably changed. There are also social factors to consider 1. Most mothers in the 50s and 60s stayed home and were not part of the work force. They had time in the morning to pack lunches 2. People did not routine eat out more meals than they ate at home, so there wasn't much of a tradition for eating in the cafeteria. 3. Time was not so much a factor. We were not over programmed as children, nor were out parents as harried, stressed, or overworked. i.e. time wasn't booked for 23 hours and 59 minutes a day 4. Lifestyles have changed dramatically in 50 years. 5. We exercised, outside even. Today, PE has been eliminated (along with HomeEc) in some schools and not all schools have playgrounds or are not safe enough for kids to play outside (think drive-by shootings, and child abduction) 6. Not all children live in functional families. Many children are living with parents who are unable to care from themselves let alone a child (or children). 7. Families with substance abuse, physcial or emotional abuse or violence are much more common 8. A lot of people don't know how to cook, or perceive it as time consuming and have trouble constructing menus 9. There has been very little nutrition education, our mothers knew more about it than many people do today. We all tend to have idylic memories of how school was in the 60s, it's quite different now. Back in 1982 when I took my first job in school food service as an Area Manager, the Director sent me out to one of the largest elementary schools to observe and learn how things worked. The school was located on the fringes of a somewhat lower income neighborhood and had a high enrollment of kids eligible for Free/Reduced Price meals. The Cafeteria supervisor related to me something that had happened to her the previous school year. Every Monday she noticed a child coming in for Breakfast. She didn't recognize him, but he always had a ticket for a Free breakfast. She did, however, recognize and know the kid that always seemed to be with the smaller child. Finally she collared the one she knew and asked him what was going on. He admitted that it was his little (4 y.o) brother. He brought him because they were hungry. Their mother had a substance abuse problem, was rarely home, and there usually wasn't much, if any, food in the house. As he told this supervisor "I brought him because I knew you'd feed him and not ask a lot of questions". He was right, that cafeteria supervisor continued to feed the little brother for the rest of the school year, and didn't tell a soul. Unfortunately, this story is all too common. Hunger exists in the United States and is very real. It afflicts a greater percentage of women and children, especially single mothers and children in single parent households, than it does men, or children in 2-parent families. And, trust me on this, there is nothing that will rip your heart out more than seeing hungry kids, or knowing that lunch on Friday will be the last meal they have until they show up for breakfast on Monday. That is one of the reasons I tend to get really rabid about this topic It is an abomination how we as Americans treat kids and what we've allowed what was once a really effective program to be gutted and co-opted by far too many special interests. Kids can't vote, ergo, they're invisible.

Thanks, it's actually worse than what I posted. That was the short, abridged version.

