Jaymes

Us, too. For years. Years and years. Decades actually. And that recipe also works for us. However, having lived in South Florida, we very much prefer the pie to be considerably more tart, which is how we remember it being served down on the Keys. So we increase the amount of lime juice. We do that by taste. Stand there tasting and adding and stirring and tasting and adding and stirring. Until it's perfect. Regarding the "setting up." Maybe I'm doing something wrong also but I don't think it's ever going to "set up" hard. It is a rather loose and creamy pie.

Well, like most potatoes (and other veggies, too, for that matter), how firm or soft they are is really a matter of personal preference, and how long you cook them. I definitely like for them to retain some texture in this particular salad. I do make another Sweet Potato Salad (recipe upthread) that basically has mashed sweet potatoes. I do like the texture of that other one to be lumpy, but nobody would confuse it for firm sweet potatoes.

Add roasted Poblanos and I'm in. Hadn't thought of that. But, of course, roasted poblanos are terrific in just about everything. I suspect that roasted poblano flavor would go great with the roasted sweet potatoes, black beans & corn. Good thinking, chica!

Already this summer, I've made what is probably my very favorite cold soup at least four times. I make up a big pitcher of it and leave it in the fridge to have just a cup or a bowl when I get a hunger craving. It's so much better for me than the sorts of fattening snacks I usually tend to have. Cantaloupe Gazpacho These are the ingredients. You might have to play around a bit to get the exact formula right for you. 1 ripe cantaloupe. Smell the blossom end at the market to be sure you've got a ripe, flavorful one fresh lime juice - for me, usually about the juice of one large, juicy lime cilantro, chopped, for the soup, and a little more for garnish Champagne vinegar, or sherry vinegar, or raspberry vinegar about a tsp of chipotle chiles - I buy a small can of chipotle, whirl it around in a blender, use about 1 tsp or so (be careful, because it's hot) and freeze the rest in a very small tupperware container You can add some fine-dice sweet (or purple) onion to the soup, or add it as a garnish salt and hot sauce (Cholula, Valentina, Tapatia, or one of Rancho Gordo's excellent hot sauces) to taste Cut the flesh of the peeled, seeded cantaloupe into fairly large dice - 1-2" squares - and place into blender or food processor. Or, you can use a hand-blender. But whichever you use, you want to leave it kind of chunky. Add everything else to taste Process until blended. Do not over-blend. Chill well. Serve with garnish: finely chopped red onion, cucumber, cilantro, extra hot sauce.

Made this yesterday, just for a few friends and myself - Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Black Beans and Corn: http://www.girlcooksworld.com/2012/09/sweet-potato-salad-with-black-beans-and-corn.html Was so good that I'm going to be taking it to the family July 4th gathering next week. Delicious, and beautiful. A real winner!

I did a really bad thing last week. I lied to someone who wanted to invite themselves to a meal we were having in a restaurant with friends. I made up some excuse to put them off - because they were a pain in the arse vegetarian. We have been out to restaurants with them before and they once demanded to see the kitchen to make sure their veggie fart burger wasn't cooked on the same grill as the meat ones. My other half and I were cringing with embarrassment. They have also had a strop to the server about menus not having enough vegetarian options. So when they found out we were having a meal with some other friends locally, they dropped big hints that they would like to join us, but I managed to supply enough excuses for them to get the hint that we didn't want them there. Guess I am off their Christmas Card list now. *snigger* So how obliging are the rest of you carnivores to your veggie friends? Frankly, this sounds like a problem of people feeling entitled to foist their beliefs on others/be pests, not something specific to vegetarians or vegans. Of the vegetarians and vegans I know, roughly the same percentage of them is as annoying about their food preferences as the rest of the people I know; I simply avoid dining with people who are irritating about food, whether they are vegetarian/vegan or not. . . . At restaurants they'll ask what sort of stock forms the base of a soup, perhaps, but they don't make a big production of it, just make their choices accordingly. I think you're right about this. I have friends acquaintances whose only goal in dining out, I think, is to prove their superior foodie knowledge to everyone within earshot. They ask unnecessary, pointed questions (and in a loud voice) of the waiter - such as "I was in England a few months back and I know that by law true Stilton can only be produced in Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire. Do you know the provenance of this Stilton cheese listed on your menu?" And boy you should have heard the lecture they recently gave the owner/chef/manager of a local Italian restaurant. He makes his own limoncello, and is very proud of it. So my experts in all-things-consumable gave him a huge lecture about how he shouldn't even think of making limoncello without the perfect lemons, from the "sunny coast of Amalfi." I was mortified. I hate going out to eat with them, and do just about anything to avoid it. Forgot to add... After these people asked the waiter where the Stilton came from, the waiter said, "Uh, I dunno. They get most of the food from Sysco."

