Megan Blocker

That's what I'm getting! My mom is taking me to cooking school in Italy... ← Send details! ← Oh, you know I will! They're going to LOVE me with my digital camera over there...for the actual cooking school portion, I think we're going with Divina Cucina in Florence (I really want the experience of shopping at the urban marketplace and cooking with the wares). I'm very excited. I've never been to Italy, and I haven't been to Europe since the spring of 2000. We're not going till the fall of 2006 (schedules and weather preferences), but I will report back in full, I promise!

Stupid N-R train! Great photo of the Shack - what a nice night to be out and about!

Yeah, Daniel, I like it raw. I had steak tartare for lunch yesterday, and this was just a few steps beyond. I actually really like it anywhere from very rare to medium rare - but I was hungry tonight and just couldn't wait. The mash was delicious - lots of flavor. I'm really liking parsnips these days. Wendy, I can't take credit for the sesame seeds idea - I actually pinched it from a recipe I saw in Gourmet last year...but theirs didn't have the marscapone - the sesame and the cheese together are soooo good, though. The pear is just an excuse! Gorgeous frittatta - and oooozy cheese. And congrats to Mr. Foodie on his new job!

That's what I'm getting! My mom is taking me to cooking school in Italy...

Kris, I actually think that looks good...not photogenic, but, man, like something I would eat and enjoy.

So, do tell - when eating cake, does one use a spoon, one's fingers, or the dreaded fork? Actually (NERD ALERT!), I just finished a biography of Marie Antoinette, and she never said "Let them eat cake." It's an apocryphal saying, first attributed to two or three other, earlier aristocrats. Yup, yup. Anyhoo...

The pics aren't so good tonight...I inherited some lovely furniture (and cookware) over the weekend (my grandparents have sold their CT house), and I'm adjusting to the new photo-taking conditions. Additionally, I cooked dinner and ate it while listening to a friend relate the story of her very bad day. But, even though the photos are so-so, the food was great! I had a very rare (I like it barely dead) rib-eye steak with parsnip, leek and potato mash. I was feeling green-veggie deprived, so I also had a tomato, onion and cucumber salad. Dessert was a pear roasted with a bit of butter, cinnamon and sugar, topped with more cinnamon, sweetened mascarpone and sesame seeds.

Wowza - that is a crazy dish. Nice work, Klary!

I'm having a friend of mine over to give her a baking lesson. She's been tasked with making dessert for Thanksgiving, and would like to make something slightly non-traditional. She liked the idea of a pumpkin cheesecake, and I was wondering if anyone had any recipes they could recommend for one, or any other twist-on-an-old-favorite type recipe for her. I will also be teaching her to make a basic pate brisee, and probably an apple pie filling, since that's my personal favorite (and first pie I learned to make). It should be a fun day!

Can we just call it the "lady who's gained more than 10 pounds in the last year?" ...although, funnily enough, since slk's been gone I've lost three pounds. ← You're pining!!! Cheese, bread and chocolate. Yum. You could probably thrown an apple in for good measure, I guess.

Oh, how exciting! I can't wait to see the results of all your experiments...in the meantime, I have not yet worshipped at the altar of caffeine this morning, and your picture is making me drool. I'm off to grab something stimulating!

I thought the switching version that you describe was the American version...very confused, I am. ← Exactly! I use my knife with my left hand, and my fork with my right - therefore, no switching involved at all. Switching would mean I use one hand for both tasks, therefore requiring me to switch my fork from one hand to the other.

Good for the waistline; bad for fabrics?

Gourmet has a cute piece this month on the history of the fork, along with some nifty, National Geographic-esque shots of forks from 100 A.D. onwards. It has this to say on the history of American fork handling: Though I was born and raised here in the States, I have always handled my fork and knife in the European manner (cutting with my left hand and eating with my right) - I think because my grandmother grew up in the Bahamas, which were then a British colony. My mother learned the practice from her, and so on... How about you? Are you a switcher? A leftie? Rightie? Do share.

Daniel, that meal looks excellent! I also had pasta with clams last night, though it was linguine, and I definitely didn't cook it myself. That photo of the "bite" is awesome.

And just to bring up Ms. Dowd one more time...here's a link to Gawker, where folks have been invited to interpret some line in her article about "quid profiteroles." Hey, it mentions food. Click!