I've been following this thread for the last week or so, so let me delurk and put some context on the content you've been watching. I'll preface this by saying that in a past life in the past century I was the Director of Food Service for 3 K-12 school districts in the State of California and an Area Manager for fourth. I left that segment of the industry when it became abundantly clear to me that I, alone, could not make a difference. It did, however, give me an insight and perspective that most of America doesn't have So let me fill in some of the blanks. A bit of history first... The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) was established in 1947 as a result of the large number of men who had been ineligible for military service during WWII. Many were disqualified from service as the result of medical or health problems that occured during the Great Depression when food and good nutrition were a problem. For the first 20+ years of the program it was administrated by the Department of Defense. Richard Nixon folded NSLP into the existing Child Nutrition programs in the late 60s and moved administration of the program to the USDA. The original meal pattern established by the DoD was: 2 oz Meat/Meat Alternate 1 bread serving 3/8 Cup each of fruit and vegetable 8 fluid ounces of milk Pretty simple and straightforward. This remained unchanged for 50 years. It has changed in the last 10 years. Once the USDA assumed responsibility for NSLP the program began changing. It is no longer a program focused on feeding children as much as it is an agricultural support program designed to remove excess farm production from the markets and stablize farm prices (both small and large farms benefit from this). The excess farm goods are converted to USDA Commodities which are distributed to government supported feeding programs such as those in Child Nutrition and the military. I've read a lot of posts over the years where people speak dispargingly about USDA Commodities as being of poor quality and no use. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most USDA Commodities I received were usually decent to very good in quality. Additionally, they are a godsend for economic reasons. Depending upon what it is, a case of USDA Commodity product usually costs either $1 or $2 (I've been out of school lunch for 10+ years, it could be a little higher now). Do a quick comparison with what the same item costs through normal distribution. A case of commodity tater tots (most likely processed by McCain or Lamb-Weston)is $2. Last week I purchased a case of private lable (though processed by Lamb-Weston) tater barrels from Sysco San Diego that costs $23.25. No school district could afford to pay full price for those tater tots. A 40# case of hamburger meat is $2, the same case of meat through Sysco SD would be around $65-70. The USDA Commodity program provides decent quality products to programs that could not afford to exist without it. The observation that the agriculture lobbies in Washington D.C. are powerful is right on target. The dairy and beef are two of the largest and most powerful and both have had an impact on NSLP. The issue with dairy is in getting butterfat off the market, not milk. USDA butter was pretty decent, as were the blocks of cheddar and non-fat dried milk solids (which went into baked goods). Up until the late 80s schools were required to serve whole milk rather than low fat or fat free, it's that butter fact thing again. Most of us got around it by keeping 1 carton of whole milk on hand and serving low fat and fat free milk, including a fat free chocolate. However, there's a bigger issue. Receiving commodities goods in bulk was fine when schools had the space, staff and equipment to deal with them. The elementary school in Jamie's show had 5 employees and a full, very well equipped kitchen. I was absolutely floored Friday night at the size of the H.S. kitchen. No school in any school district in which I have worked even came close to that, in fact it's bigger than any of the college kitchens I've worked in or managed and it was bigger than the central kitchen I had in one district! Hang on to the thread about USDA Commodities, I'll get back to that in a minute, but first, let me get you all up to speed on the reality of school food service employment 1. Most school food service employees are union members receiving full benefits 2. Since full benefits are costly, districts have began reducing that cost by reducing assigned hours. If a person works less than 4 hours, the district doesn't have to pay benefits. As a result, many school food service programs now employee far more employees that work 2 - 3.75 hours a day than they do 6-8 hour employees. 3. We've managed to raise 3 generatiosn of Americans now who have virtually no, or poor, cooking skills (let alone knowing where they'r food comnes from). Those 2 - 3.75 hour employees fall into that category,so do many of the longer hour employees. In 4 school districts, and close to 800 employees, I had probably less than 5 who had had any actual culinary training, and probably less than 10 who had had previous food service experience. Nice ladies, but pretty unskilled labor. I did appreciate that Friday's episode made the point substantial and systemic retraining of the staff was needed...at a cost of $80,000. That a real, very real problem. 