One of my very favorite soup recipes is Belgian Beef, Beer & Onion Stew - Carbonnade a La Flamande. I particularly like Julia Child's recipe, but the soup is so good that it's hard to go wrong with anyone's. Some call for more onions than others and some call for different kinds of onions, but I've used almost every kind and in varied amounts depending upon how many onions I have and whether or not it's "clean out the veggie bin" time. Also, this stew does not have any potatoes or other vegetables that don't freeze well, so it's one of the recipes that I make up big vats of and then freeze in smaller portions. You can google Belgian Stew, or Cardonnade, or anything along those lines and get a myriad of recipes. Like I said, I love Julia Child's, but Craig Claiborne's in the original New York Times International Cookbook is also wonderful.

Yes, that's much more in line with what I'm seeking. Thanks! Having made a lot of corn soup in my life, I would still suggest that you simmer/steep those broken, de-kerneled cobs in that "1 quart of water" before you add it to the kernels and onions and finish the soup.

In sour cream for me. That would be my second choice if the first is not available. As far as I'm concerned, if it's marinated herring, no sour cream, there's nothing guilty about it. Only pleasure. But if it's swimming in sour cream, my personal favorite of course, and you sit there and eat the whole jar, that definitely counts.

Well, over in one of the other "grater/slicer/chopper" threads, I mentioned getting a Salad Shooter. I, too, seem suddenly to have found "old hands" attached to my otherwise still stunningly youthful (I'm sure, although the mirror doesn't bear that out) body. I haven't had occasion to fire up the SS yet, but really want to make some cucumber & onion salad, so will shortly. I'll report back.

After I do some version of pretty-much everything mentioned here depending upon mood and the amount of time/energy I have, especially "milking" the cob with the back of my chef's knife (which I never forget), I cut or break the cobs into thirds, and simmer them a bit in a covered saucepan, in either plain water, or chicken stock, or fat-free skimmed milk. Or, if I'm feeling decadent, whole milk or half-and-half or, sometimes, even cream. I think that simmering the broken cobs adds a lot of "fresh corn" flavor. Oh, and because I'm sorta Southern, always flame a bit of bourbon to pour over the finished dish. Just like my grandma did.

I did a really bad thing last week. I lied to someone who wanted to invite themselves to a meal we were having in a restaurant with friends. I made up some excuse to put them off - because they were a pain in the arse vegetarian. We have been out to restaurants with them before and they once demanded to see the kitchen to make sure their veggie fart burger wasn't cooked on the same grill as the meat ones. My other half and I were cringing with embarrassment. They have also had a strop to the server about menus not having enough vegetarian options. So when they found out we were having a meal with some other friends locally, they dropped big hints that they would like to join us, but I managed to supply enough excuses for them to get the hint that we didn't want them there. Guess I am off their Christmas Card list now. *snigger* So how obliging are the rest of you carnivores to your veggie friends? Frankly, this sounds like a problem of people feeling entitled to foist their beliefs on others/be pests, not something specific to vegetarians or vegans. Of the vegetarians and vegans I know, roughly the same percentage of them is as annoying about their food preferences as the rest of the people I know; I simply avoid dining with people who are irritating about food, whether they are vegetarian/vegan or not. . . . At restaurants they'll ask what sort of stock forms the base of a soup, perhaps, but they don't make a big production of it, just make their choices accordingly. I think you're right about this. I have friends acquaintances whose only goal in dining out, I think, is to prove their superior foodie knowledge to everyone within earshot. They ask unnecessary, pointed questions (and in a loud voice) of the waiter - such as "I was in England a few months back and I know that by law true Stilton can only be produced in Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire. Do you know the provenance of this Stilton cheese listed on your menu?" And boy you should have heard the lecture they recently gave the owner/chef/manager of a local Italian restaurant. He makes his own limoncello, and is very proud of it. So my experts in all-things-consumable gave him a huge lecture about how he shouldn't even think of making limoncello without the perfect lemons, from the "sunny coast of Amalfi." I was mortified. I hate going out to eat with them, and do just about anything to avoid it.

Yes. And sometimes without the spoon.