To pull this a bit further back on topic (though I really am enjoying the one-liners going back and forth!), let me make an observation/hopeful statement. I wonder if this issue might become less and less of one as the years pass, and young girls and boys grow up witnessing mothers and fathers who both work and cook. I would consider myself passionately feminist, by which I mean that I seek equality in all areas of life, in as many ways as possible, for both men and women. I was raised by a woman with similar sensibilities. Like me, she entered the workforce immediately after college, and, like me, she was an ambitious, single, working woman (although the single part really happened for her post-divorce). She was and is an excellent, enthusiastic cook. During the crazy years of the mid-80's and early 90's, we had a nanny* who cooked most of our weeknight meals, simply because my mother couldn't be home in time to do it (I had an 8 PM bedtime until I was thirteen, people.), though she often ate with us, or sat with us while we did. But on weekends and at holidays, I saw that my mother truly loved to cook and was truly good at it. Perhaps this is why the ideas of being an independent, successful woman and a great, happy cook have never been at odds for me, never subject to a feminist dilemma. I would hope that this will be the case more and more often, as more girls and boys are fortunate enough to be raised with the kind of balanced attitude I got from my mother in relation to work and home, and to cooking in particular. *The word really doesn't do Lori justice; she is still my mom's closest friend and essentially was a third parent to my brother and I. Lori also worked out of the home every day, as a pediatric nurse, but kept mostly part-time hours.

Union Square Cafe! Hearth has a fun bar area where you can see through the pass-through to the kitchen. Ouest is also a fun place to eat at the bar, though I prefer the other two restaurants over it in most cases.

Well, a man who pays for dinner automatically gets laid. I mean, that's his right. ← No, it's my right. I expect an expensive dinner *and* I expect to get laid. Otherwise he's history. ← ← So, two six packs of beer and large pepperoni isn't enough anymore? ← Probably depends on the lady...I know a few who would be quite taken by such a meal.

Well, a man who pays for dinner automatically gets laid. I mean, that's his right. ← No, it's my right. I expect an expensive dinner *and* I expect to get laid. Otherwise he's history. ←

Well, a man who pays for dinner automatically gets laid. I mean, that's his right.

Yeah, well I come from the latter camp. It's not that uncommon. ← As do I. And none of my friends expects it. But, we may be unusual - I certainly know of some women who do. Things like this make me glad I went to Bryn Mawr, where you always have to pay for your own meal. And glad I chose the friends I did.

It wouldn't just be hypocritical; it would be blindingly stupid. If you ever meet a woman who takes that position, you might want to address it with her. ← Sorrry, this may be too off topic, but Maureen Dowd just had a long column in NYT Magazine about this very question (at least as I interpretit). Apparently, youngish women in NYC not only permit men to pay for their meals, they EXPECT it. Oy, I have the vapors. The phrase "girl money" makes me gag. Read if you wish, free registration may be required. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine...inism.html?8dpc ← Not all of us! Generalizations drive me crazy. Of course, I am equal-opportunity. I expect members of both gender to pay for my meals. Yeah, it's a tough subject to bring up - people get awful touchy about it, no doubt. Why? Because they know they're being hypocritical and can't figure out what to say. Otherwise bright, reasonable, capable women (and men, for that matter) are brought to their knees over this issue. I think it comes down to what someone said above - you have to see those gestures as rising from respect for each other as human beings, not from some reservoir of feminine entitlement. I fall firmly in the camp of "it's really nice if a guy opens the door for me, lets me enter a room first, pays for dinner - but I don't expect it or count it against him if he doesn't." That said, I also fall firmly in the camp of "let me off the elevator or out of the subway before you get on, or I'm going to knock you one in the teeth." This applies to both men and women. I open doors for all people. Relative to the population of the U.S.? I think it's an incredibly small minority. Relative to the number of women fortunate enough to be over-educated, free of student loans, and surrounded by wealthy, single men? Maybe a slightly larger minority. This may all be too OT, though...

Stews, stews, stews! Boeuf bourgignon, and coq au vin come to mind, as does chicken with forty cloves of garlic...make those ahead of time, and just cook up some egg noodles or warm a loaf of bread, make a tossed salad, and you have dinner! The big plus is that they get so much better a day or two later.

Cheesesteak and...something?