4. Even though most school food service employees make more than minimum wage, most of the women that worked in school kitchens in the 50s and 60s doing scratch cooking and baking did make minimum wage, most women today couldn't afford to do that. Additionally, school lunch staffing for much of the 60s and 70s were neighborhood moms who wanted to work while their kids were in school but still be home after school for their kids. That's not a model that works these days. So back to those commodities. With an unskilled pool of short hour employees and rising costs, it became impractical for many school districts to continue to receive and make adequate use of bulk USDA commodities. Enter the commodity processing program where commodities are diverted to processors and manufacturers and converted into more easily usable end products. Processors were required to provide the USDA with "price and yield" sheets showing how much of the meal pattern requirements each serving of the finished product would meet. At first the commodities came to the district and were then shipped to the manufacturer. Now, they are just diverted directly to the manufacturer and the schools only see the end products. This simplified alot of things, but the end result is what you are seeing on Jamie's show. What you don't know is just how manipulated that food really is. That chicken pattie sandwich and fries? The chicken pattie will provide the 2 oz of Meat/Meat Alternate. The breading on the chicken and the bun will provide the 2 bread servings required by the USDA for high school programs. Why 2 servings? Because the bread and bread products are highly fortified. Process the food to remove the nutrients then add them back by fortifying. Doesn't make sense, but that's why. Somewhere someone did a study that showed H.S. age kids were deficient in a range of nutrients that are normally found in bread and bread products so the USDA raised the requirement for NSLP and the manufacturers follwed suit. Add the fries and you've actually got a reimburseable meal. You see, there's also something called "offer vs. serve". You have to offer all 5 components, but as long as the students take at least 3, you can claim it as a reimbursable meal. Virtually all hot dogs and "cold cuts" are actually turkey based. Turkey corn dogs, turn ham, turkey bologna, an so forth. That pizza you see? made from commodity flour, tomato paste, cheese and, if it's got pepperoni or sausage, commodity pork. Case cost? mid $20 with commodities. Without commodities? mid $50s So let's take a look at that reimbursement. The reimbursement for a free lunch is (I think) about $2.17 and probably around a dollar +/- for the reduced price meal. On that, a school lunch program has to pay for all other food that isn't commodity, make payroll, pay for any equipment repairs and any other overhead (like custodial services) that the district cares to tact on (some States have now passed laws prohibiting school districts from charging their own food service programs overhead fees). There is one thing I can guarantee you every food service direction is hearing right now and that is "thou shalt not infringe on the general fund" because any bills the food service program can't cover have to be paid for by the district via the general fund. And if the general fund has to pay, that's less that can be spent in the classroom. NSLP is also one of the most over regulated programs on the face of the Earth. Families must apply each and every year for free or reduced status. Every October the food service department must verify that a certain number (usually around 3%) of the eligible families really are. That entails collecting and evaluating income data from the randomly selected families. It can run to several thousand families in big districts. God forbid someone who isn't eligible recieves a meal to which they aren't entitled. Then there is the whole bit about qualifying meals. Schools are required to offer enough food to cover all the students that eat on any given day. If there are 100 kids eating, you have to be able to prove you had enough food for 100 people in all components. Menu production worksheets are the bible as they are your record of what you made. They show how much you prepped, how much you served, if you had leftovers and what happened to those leftovers. Sounds great until you know you have to use the USDA yield book that shows what the yield is on any given product and how much it takes to make a minimum contribution to the meal plan. You realy do have to be a rocket scientist to figure these things out. In 14 years, I never did, luckily I had "people" that knew how to do them. But not to worry, the manufacturers have ridden to the rescue with CN labeling and the USDA accepts a CN label with virtually no questions asked. So yeah, I agree, Jamie's pasta dish had 7 vegetables in it. So what, those 7 vegetables didn't add up to 3/4 cup (1 H.S. veg serving, therefore, it won't qualify for reimbursement. It looked good and probably tasted even better. But even I, sitting at home in front of the TV could tell it was short a veg serving. These program ARE audited on a regular and on-going basis. If you fail any part of the audit, you have to submit and implement a corrective action plan. If Wall Street was subjected to the same oversight and scrutiny that this Child Nutrition program is, it wouldn't have melted down. I am 100% in Jamie's corner. The school lunch program is broken and it will take the critical mass of a lot of people saying this isn't right and demanding change. Nowhere in the Child Nutrition Act is there any requirement for nutritiona education. In my years as a Director I never saw, nor was I asked about nutrition education curriculum. It was, however, a topic of concern and discussion among my peers, we saw the need but no one listened. Today's parent can't shoulder this burden by themselves because most likely they didn't receive much in the way of nutrition education either. School meal programs are current up for reauthorization and are being actively discussed by Congress. If you're concerned, outraged or simply want to see change, write to your local representative and state senators. Demand systemic change in the way the program is administered and operated. Demand training, demand nutrition education, but let your elected officials know that how we're treating our youth of American with the existing program isn't acceptable to you. This post is way too long an dthere is way more that I can post. I'll leave it at this. Everyone have a great day and make your voice heard.