Very interesting. And he's not only African-American, he's gay and Jewish! Quite the minority. Thanks for linking -- interesting website. Wow. Wonderful writing. Terrific insight. So very far from the she's-just-a-sack-of-shit sort of "thoughtful" interpretation and commentary we've read here. And, reading that piece also put me in mind of the marvelous historic cookbooks of Carolyn Quick Tillery, which I recently recommended over in the "Regional Cookbooks" thread: http://www.amazon.com/Carolyn-Quick-Tillery/e/B001JS2JJM

And I believe that Paula Deen is getting this amount of attention, and being pilloried for something she said in private, because there was already a large number of superior people that dislike her, primarily for who and what she is (speaking of bigotry), standing around the bandwagon, bags packed, ready to hop on board, as soon as a valid reason appeared. The righteous indignation and "off with her head" outcry certainly exceeds the transgression. And I can't think of any other reason why.

Let me say this...And Im sure people will think Im acting like a moral snob but...Whatevs' ya know? I never use any racial slurs, I dont say gay slurs, and I most certainly never utter the R word either. I didnt when I was a kid, didnt when I was a teen, didnt as a young woman or as an adult. Someone once told me, "People either WANT to do things or they dont want to do them"! I say its the same with racism, bigotry, sexism, classism, homophobia or other forms of discrimination. You either do or ya dont... If you arent a racist those words simply do not enter your mind or vocabulary. Simple I, too, have never used racial or ethnic slurs, or told "gay" jokes, etc. I was raised in a family where that was not only unacceptable, it was unthinkable. My father was a B-17 pilot in WWII, with the 8th Air Force, the same unit as the Memphis Belle, flying missions over Nazi Germany. Many of those missions suffered losses up to 75%. My father, to this day, believes that the Tuskegee Airmen's fighter escorts are the only reason he survived. He is an honorary "Red Tail," and knew Benjamin O. Davis personally. My father simply would not tolerate the slightest hint of a derogatory or disrespectful remark about African Americans in our home, and I remember him often sitting in front of the television watching some sort of documentary about the treatment of Blacks in America with tears running down his cheeks. "Isn't that awful?" he'd say to me, "to be treated that way just because of the color of your skin? And after what they did for this country?" One of my earliest memories is of him ordering a dinner guest to leave our home because that guest had said the "N" word. This was when I was about eight years old, back in 1952, hardly a time of vast enlightenment sweeping across our country. In those days, because of my father's position as a senior military commander, my parents entertained a lot, and the standard procedure for dinner parties was to dress up my brother and sister and me in our fanciest outfits, and we would pass hors d'oeuvres to the crowd before being hustled off to bed while the grownups ate dinner. One of the guests used a racial slur in a story he was telling. My father said that that was not acceptable in our home, and asked the guest to refrain from using it again. Whereupon the guest just laughed and repeated it, thinking, I'm sure, that my father would back down, not wishing to create a scene at a formal dinner party. Instead, my father stood up and, steely-eyed, without saying another word, pointed to the door. But just because I, like you, have not personally committed this particular sin would not, in my view, justify me jumping on a bandwagon to vilify and crucify others that have. There is a very, very long list of assorted sins, crimes, transgressions, unkindnesses, wrongs, evils, missteps, foibles, faults and failings of varying degrees of severity. I am, like most of us, a flawed human being, so i have committed my share. But there are a great many sins on the list that I have not committed. I don't believe that, just because I have not committed those sins, it gives me license to behave however I want to those that have. In this case, because I personally have not used racial epithets and believe that to be unacceptable, I don't think that would justify me in treating Paula Deen as though she were some sort of Southern female reincarnation of Hitler, gassing uppity darkies down in the dungeon of her plantation. Rather than what she is - an insensitive ninny. Do I think there should be no repercussions? Of course not. I think a public and heartfelt mea culpa and some professional setbacks are about right. Your post seems to indicate that you believe that just because one has not personally committed this particular transgression, one is justified in whatever mean thing, nasty public name-calling, vilification, humiliation, or other punishment he/she cares to mete out to someone that has. Is that the standard you want to use? Really? And can others use that standard in their treatment of you as well? If I have not done some particular thing wrong and you have, does that fact alone give me the moral right to nail you to the wall? If so, well, in the immortal words of Soba: "...that's okay; it's not your fault if you think that." .

That would require some sort of thought and self-aware intent, it seems to me. I think it's more a matter of being clueless. Not that that's an excuse, because it pretty clearly isn't. But it's hard for me to ascribe any sort of intentional malice to her. I don't think she "fetishizes slavery and Jim Crow." I think she genuinely doesn't "get it." I don't believe she holds any sort of hatred or ill will in her heart toward African Americans, and her knowledge that that's how she feels inside makes this all the harder for her to understand. Yes, she's been insensitive and insulting, but I suspect she still doesn't really understand how hurtful her words and actions have been, and why people are saying she's a racist. Like I said. I honestly believe she's just clueless. With all due respect, saying she should be forgiven because she's from another time is a crutch. But that's okay; it's not your fault if you think that. Well, I'll assume you're using the collective "you" in this post, rather than speaking directly to me, since I most certainly have never said anything of the sort. Really? What do you call this? I'm with you on this one. And I've decided to immediately stop listening to rap music.I'm rethinking the Quentin Tarantino movies. Um, a smartass remark about rap music and Quentin Tarantino movies?