Not sure they're tlayudas, could have been blandas. Here's a couple of photos of tlayudas It was hard to tell from the video if there was something else in the corn when it was ground. It looked like old field corn to me. I do have the DK Oaxaca book but am too lazy to go get it at the moment.

Yum Yum. I just got back from a great lunch and your photo made my hungry all over again I think I'll make it again next week after Easter and serve it as a tostada.

Emily, it doesn't taste like stuffed cabbage. I think the chile and cilantro do a lot to prevent that. Dont' mince the onions and tomatoes and use a chile stronger than a jalapeño. I thought a 1/2 cup of packed cilantro would be way too much, but it wasn't. If you ready what DK said about the recipe, she encountered it as a topping for a tostada. After having made this a couple of times, I can kind of see it as that. I'm going to try it with totopos, or the thick, Mexican-style tosdada shells next time I make it.

I agree on the chile. Those over-hybridized bland, monster jalapeños just don't work. I switched that our for a largish serrano, unseeded. I also don't think the onions and tomato need to be minced. I think a regular dice is just fine. I also upped the quotient on the onions and tomato.

Bruce, this is so funny. Yesterday afternoon the though crossed my mind that I needed to check this forum this morning because you were going to post another meal. Turns out my intuition was right I made this again last night and we had the leftovers for dinner last night. This time I served it with some red new potatoes and roasted the cherry tomatoes that came in my CSA bag last week. Rancho Gordo made it last week and some beans to it. I've heard from people who have made this recipe with ground turkey and ground lamb in place of the ground beef and with Napa, savoy and red cabbage instead of the traditional green cabbage. The variations are all as good as the original.

I like tequila, it plays well with most fruit juices, especially tropical ones. Try a margarita with some coconut and up the lime a bit; a delicious take on the pina colada. Guava is another great match for tequila. A couple of tequila based drinks I haven't seen mentioned yet - though they are similar to, or variations of, previous posts - are the Chico and the Oaxaca Old Fashioned. Sauver magazine ran the Chico in their Texas issue last year. CHICO 2 oz Tequila (silver) 2 oz Blackberry liqueur 1 oz simple syrup 1/2 oz lemon juice Club soda to finish Served over ice during the summer, it is refreshing Oaxaca Old Fashioned 1 1/2 oz Reposada 1/2 oz Mezcal (Del Maguey or Los Danzantes) 1 teaspoon agave nectar Dash of bitters - preferably Bitterman's Xocolatl Mole bitters (which also goes pretty well in a standard Manhattan) Shake together, serve up or on the rocks (rocks is my preference for this drink) Switch out the vodka in a Bloody Mary for tequila and the drink becomes a Bloody Maria. (Use Snap-e-Tom in place of Bloody Mary mix if desired) Tequila is also a pretty easy spirit to infuse. Think a little out of the box, though. Wipe off 6-10 whole, unstemmed, chile de arbols and add them to a new bottle of tequila. Let sit for at least 3 days but not more than 5 in the preverbial cool, dark place. Strain out the chiles and use tequila as you normally would. It'll have a nice kick to it without being over powering. Leaving the chiles in longer than about 5 days results in a firey tequila but some bitter overtones. I make my 90 year old mother a margarita every Saturday...and sometimes on Sunday as well I've been doing this almost weekly for the last 2 or 3 years pretty regularly, which means I've been going through a lot of tequila. My mom loves my maggies and still has a pretty acute sense of taste, but her decernment for good tequila isn't very keen and these cocktails were costing me a lot of $$$ to keep tequila in the house. I'd heard about a tequila that supposedly tasted like it's upmarket cousins, but was very inexpensive. Figuring I had nothing to loose I gave it a go. I have to say, I was more than pleasantly surprised. For (basically) cheap tequila it made a fine margarita. Lunazul comes in both blanco and reposado and costs $17.99. It's not always that easy to find, but BevMo here on the West Coast always seems to have it. For everyday drinks and consumption it's a pretty decent and affordable alternative.

I don't have a photo to post, but I wanted to report that I made Carne de Res con Col from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cusinines of Mexico (pg. 292) and it was surprisingly good. Who knew a pound of ground beef and half the head of a small cabbage could be so crazy good. It's easy enough to do after work during the week. Yum yum.

Shel, I cook for my mother who was a pretty good cook in her day. I don't know that technique and basic skills are a primary focus. This is a generate that learned and knew how to cook. They probably need just a brushing up on their skills rather than in-dept training. Here are some of the things I've learned from my very active and very lucid 90 year old mother 1) If they're going to cook, it needs to be quick and easy, with a few key ingredients 2) You can make a lot of things in a 9" omelet pan other than eggs. There can be lifing difficulties in handling big and/or heavy pans 3) Don't overwhelm with big portions, 4) Don't dumb down the recipes and don't be afraid to use bold seasonings. My mother eats chile and mole and doesn't bat an eyelash. 5) NO al dente vegetables and maybe no salads depending upon the digestive system 6) Play to their favorite foods. Conversely, if your audience went through the Great Depression there may be aversions to some foods; it was canned pink salmon in my mother's case. 7) Stress the importance of adequate fluid intake My mother eats well and enjoys her meals, and most of her friends - who are all between 83 to 95 do too. They eat regular foods, very few special diets, they just eat less of it. They're also usually on the look out for cheap eats. It's a frugal generation to the core. Sometimes how good it tastes isn't as important as how economical it is. Good luck with your classes, I'm sure they'll be great

Maciza is pork from the shoulder. It's closest realtive here in the States is what is labeled pork cushion meat. Pork roast also works for recipes calling for maciza. I'ts not ham as it is not cured, though pork cushion meat does come from the anterior of the picnic shoulder, around the joint. It may also include parts of the what we call pork butt, which oddly enough, is not the butt, but also the shoulder. Maciza is pork white meat, very lean, shreds easily and makes great pulled pork sandwiches. It's an extremely versatile cut as it can be made into just about anything from the pozole your workers were eating, to guisados (stews), carnitas, milanesas (cutlets). In Mexico you can specify "puro maciza" when ordering things like tacos, carnitas, etc. What you get is pure pork, no fat, not skin, no other bits and pieces.

Cafe Chloe is, indeed, a gem in SD. A late summer breakfast at one of the sidewalk tables is a delightful way to start the day. So relaxing and so good.

All the publicity - and there was more than just the Throwdown with Bobby Flay - has not been a good thing for Mama Testa's. They've had a hard time keeping up with the business and I think the quality of both their food and serivce has suffered...and not in a good way. I keep thinking all the hype will die down but then FTV reruns of the Throwdown, or a piece appears in print (this month's WestWays magazine is a good example) and the place gets over run with customers again. I'm very happy that Cesar has had such good luck, it has been less lucky for their long and loyal customers.