I must say I've never paid much attention to Paula Deen, but "not a bright person" is the strongest impression that this incident has left on me. If she says "Hollis Johnson is as black as that board," and Hollis Johnson comes walking out and he is "as black as that board," and she thinks she's just pointing out the obvious, which in truth she is of course, you could explain it to her ad infinitum and she still would not get the nuances that make saying so a very bad idea.

Sammy Davis Jr. used to tell a story about visiting the Soviet Union. He said that one thing they repeatedly said to him, while comparing the superiority of the Soviets to the US, went something like: "And see? Here you're treated just like everyone else. We have no racism or bigotry. Here we believe that everyone is equal...[pause]...except for those Laplanders."

This is, in my opinion, one of the very best threads eGullet has produced: Cold Summer Soups http://forums.egullet.org/topic/22754-cold-summer-soups-sweet-or-savory/ Here's a recipe I posted in it: Cold Cherry Soup 3 large, or 4 small cantaloupes 4 cups water 1 orange, cut into quarters 4 cloves 1 stick cinnamon 1/2 cup sugar 3-1/4 cups cherry pie filling, very cold 1 cup dry sherry 1 pt. whipping cream, whipped Half the cantaloupes. Scoop out the seeds and enough of the pulp to make a one-serving sized bowl. Set the pulp aside for another use. Slice a very small sliver from the bottom of the "bowl" just enough that it will sit upright. Be careful not to slice off too much, or the eater will poke a hole in the bottom as they eat, and that makes a mess. Wrap the cantaloupe bowls in foil or plastic wrap and chill until ready for use. Prepare the soup.... In a saucepan, bring the water, orange, cloves, cinnamon and sugar to a boil. Cook 5 minutes, then strain; cool in refrigerator for several hours. Before serving, add cherry pie filling, dry sherry and mix well. Carefully fold in whipped cream. Ladle into cantaloupe bowls and serve. Can garnish with one cherry, or mint leaves.

That would require some sort of thought and self-aware intent, it seems to me. I think it's more a matter of being clueless. Not that that's an excuse, because it pretty clearly isn't. But it's hard for me to ascribe any sort of intentional malice to her. I don't think she "fetishizes slavery and Jim Crow." I think she genuinely doesn't "get it." I don't believe she holds any sort of hatred or ill will in her heart toward African Americans, and her knowledge that that's how she feels inside makes this all the harder for her to understand. Yes, she's been insensitive and insulting, but I suspect she still doesn't really understand how hurtful her words and actions have been, and why people are saying she's a racist. Like I said. I honestly believe she's just clueless. With all due respect, saying she should be forgiven because she's from another time is a crutch. But that's okay; it's not your fault if you think that. Well, I'll assume you're using the collective "you" in this post, rather than speaking directly to me, since I most certainly have never said anything of the sort. Nor do I believe that. Thinking over what folks do, and why, and trying to come to some sort of thoughtful, and even compassionate, understanding, is hardly the same thing as saying that they should be completely and unconditionally forgiven, and not held to some sort of account. .

That would require some sort of thought and self-aware intent, it seems to me. I think it's more a matter of being clueless. Not that that's an excuse, because it pretty clearly isn't. But it's hard for me to ascribe any sort of intentional malice to her. I don't think she "fetishizes slavery and Jim Crow." I think she genuinely doesn't "get it." I don't believe she holds any sort of hatred or ill will in her heart toward African Americans, and her knowledge that that's how she feels inside makes this all the harder for her to understand. Yes, she's been insensitive and insulting, but I suspect she still doesn't really understand how hurtful her words and actions have been, and why people are saying she's a racist. Like I said. I honestly believe she's just clueless.

Many of the folks piling on with such thoughtful, impartial, considered analysis as, "she's a sack of shit," seem pretty happy they've got this opportunity to crucify her. This really gives them the moral high ground, doesn't it?

And vegetarians?

When we lived in Alaska, we went blueberry picking every summer. Around our necks, we wore transistor radios blaring music because we weren't the only Alaskan critters that love blueberries. Frequently we even saw little piles of still-steaming bear scat. We'd stuff our faces with the sweet blueberries, often eating more than we took home. Wild, just-picked Alaskan blueberries. Haven't had any that come even close since we left.