Okay, I'm guessing I'm probably older than most of the people that have responded on this thread but I am a native Californian and a native San Diegan, the latter of which makes me a rarity in my age group. I grew up in SoCal, lived for 15 years in LA and 10 years in the Bay Area before moving back to SD. And while I would never, ever claim my perspective of what denotes California Cuisine is the right one or the only one, it is based on (OMG) 50+ years of eating up and down the state. Did California Pizza Kitchen really begin in CA? Yes, see previous reply Does a lot of CA produce get shipped out? Yes. CA feeds the nation, and the world, with it's produce. And since you're moving to OC, I have very distinct memories of driving from SD to visit relatives in the LA area, or going to Disneyland, and driving through mile after mile after mile of orange groves. They are, of course, long gone, uprooted and destroyed for urban development. You can, however, still go out to Riverside county and find groves of oranges and other citrus. San Diego has been and still is the leading producer of avocados in the US. For me, California cuisine is based on fresh produce and lots of it. Fresh lettuce and cabbages of diverse variety, asparagus, artichokes, asian vegetables, onions, tomoatoes, white corn, garlic, citrus, avocadoes, apricots, peaches, almonds...in other words, things that grow well in a moderate climate with rainfall that varies from less than 10" to over 40". Then there is the seafood...rock lobsters, spotted rock shrimp, luscious Dungeness crab, sand dabs, local halibut and rock fish. During the mid-20th century, San Diego had one of the largest tuna fleets in the world; Starkist and Chicken-of-the-Sea both had major processing plants here. Growing up one thing I always considered quite normal was the diversity of fresh produce even during winter months. It wasn't until I got older and started traveling and meeting people not from CA did I realize that there are many parts of the US where the produce selection during the winter is pretty limited. We always had fresh produce. Canned veggies were not standard fare in our house because we could always get something fresh. With the incredible variety of fresh ingredients the cooking style evolved into one highlighting the ingredient rather than the method of cooking. And the style was light, foregoing heavy sauces and rigid (read traditional)combinations. Not only was the cooking style unique, so was the dining. CA cuisine flourished in spaces that were light, bright, airy, full of foilage, flowers and casual. It was promoted as "haute cuisine" but served in an environment that was decidedly not fine dining. CA cuisine isn't strictly about the food, you have to include the setting and the ambiance. Service was important, but the goal was to marry the fresh CA ingredients and cooking styles with the casual, laid back lifestyle to create a fine dining experience that didn't feel (or look) like traditional, white tablecloth, fine dining. Before Wolfgang Puck there was Michael McCarthy and his ode to California cuisine, Michaels in Santa Monica. It was the destination for CA cuisine and epitomized the clean flavors, and casual, seemingly effortless dining. Read about him here at this link As Heidi noted Sunset magazine did a huge amount to promote and define CA cuisine by introducing us to the thrill of the grill - we grill everything. We don't Bar-B-Que, we grill. Bok Choy on the barbi? Why not - as well as the cuisines of the of the immigrant populations. Not only did Sunset make ethnic foods approachable, they provided some cultural context, helped us find unfamiliar ingredients and then provided no-fail recipes that used those hard-to-find ingredients all the while introducing us to new flavor profiles that would find their way into everyday, mainstream dishes. Sunset also helped us define the environment by showing us how to create casual outside living spaces. If you can get your hands on really old issues of Sunset you will be able to trace the evolution of California style - not just cuisine - through the 20th century. If you look at immigration patterns it's pretty easy to see the influence in specific areas. During the first half of the 20th century ethnic food in SoCal was defined by it's hispanic (mostly Mexican) population, as well as a small but mighty Japanese enclave in LA. After Saigon fell in the 70s there was a huge influx into the Garden Grove area giving rise to Little Saigon and the development of a whole range of Asian dining opportunities. The Vietnamese were followed by the Cambodians and Lao into the greater LA area. Another migration into SoCal that shouldn't be ignored as it provided some of the basis for the development of CA cuisine, is the fact that after WWII huge numbers of men from Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas were discharged from the military and chose to stay in CA (mostly SD, OC and Long Beach) and not go back home. They retained their midwest values and tastes but they also began experimenting with the new foods they found in CA. While they didn't stray too far from their meat and potatoes midwest roots, they were laying the foundation for the transition that was to come in the 70s. In NorCal you're more apt to see the influence of the Chinese who immigrated to build railroads and work gold mines, as well as the influences of the strong Italian community that settled in the Bay Area. In the 40s it took my parents 2 days to drive from San Diego to San Francisco on perilous 2-lane highways. Today I can hop on a plane and be in SF in less than 2 hours. In CA never underestimate the power of transportation. It's more than our famous car culture. It's propelled the state's economy to one of the largest in the world and it's encouraged and allowed the comingling of ingredients, cooking styles/methods and cultural diversity by providing easy access to all parts of the state. For me, CA cuisine is what I grew up eating - an amalgamation of fresh ingredients, influenced by assorted ethnic traditions, simply prepared and served in a well appointed but casual environment.

I have to agree with Honkman about Hash House. Too much food and not all that great. And I'll heartily second the rec for Terra and PappaLecco. Next door to Terra is Aladdin's that is really pretty good, tho' probably not very authentic. I wouldn't necessarily rush right out to go there, but it's reasonable and the food pretty good. Next door to Bite is Mama Testa's, which is nothing but tacos and the best salsa bar in SD. The owner beat Bobby Flay on a fish taco Throwdown recently and they've been mobbed as a result. I think the big crowds have affected the quality, but still their tacos are good. Cafe on Park (near the intersection of University Ave & Park Blvd) is a better choice for breakfast in Hillcrest. Portions are still too large, but not as large as Hash House and the quality if better. New on the outskirts of Hillcrest is Pizza Bruno Napoletano on Park Blvd. about a half block south of El Cajon Blvd. Arrividerci in HIllcrest is well liked by a lot of people. Picasso does Spanish tapas (Bite is better) and runs some pretty decent happy hour specials Over on Washington St., are El Cuervo (go for the carnitas), Olivettos, The Red Door. There are probably more restaurants per square foot in Hillcrest than anywhere else in SD, maybe even more than are in the Gaslamp. You should be able to find to find something in your price range to suit your tastes just be walking around. Hillcrest is a little strung out geographically, but the main street is walkable. Parking is generally difficult and parking expensive.

Then Emerald is your best bet

San Diego isn't exactly a Dim Sum city. Emeraldis one of the best. Pearl Chinese Restaurant in Rancho Bernardo gets a lot of thumbs up for it's Dim Sum. China Max does Dim Sum that gets generally good reviews. Most Asian restaurants are located on Convoy St. in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of town. You could do a lot worse than to just drive down it and pick something that looks good to you. one of the best Chinese places in town is Ba Ren It's a little bit west of Convoy and off the beaten path, but worth seeking out. Come to San Diego for the beer - great craft brewing scene - , come to San Diego for the 30th St. dining corridor in North Park, come to San Diego for the uni or the carne asada burritos, but coming to San Diego for Dim Sum might not be the wisest choice

Very easy. If I was stranded on an island, the one cookbook I would want would be Diana Kennedy's The Art of Mexican Cooking

We did a major house remodel this year. It required us to pack up most of the rooms so that the contractor could do the work. I had quite a cookbook collection. As I packed up my all my books, I went through each one to determine if I wanted to keep it or not. The only cookbooks that were safe was my extensive collection of Mexican cookbooks (in English & Spanish). I donated well over 100 cookbooks to the Goodwill, along with probably another 100 books in assorted genres. The criteria I used to determine if I would keep a cookbook were simple 1. Was I currently using the cookbook to cook from 2. Did the recipes in the cookbooks reflect what I was eating, wanted to eat, or my style of cooking 3. Was the cookbook a specialty cookbook with useful information (I kept most of the pastry books) 4. Did the cookbook have sentimental value to me (i.e received as a gift, autographed, etc) 5. Could I find the same information/recipes on-line It's been 6-months now since I went through and slashed my cookbook collection at least in half. My collection is now 70% Mexican cookbooks (of all kinds)with the remainder filling in the gaps for general cooking, baking, and a few other specialty needs. I haven't needed or missed any of the books that went to the Goodwill. I had a lot of books I hadn't used, or even looked at in years. Going through them and getting rid of the deadwood was a great exercise and actually freed me up to use the remaining books more frequently because it was easier to see what I actually had

I think the La Torta in La Mesa is still open. The salsa bar at Mama Testa's rocks. They make their salsas daily and from scratch. The Escalera is my favorite; it would have been the bright, orangish looking, smooth salsa. The bistec tacos are how tacos are served in Mexico. They aren't, however, the best thing Mama Testa does. The Mojados de Carne are one of the best things on the menu and are very good. Your brother chose well. Some of the other things on the menu that are outstanding are the - Empapados (hard shell mashed potatoe tacos, the Asi Yasado (grilled chicken tacos), Tacos de Cochinita Pibil and the tacos with chorizo. Both the pibil and the chorizo are made in house and are not commercially purchased items. There are also some interesting vegetarian options using rajas and nopales. Cesar Gonzalez the owner of MT beat Bobby Flay on Throwdown earlier this year with fish tacos. I'm not a fan of fish tacos in general, but I do know people who like the fish tacos at MT really well.

Klary, I think your Mole Poblano looked terrific in the photos upthread. The frying and seiving does make all the difference doesn't it. As to meats other than chicken, turkey and pork would both be fairly traditional in Mexico. Rabbit would be nice. When I have prepared sauce, I usually either sautee off the meat and then finish it in the mole, or poach the meat ahead of time and use the poaching liquid to reconstitute mole paste. In either case, I finish cooking the meat in the mole.

Ah, Consuelos :-) I grew up eating there and that was the freebie app instead of chips and salsa. I'll confess to making those at home as well. It's really not a quesadilla so much as it was a really, really good cheese crisp. Since this is the Mexican board, I will mention that the vast majority of quesadillas in Mexico are made with masa not flour tortillas. They are filled raw with just about anything and everything, and then griddled, sauteed or deep fried. Utterly delicious